Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services Dr James Fong says they plan to remove the three-day hotel stay for fully vaccinated travel­lers from partner countries soon.

Dr Fong said since the opening of inter­national travel to travel partner countries, travellers coming in had to undergo an in-country test in Fiji on day two of their stay.

He said to support this requirement, a three-day hotel stay was mandated to mini­mise the risk of non-compliance to testing and to ensure all positive tests were appro­priately responded to while the traveller was locatable.

“To be clear, this three-day stay in a Care Fiji Commitment (CFC) hotel was never a quarantine. The hotel stay is in place to fa­cilitate the testing requirement on day two of arrival,” he said.

“We have noted that while many countries have removed all forms of traveller seques­tration, the in-country testing conditions continue.

“As such we are supporting current efforts to have more testing sites throughout Fiji to which travellers can book for testing, without requiring a hotel stay, as part of prior approval to come into Fiji.”

He said they were working together with the Ministry of Trade and Tourism and the Ministry of Economy in the final phase of approving this in-country testing for inter­national arrivals by private entities.

“These private entities will ensure that the test is available and the results will be reported back to Ministry of Health offi­cials.

“They will also be mandated to report any international traveller who defaults from the mandatory testing.

Any traveller defaulting a test will be sub­ject to legal punitive measures.”

Fiji’s travel partners as of March 2, 2022 were:

American Samoa, Australia, Austria, Bah­rain, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Republic of China, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Feder­ated States of Micronesia, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong SAR, India, Ireland, Israel, Ita­ly, Japan, Kiribati, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Macao SAR, Malaysia, Malta, Marshall Is­lands, Mauritius, Mongolia, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norfolk Islands, Northern Mariana Is­lands, Norway, Oman, Palau, Panama, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tonga, Turkey, Tuvalu, United Arab Emir­ates, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of Ameri­ca, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna.

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