We are still fine. The “war front” in our neighborhood is still somewhat quiet, aside from loud explosions near and far. Gaza is a ghost town. It’s the Hiroshima of the 21st century.

My daughter called me last night. She was crying in panic. She said Gaza is burning all around her.Pillars of smoke and massive fires are ignited everywhere as a result of the Israeli missiles. I asked her to calm down. But how could she?

Three wars have passed, this is by far the worst. I remember going to the hospital to work on foot back in 2014. Then, they did not target pedestrians.

But now, everything that moves is a target. Homes, civilian structures, and all else are targets.

We can’t leave our home. We can’t even be present in the backyard. The door is locked. We are all waiting. We are running out of food but we are still alive. Anything can be rebuilt, except for human life.

My son shocked us yesterday, when he decided to go to Shifa hospital to donate blood. I begged him not to leave the house.

I barricaded the door, I called on everyone to help so that he may stay home. But he didn’t listen. He turned his cell phone off and went running in the street.

Luckily, he couldn’t find a single car operating between Khan Younes and Gaza City. He waited for hours and eventually came back, angry and defeated.

Thank God he came back. If he did go, he might not be alive anymore, as areas adjacent to Shifa hospital were also bombed.

I want this war to end with our heads held high and our giant resistance triumphant. I can’t bear the thought of all of this going to waste.

Oh Allah, give us victory, give us freedom.

• At least 217 Palestinians, including 63 children, have been killed in Gaza since the attacks began. About 1,500 Palestinians have been wounded. Twelve people in Israel have died, including two children, while at least 300 have been wounded.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fijians have been advised to remain calm as “ample notice” will be given should a situation in Fiji warrant a total lockdown of Viti Levu, reports The Fiji Times.

Health Secretary Dr James Fong issued this assurance last night as he announced 12 new covid-19 cases.

RNZ News reports that all 12 cases were from two households.

RNZ’s correspondent in Suva, Lice Movono, said: “That tells us that people are still moving in and out of each other’s homes, people are not maintaining any sort of bubble.”

Movements of the 12 cases in the past few days included trips to supermarkets in Suva’s central city more than 30 minutes drive away from their suburb.

Fiji now has 48 active cases, 35 of them locally transmitted, and seven in border quarantine, while the source of six cases is under investigation.

“Remain calm” said the banner headline in The Fiji Times today.

Struggling families
In an editorial titled “Reflections”, the newspaper said:

Let’s reflect on some things we probably take for granted.

Not too many people realise the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on Fijians until they see things for themselves.

It’s difficult to appreciate this when you are far removed from the hardship thousands of Fijians are forced to live with.

Now take for instance the fact that there are no jobs for carrier drivers in Nadi Town. It’s probably not going to ruffle feathers so to speak, unless you are one of those directly or indirectly impacted.

The assistant secretary of the carrier stand in Nadi, Mohammed Naseeb said the situation “is really bad”.

To drive his point through, he points out there are 167 carrier drivers who operate out of the base.

There are now only 20 to 30 drivers turning up every day, scratching around for jobs. It’s a nightmare!

Mr Naseeb returned to the base after three weeks.

Now consider the fact a lot of these drivers took out loans to buy their vehicles.

Now slap in the fact there is no business, and they are left with a massive burden on their shoulders.

Now throw in the need for them to put food on their table, mouths to feed, rent or mortgage to pay, and medical expenses to meet, and you are left with an unpleasant scenario.

The Mulomulo, Nadi man said most of their customers were farmers coming from the interiors such as Nanoko, Natawa, Nagado, however, those farmers were no longer selling their produce at the market. Now consider that segment of impacted people!

A little over 21km away, in Lautoka, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) Grog Masters distributed grocery packs to at least 200 families in Lautoka during the lockdown phase.

Its president, Amol Kumar said it was important to fight this battle together and struggling families should not be abandoned at this time.

Now, by this morning, [the Fiji] government had paid out $4.3 million through the $90 assistance programme to more than 48,000 households.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ News

New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield today confirmed the Health Ministry is “actively looking” at the rules around people visiting dying family members in the Ciovid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Bloomfield confirmed this in a Q+A session on Facebook this afternoon to talk about masks, bubbles, testing and clusters.

Earlier this afternoon, Dr Bloomfield had announced 19 new cases of Covid-19 including 15 confirmed cases and four probable.

READ MORE: Al Jazeera coronavirus live updates – France’s death toll nears 14,400

A fifth person has died of the coronavirus, a man in his 80s, who was connected to the Rosewood rest home in Christchurch.

During the Q+A, Dr Bloomfield said the Ministry of Health was looking at the rules around people visiting dying family members, especially during a step down to level 3.

“I want to say we are very aware of this, we are actively looking at it.”

Dr Bloomfield started the Q+A by addressing the ongoing debate around the use of cloth masks, and said “the jury is out”.

Masks need changing
“In general, if people want to wear a mask … there’s no specific harm in doing so if you are using it appropriately,” he said.

But he added they had to be changed and cleaned before re-use.

Asked about a new cluster in Auckland, Dr Bloomfield said the cluster had occurred at a private event and there was no further risk of spread to the wider public. He said the Ministry of Health was balancing privacy in deciding to not further identify the cluster.

On testing, Dr Bloomfield said the Health Ministry was not currently planning on doing randomised testing.

“Our positivity rate is still only between 1 and 2 percent.”

He said random testing would require a very large scale to identify even one or two cases. Instead, targeted testing would be conducted.

“Generally speaking for most people, two swabs are taken. Through the mouth … (and) taken through the nose – that’s a very important swab to take.”

Swabs taking cells
The swabs aim to take cells from the back of the throat or nose because that was where the virus was replicating and they needed to be tested.

Sometimes a swab may not get enough cells to properly test for the virus.

On today’s results, he said they tried to turn around tests within 24 hours.

“It gives us a pretty good idea of what’s happened in the past 24 or 48 hours.”

Answering a question on what constituted a probable case, Dr Bloomfield said they were cases where someone who health officials felt had symptoms consistent with Covid-19, had a link to a confirmed case or cluster, or whom had a negative test, or whom had recovered but still had symptoms and the connection.

Dr Bloomfield was also asked what happened to somebody’s “bubble” if they went to a hospital, and he said they could have a high level of confidence that they would not be exposed to the virus due to the stringent measures put in place by DHBs.

“Hospitals will have worked out how to keep people safe who are coming for investigations or appointments.”

Deferred surgery catch-up
He said the Health Ministry was working with DHBs for plans about how to provide as much care as possible and how to catch up on deferred outpatient and elective surgery – plus other – procedures.

However, “some may not happen as they might have in traditional circumstances”, and more consultations could be done remotely, for example.

“They will be changing the way these appointments will happen.”

Earlier, Dr Bloomfield said 546 people have recovered, up 75 on yesterday and there was now 1349 cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand.

Fifteen people are in hospital, with four in ICU. One is in a critical condition in Dunedin.

There were 1660 tests carried out yesterday, with the Health Ministry expecting to see a drop off in testing over Easter. There have now been 62,827 tests carried out in total.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

• If you have symptoms of the coronavirus, call the NZ Covid-19 Healthline on 0800 358 5453 (+64 9 358 5453 for international SIMs) or call your GP – don’t show up at a medical centre.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz