As of August 15, the mandates ended for the seven-day isolation period and masks in health settings, with the Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall saying wastewater testing showed little trace of the virus.

Dr Verrall acknowledged many would still feel vulnerable.

“So it is on all of us to think well if we’re visiting an aged residential care home for example, that we do follow the recommended procedures there.

“Te Whatu Ora will continue to encourage people to wear masks when they go to hospital — they won’t be mandated.”

Covid cases accounted for just over 2 percent of hospital admissions, Dr Verrall said.

Last step on wind down
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ Morning Report this was the last step in winding down covid-19 restrictions.

“We waited until after the winter peak period. The health system overall, while it’s been under pressure and it’s still under pressure, had a much better winter this winter than last winter.”

He said it was on the advice of the director-general of health and there was never a perfect time to make changes to health settings.

General Practice New Zealand chair Dr Bryan Betty said practices like mask wearing and self-isolation should be encouraged for all viruses, not just Covid.

He told Morning Report people needed to continue with the lessons that were learnt from covid but which were applicable to all viruses that were spread from person-to-person such as influenza and RSV.

“Voluntarily staying at home if you do have a flu or a cold so you don’t spread it, and I think masking in public areas of health facilities voluntarily is something we should still keep in play.”

Health providers should consider ensuring masks were worn in places where sick people gathered such as hospitals or GPs’ waiting areas, Dr Betty said.

Vaccination still important
Vaccination would still play an important part in reducing infection and re-infection, he said.

“We do that every year for influenza, we are potentially going forward going to be recommending that for covid, especially for vulnerable populations.”

Employers should be considering how to support workers so they do not come into work sick, he said.

Employers should give people with colds, the flu or Covid the opportunity to work from home if they can to avoid spreading the illness around the workplace, he said.

University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker also urged people to stay home when they were sick with covid-19, even though all of the health restrictions had been lifted.

Professor Baker told Morning Report that covid had transitioned from a pandemic threat to an endemic infectious disease.

“Unfortunately that means it’s there the whole time, it is still in New Zealand among the infectious diseases, the leading cause of death and hospitalisation and we know that those infections and reinfections are going to add to that burden of long covid.”

Still vital to isolate
People must remember that it was still vital to isolate when they were sick and not go to work or school or socialise which spread the virus, he said.

People should also continue to wear masks in medical facilities and in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, he said.

New Zealand had come through its fourth wave of infection for the Omicron variant, he said.

“We are going to see new subvariants or lineage of the virus arrive, they will be better at escaping from our immunity, our immunity will wane of course unless you get boosted.”

The government needed to look at how to reinforce those behaviours that prevented covid from spreading now that the mandates had been removed, he said.

“I mean this could be running media campaigns or developing codes of practice say with employers, Business New Zealand, I mean this is a chance for them really to show leadership about how they’re going to support the workforce in New Zealand, self-isolating when they are sick.”

Hospitilisations and mortality rates showed that covid-19 continued to have an impact and watching those rates would indicate whether the mandates had been removed too early, he said.

Integrated approach needed
New Zealand needed to develop a coherent, integrated approach to dealing with all respiratory infections which were the infectious diseases that had the biggest impact, he said.

“They have a big drain on our health resources and so we do need to look at better surveillance for these infections that will tell us what’s happening and also really it’s just having a culture of limiting transmission of these infections.”

That meant staying home when sick and using masks in indoor environments with poor ventilation, he said.

Auckland Council disability strategic advisory group chair Dr Huhana Hickey said getting rid of masks at health care centres was extremely dangerous for immunocompromised people.

“The problem for immune-compromised people is we’re frequent flyers, but we’re being asked to go into a situation that puts us all at risk of not just dealing with what’s making us sick but risking getting covid, which could kill us.”

Hickey said scrapping the seven-day compulsory isolation period could result in more workers returning while still infectious, which she believed would mean immunocompromised people were likely to stay home.

“If they cannot stay home and employers require them to work, they’re going to spread covid as well, so that means I don’t go to restaurants now because I don’t know if the waiter’s sick, I don’t know if the chef’s sick.”

Minimal impact of numbers
University of Auckland mathematics professor and covid-19 modeller Michael Plank expected the lack of mask and isolation requirements to have a minimal impact on case numbers.

