Two COVID-19 patients are considered severe and admitted in Intensive Care.

Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services, Dr James Fong in a statement said Fiji recorded an additional 6 cases last night plus another 23 cases this morning.

All are linked to existing clusters.

All of these cases are stable and are either in isolation facilities or home isolation.

The new cases are linked to the following communities and clusters:

●      Narere – 2
●      Waila – 3
●      Nawaka (Nadi)  – 9
●      Navy cluster – 15

Dr Fong also confirmed that a mistake was made over the total count.

“One case was found to have been tested and entered twice, as the individual provided different names while being swabbed on two occasions: as a result the individual was entered first as case 309 and then a second time as case 346.

After correcting this error, by removing the duplicate, we have recorded 429 cases in Fiji since March of last year and 359 during the current outbreak.

“There have been 3 recoveries, which means there are now  258 active cases.”

“All cases are stable and 2 are considered to be severe.”

The Ministry have also received genomic sequencing results from the reference lab in Melbourne for positive samples during this outbreak.

“The most recent case sample in this batch of results is case 158 (an Extra Supermarket worker).”

The results show that, based on the samples that have been sequenced,  B.1.617.2, the variant of concern that was first identified in India, is the only variant circulating in the community.
 
“Subsequent positive case samples have been sent to Melbourne for genomic sequencing and we are awaiting results.”
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