Fiji has announced the island country will enter a 56-hour lockdown as it rushes to trace contacts of a garment factory worker diagnosed with COVID-19, The case is the nation’s first case detected in in 2021.
While the capital, Suva was put into lockdown last week for 14 days after a handful of cases spread in the community after emerging from a quarantine hotel, officials have announced a curfew over the weekend, with none of the 100,000 residents allowed to leave their homes.
The are currently 49 people in the nation with the virus, 28 of those locally transmitted, according to Fiji Times.
One of the new cases is a woman who worked in a garment factory, with her positive COVID detection sparking the crack-down.
Authorities say she worked with almost 900 people. In a statement, officials say they have only managed to test 300 people, and need to find hundreds more.
“We cannot waste another minute locating the rest of them,”
Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services, Dr James Fong said.
We have 56 hours to break as many chains of COVID transmission as possible. My teams — alongside the members of our disciplined forces — will be taking full advantage of this opportunity to get ahead of the spread of this virus. pic.twitter.com/x8pmRccWcG
— Fijian Government (@FijianGovt) April 30, 2021