He said the main drivers of infection were people who were asymptomatic cases or had not tested yet.

“I’m not sure than an isolation mandate is going to have a particularly large effect on infection rates in the long term.

“If we look at other countries that removed isolation mandates, like Australia, there’s really no evidence of a surge in numbers.”

Restaurant owners embraced the government’s decision.

The Restaurant Association surveyed more than 200 of its members, and 84 percent said they supported the idea.

But many planned to introduce their own requirements, chief executive Marisa Bidois said.

“Thirty nine percent of the respondents said they intended to mandate a five day isolation period for their employees,” she said.

“So that’s something they’re going to implement themselves as an internal policy.”

Many hospitality workers would also be expected to test themselves proactively.

“We also had 42 percent of respondents planning to require employees with any symptoms to undergo testing before returning to work.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

An influenza B outbreak has occurred at shelters housing residents who were hardest hit by Typhoon Mawar.

It has been three weeks since typhoon Mawar wreaked havoc on Guam leaving hundreds displaced.

Melissa Savares, mayor of Dededo, one of the worst hit areas, said some people were being kept apart from others.

“There have been confirmation that there are some individuals in the shelter that have influenza B, and they’ve actually been segregated or isolated,” she said.

“Now, there’s no isolation rooms in the facility, but they’ve actually been isolated from the general crowd, meaning, they’ve been moved into like a side area of the gymnasium, where they’re not in immediate congregation, their beds, their pots, are not right up into a congregated space.”

The Guam Daily Post reports that the Office of the Governor will step in and help relocate some residents at the shelters.

700 people in shelters
It said a child was hospitalised on Tuesday following an influenza B outbreak at the Red Cross shelter at the Guam Pak Warehouse in Tamuning.

More than 700 people reside in these two shelters, one of which Savares said did not provide proper ventilation.

“In the one shelter that is in the warehouse, ventilation is very poor, in that area. However, the other one that’s in the gymnasium, there is ventilation,” she added.

Last week, Savares said she felt the recovery had been “very slow” two weeks after Typhoon Mawar made landfall in the territory.

She said for her village in the north of Guam, only about half of the community had water and electricity.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The New Zealand government has announced a Royal Commission into its covid-19 response.

The Commission will be chaired by Australia-based epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, former Cabinet minister Hekia Parata, and former Treasury Secretary John Whitehead.

It will start considering evidence from February 1 next year, concluding in mid-2024.

The Royal Commission will look into the overall covid-19 response, including the economic response, and find what could be learned from it.

Some things — like particular decisions taken by the Reserve Bank’s independent monetary policy committee, and the specific epidemiology of the virus and its variants — will be excluded.

Announcing the moves, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a Royal Commission was the highest form of public inquiry in New Zealand and was the right thing to do given covid-19 was the most significant threat to New Zealanders’ health and the economy since the Second World War.

“It had been over 100 years since we experienced a pandemic of this scale, so it’s critical we compile what worked and what we can learn from it should it ever happen again,” she said.

Fewer cases, deaths
“New Zealand experienced fewer cases, hospitalisations and deaths than nearly any other country in the first two years of the pandemic but there has undoubtedly been a huge impact on New Zealanders both here and abroad.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Respiratory Virus Hospitalisations in Counties-Manukau, as reported by Stuff

The chart above splits the patients in Middlemore Hospital into the different categories of Severe Acute Respiratory Illness. The vast majority are what in the past we have called ‘common colds’. There is no indication that any of these ‘colds’ are due to human coronaviruses other than the Covid-Omicron. Indeed, as well as ridding us of Covid-Delta and its ancestor variants of the original SARS-Cov2 virus, Covid-Omicron may well have sealed the fate of the human coronaviruses which previously caused about 15% of all ‘colds’.

We do not know what percentage of covid hospitalisations end up becoming deaths. (My guess is that about half of covid deaths occurred in people’s homes, including age-care facilities.)

It is likely that the deaths associated with the 93% of SARI hospitalisations which were not covid are a relatively low number compared to covid deaths, mainly because a large proportion of these other cases will be children. But it is appropriate to remind ourselves that, in normal times, about ten percent of all winter deaths are attributable to ‘common colds’, and that this figure will be higher this year, maybe 20% of all winter deaths.

Recent Changes to the Reporting of Covid19 Deaths

The recent changes have been very confusing to media trying to report these. But I will summarise the three main measures, using data from Tuesday 26 July until today.

• Deaths of people who became Covid19 cases within 28 days of their death: 154
• Deaths of people for whom Covid19 was the principal cause: 90
• Deaths of where Covid19 was the principal or a contributory cause: 130

The last of these has become the favoured measure of the Ministry of Health. It is important to note, however, that because of times required to verify that Covid was the underlying or a contributory cause of death, this last favoured measure is not as up-to-date as the first (previously favoured) measure.

To impute weekly deaths (and allowing for lower weekend reporting) we should scale-up these four-day totals by 50%: giving 231, 135, and 195.

Then, to convert them into weekly deaths per million in the population, we must divide by five. That gives, for each measure:

• 46 per million
• 27 per million
• 39 per million

These last three numbers should be seen in the context of this Worldometer screenshot (22 July 2022) which showed New Zealand last week as the country with the world’s highest Covid19 death rate.

Based on the above calculation, New Zealand’s current comparable rate of Covid19 mortality is 46 per million (up from the 34 per million shown in the screenshot). And even if we use the much more conservative measure above (27 per million), that’s still the same as the number given for Malta, and well above the high numbers for Taiwan and Australia.

And we know that significant numbers of people are also dying from the other SARI viruses. SARI deaths would appear to be being substantially downplayed by the Ministry of Health.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

A covid-19 modeller says hundreds more people could die in Aotearoa New Zealand’s first wave of the omicron outbreak.

Health officials reported today that 11 more people with covid-19 had died in New Zealand, with 12,882 new community cases reported and 861 people in hospital with the coronavirus — including 21 in ICU or HDU.

The total death toll stands at 269, with the current average of 12 deaths a day of people with covid-19.

Professor Michael Plank from the University of Canterbury and Covid-19 Modelling Aotearoa expected this death rate to continue for a few more weeks, and ultimately between 300 and 500 people to die by the end of the first omicron wave.

“Because although it looks like cases have peaked, deaths [lag behind],” Professor Plank said.

The death total was at about the lower to middle end of projections from earlier this year — which picked between 400 and 1200 deaths, he said.

A reason for New Zealand’s low death rate high booster uptake among older people and young people comprising a large amount of those infected.

New covid-19 variants
But Professor Plank said there still could be new covid-19 variants or second waves which could affect the numbers.

If the virus took hold in communities with low booster rates, for example Māori, or high risk populations such as those in aged care facilities, that could cause the rate to increase again, he said.

Overall, there have been fewer deaths than usual in New Zealand since the pandemic started because lockdowns basically eliminated influenza.

But with borders opening soon bringing in travellers with infectious diseases, and winter coming, there are still difficult times to come.

University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said it was likely to be a bad influenza season, and it was crucial people get the flu jab.

Big picture — NZ has done well
Professor Baker said it was prudent that older people and those in poor health thought about cutting back on socialising for a few weeks while the omicron outbreak ran its course.

While nationwide case numbers appeared to have peaked, many in the community were infected with the virus, he said.

But the big picture was that New Zealand’s covid-19 response had been effective, with the death toll among the lowest in the world, Baker said.

There were five times the number of deaths in Australia and Singapore, which also implemented strong measures to combat the spread of the virus.

Baker said the death toll was 20 times higher in Hong Kong, Denmark and Canada and 50 times higher in the UK.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Indonesia’s popular tourism islands of Bali opened for tourism last week, while Thailand announced that from November 1 vaccinated travellers from 19 countries will be allowed to visit the kingdom including its tourism island of Phuket.

Both those countries’ tourism industry, which is a major revenue earner, has been devastated by more than 18 months of inactivity that have impacted on the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people.

India and Vietnam also announced plans to open the country to vaccinated foreign tourists in November, and Australia will be opening its borders for foreign travel from mid-November for the first time since March 2020.

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region — except for China — are now beginning to grapple with balancing the damage to their economies from covid-19 pandemic by beginning to treat the virus as another flu.

The media may have to play a less adversarial role if this gamble is going to succeed.

October 11 was “Freedom Day” for Australia’s most populous city Sydney when it came out of almost four months of a tough lockdown.

Ironically this is happening while the daily covid-19 infection rates are higher than the figure that triggered the lockdowns in June.

‘It’s not going away’
Yet, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet told Sky News on October 11: “we’ve got to live alongside the virus, it’s not going away, the best thing that we can do is protect our people (by better health services)”.

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, addressing the nation on October 9, said: “Singapore cannot stay locked down and closed off indefinitely. It would not work, and it would be very costly”.

He added, “each time we tighten up, businesses are further disrupted, workers lose jobs, children are deprived of a proper childhood and school life”.

Singapore is coming out of lockdown when it is facing the highest rates of daily infections since the covid-19 outbreak.

Both Singapore and Australia adopted a “zero-covid” policy when the first wave of the pandemic hit, quickly closing the borders, and going into lockdown.

Both were exceptionally successful in controlling the virus and lifting the lockdowns late last year with almost zero covid-19 cases. But, when the more contagious delta virus hit both countries, fear came back forcing them back into lockdowns.

However, PM Lee told Singaporeans that lockdowns had “caused psychological and emotional strain, and mental fatigue for Singaporeans and for everyone else. Therefore, we concluded a few months ago that a “Zero covid” strategy was no longer feasible”.

‘Living with covid-19’
Thus, Singapore has changed its policy to “Living with covid-19”.

In a Facebook posting on October 10, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said: “The phenomenal response from Australians to go and get vaccinated as we’ve seen those vaccination rates rise right across the country, means it’s now time that Australians are able to reclaim their lives. We’re beating covid, and we’re taking our lives back.”

On October 8, Australia’s Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said that though infection rates might still be a bit high, yet less than 1 percent of those infected were in intensive care units (ICUs).

Why didn’t political leaders take this attitude right from the beginning and continue with it? After all the fatality rate of covid-19 has not been that much higher than the seasonal flu in most countries.

True, it was perhaps more contagious according to medical opinion, but fatality rates were not that large in percentage figures.

According to the Worldometer of health statistics, there have been 237.5 million covid-19 infections up to October this year and 214.6 million have recovered fully (90.4 percent) while 4.8 million have died (just over 2 percent).

According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates, there have been between 39-56 million flu cases, about 700,000 flu hospitalisations recorded in the US during the 2019-2020 flu season up to April 2020.

They also estimate between 24,000 to 62,000 flu deaths during the season. But did the media give these figures on a daily or even a weekly basis?

New global influenza strategy
In March 2019, WHO launched a new global influenza strategy pointing out that each year there is an estimated 1 billion flu cases of which 3-5 million are severe cases, resulting in 290,000 to 650,000 influenza-related respiratory deaths.

This has been happening for many years, but, yet the global media did not create the panic scenario that accompanied covid-19.

Unfortunately, the media’s adversarial reporting culture has helped to create a fear psychosis from the very beginning of the outbreak in early 2020, which may have contributed to millions of deaths by creating anxiety among those diagnosed with covid-19.

During the peak of the delta pandemic in India, many patients died from heart attacks triggered by anxiety. Would they have died if covid-19 were treated as another flu?

In the US out of the 44 million infected with covid-19 only 1.6 percent died. In Brazil from 21.5 million infected, 2.8 percent of them died, while in India out of 34 million infected only 1.3 percent died.

But what did we see in media reports? Piles of dead bodies being burnt in India, from Brazil bodies buried in mass graves by health workers wrapped in safety gear and in the US, people being rushed into ICUs.

They are just a small fraction of those infected.

Bleak picture of sensationalism
I was the co-editor of a book just released by a British publisher that looked at how the media across the world reported the covid-19 outbreak during 2020. It paints a bleak picture of sensationalism and adversarial reporting blended with racism and politicisation.

It all started with the outbreak in Wuhan in January 2020 when the global media transmitted unverified video clips of people dropping dead in the streets and dead bodies lying in pavements. Along with the focus on “unhygienic” wet markets in China this helped to project an image of China as a threat to the world.

It contributed to the fear psychosis that was built up by the media tinged with racism and politicisation.

If we are to live with covid and other flu viruses, greater investments need to be made in public health.

In Australia, health experts are talking about boosting hospital bed and ICU capacities to deal with the new policy of living with covid, and they have also warned of a shortage of health professionals, especially to staff ICUs.

What about if the media focus on these as national security priorities? Rather than giving daily death rates and sensational stories of people dying from covid — do we give daily death rates from heart attacks or suicide?

We should start discussing more about how to create sustainable safe communities as we recover from the pandemic, and that includes better investments in public health.

We need a journalism culture that is less adversarial and more tuned into promoting cooperation and community harmony.

Kalinga Seneviratne is co-editor of COVID-19, Racism and Politicization: Media in the Midst of a Pandemic published in August 2021 by Cambridge Scholars Publishers. IDN is the flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate. This article is republished in partnership with IDN.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Auckland’s move to alert level 3 has also triggered speculation about whether the national covid-19 elimination strategy has failed or is even being abandoned. While the New Zealand government denies it, others clearly believe it is at least a possibility.

The uncertainty is troubling. If elimination fails or is abandoned, it would suggest we have not learnt the lessons of history, particularly when it comes to our more vulnerable populations.

In 1918, the mortality rate among Māori from the influenza pandemic was eight times that of Europeans. The avoidable introduction of influenza to Samoa from Aotearoa resulted in the deaths of about 22 percent of the population.

Similar observations were seen in subsequent influenza outbreaks in Aotearoa in 1957 and 2009 for both Māori and Pasifika people. These trends are well known and documented.

And yet, despite concerns we could see the same thing happen again, there have been repeated claims that an elimination strategy cannot succeed. Some business owners, politicians and media commentators have called for a change in approach that would see Aotearoa “learn to live with the virus”.

This is premature and likely to expose vulnerable members of our communities to the disease. Abandoning the elimination strategy while vaccine coverage rates remain low among the most vulnerable people would be reckless and irresponsible.

In short, more Māori and Pasifika people would die.

Far better will be to stick to the original plan that has served the country well, lift vaccination coverage rates with more urgency, and revise the strategy when vaccination rates among Māori and Pasifika people are as high as possible — no less than 90 percent.

Least worst options
After 18 months of dealing with the pandemic, it’s important to remember that Aotearoa’s response has been based on sound science and strong political leadership. The elimination strategy has proved effective at home and been admired internationally.

Of course, it has come with a price. In particular, the restrictions have had a major impact on small businesses and personal incomes, student life and learning, and well-being in general.

Many families have needed additional food parcels and social support, and there are reports of an increasing incidence of family harm.

The latest delta outbreak has also seen the longest level 4 lockdown in Auckland, with at least two further weeks at level 3, and there is no doubt many people are struggling to cope with the restrictions. The “long tail” of infections will test everyone further.

There is no easy way to protect the most vulnerable people from the life-threatening risk of covid-19, and the likely impact on the public health system if it were to get out of control. The alternative, however, is worse.

We know Māori and Pasifika people are most at risk of infection from covid-19, of being hospitalised and of dying from the disease.

Various studies have confirmed this, but we also must acknowledge why — entrenched socioeconomic disadvantage, overcrowded housing and higher prevalence of underlying health conditions.

More than 50 percent of all new cases in the current outbreak are among Pasifika people and the number of new cases among Māori is increasing. If and when the pandemic is over, the implications of these socioeconomic factors must be part of any review of the pandemic strategy.

Lowest vaccination rates, highest risk
Furthermore, the national vaccination rollout has again shown up the chronic entrenched inequities in the health system. While the rollout is finally gaining momentum, with more and better options offered by and for Māori and Pasifika people, their comparative vaccination rates have lagged significantly.

Community leaders and health professionals have long called for Māori and Pasifika vaccination to be prioritised. But the official rhetoric has not been matched by the reality, as evidenced by our most at-risk communities still having the lowest vaccination coverage rates in the country.

Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā (the National Māori Pandemic Group) and the Pasifika Medical Association have repeatedly called for their communities to be empowered and resourced to own, lead and deliver vaccination rollouts in ways that work for their communities.

Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā have also said Auckland should have remained at level 4, with the border extended to include the areas of concern in the Waikato.

As has been pointed out by those closest to those communities, however, their advice has consistently not been heeded. The resulting delays only risk increasing the need for the kinds of lockdowns and restrictions everyone must endure until vaccination rates are higher.

There is a reason we do not hear many voices in Māori and Pasifika communities asking for an end to elimination. Left unchecked, covid-19 disproportionately affects minority communities and the most vulnerable.

“Living with the virus” effectively means some people dying with it. We know who many of them would be.

Dr Collin Tukuitonga is associate dean Pacific and associate professor of public health, University of Auckland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Fiji could face around 600 covid-19 deaths within about eight weeks, and 50,000 active cases, unless decisive government-led action is taken quickly on controlling the epidemic.

Diplomatic sources have told Pacific Newsroom that increasing alarm in Australia and New Zealand has prompted their Suva diplomats to urge Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama to institute a month-long hard lockdown across Fiji.

He and his associate, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, are refusing, claiming it will inflict severe economic damage.

But that may be happening anyway and international aid bodies are quietly preparing for food shipments into Fiji, akin to cyclone relief.

The looming covid disaster could be the largest public health crisis since the New Zealand ship Talune introduced H1N1 influenza into Suva in 1918, resulting in around 9000 deaths in a month or six percent of the population.

Global models
Since April 10, when covid Delta arrived in Fiji from India, via Singapore, its growth track has followed the global models.

Government leaders knew what was coming, as Fiji’s Medical Services’ Head of Health Protection, Dr Aalisha Sahukhan, spelt out on June 23: “Today we have reported a record number of cases, and this has been happening regularly over the last week.

“And the daily case numbers will only increase. What we warned would happen when this outbreak started around two months ago is happening.”

The comment plainly implies that the mathematical warnings were not listened to.

She was speaking as they reported 279 new cases of covid, taking the number of active cases to 2479.

Active cases are, data shows, doubling every seven to eight days.

The existing numbers, combined with the global experience, point to Fiji in early August having had 600 deaths and over 50,000 active cases.

When speaking on Wednesday, Sahukhan said there had been 13 deaths due to covid-19 in Fiji, with 11 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April.

Infection rate
She noted that the daily test positivity rate in Fiji had reached 4.9 percent. This rate measures the number of positive covid results for every 100 tests.

It shows how well a country is testing and, taken with the number of confirmed cases, aids in understanding community spread.

“We are just 0.1 percent below the 5 percent [World Health Organisation] threshold that indicates widespread community transmission,” she said.

Dr Sahukhan said Fiji authorities were working on mathematical modelling to project how big the epidemic would be.

“India at the peak of the outbreak that happened in May went to 280 cases per million population per day, the United Kingdom at the peak of their outbreak was at over 800 per million population per day,” she said.

“Right now we are at 187 cases per million population per day, which is 166 cases per day.

“If our daily cases rise to a peak similar to the UK, we should expect approximately 700 cases per day at a 7-day average.”

She said they had to worry about the severe cases that required hospitalisation and deaths.

“As the cases have risen, it has largely overwhelmed our contact tracing capacity in the Lami-Suva-Nausori zone.

“This has happened in every other country that has faced this number of cases relative to their population.”

Next wave
What comes next, the next wave, was most concerning.

“The wave of people with severe illness requiring hospitalisation and the deaths that will come with it,” she said.

“We have just started to see the beginning of that wave now.”

The wave would crash on to medical facilities.

“Our hospitals are not overwhelmed.”

But as they fill with covid patients, other sick people would not get care.

“We have seen this happen in other countries.”

Behind the scenes Fiji’s problem is being made worse by the appalling rates in frontline workers.

Nearly half of the Navy now has covid, for example. Large clusters are occurring among police stations and units.

Many frontline workers are known to be wearing their protective gear wrongly, and many believe their first dose of vaccine is offering protection from covid when it is not.

Fiji data follows others
Statistical data seen by government officials and Pacific Newsroom are showing that Fiji’s covid growth is accurately following pathways set by other countries. For local Fiji reasons — from villages spread on Viti Levu to island scattering — the situation may be worse.

These factors, Fiji officials are being told, is also why covid will not achieve vaccine inspired herd immunity in Fiji.

Population density could leave Fiji with chronic covid for years to come.

Making matters worse is the way covid has forced the closure of facilities at various times.

These include the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH), the Queen Elizabeth Barracks (which was providing frontline troops), naval vessels and the Ministry of Health Incident Management Team and warehouse.

Other hospitals and health centres hit include those at Valelevu, Raiwaqa, Makoi, Kamikamica and Nadi.

Republished from The Pacific Newsroom with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz