BY JARED KOLI
PRIME Minister Manasseh Sogavare says the Government will consider ways to provide support to students in Fiji while continually assessing the COVID-19 situation there.
“The Oversight Committee is discussing the Fiji situation today [yesterday] and will advise me and the cabinet on the situation,” Sogavare said in his COVID-19 nation-wide address yesterday.
“My government will consider ways to provide support to graduating and continuing students in Fiji while continually assessing the situation,” he added.
He said the situation in Fiji is extremely worrying for students, parents, and the government.
“We are currently having approximately 800 students both government and privately sponsored students remaining in training institutions in Fiji.
“A total of 22 of our students and dependents have been infected by the virus, 13 have now declared inactive by the Fiji Ministry of Health and nine remain active,” said Sogavare.
Sogavare said all 22 cases are asymptomatic, meaning they are showing no signs of symptoms of the virus.
“Our High Commission in Suva, the Education Attaché and other Solomon Islanders living in Suva have been supporting our students that were in isolation that were infected,” the Prime Minister said.
He said timing for repatriation flight for graduating students will be determined by our health team and it will occur when it is safe for our country to repatriate the graduating students.
“Given the highly transmissible nature of the COVID-19 Delta variant which is in Fiji, it is not a good time to undertake any repatriation flight from Fiji to Solomon Islands right now because if we import Delta variant into the country, it can spread very quickly and have a devastating effect on our population,” Pm Sogavare said.
He appeals for citizens to remember Solomon Islands nationals in Fiji in their prayers.
A student leader who is in close contact with the COVID-19 positive student has told Island Sun that currently only the Solomon Islands Students Association (SISA) office reached out to assist the Covid-19 positive cases.
The student leader who spoke on condition of anonymity said if the positive cases keep increasing for Solomon Islands students, and if no help render from the authorities’ SISA savings will not be able to provide assistance to the students.
The source adds that house mates of those that contracted the virus have been swabbed and wait for their results.
Cases of Coronavirus surge daily in Fiji.
It has recorded 1,043 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday.
According to Fiji Ministry of Health, Fiji also has 13 new COVID-19 deaths to report for the period of 14th July to 17th July.
There have now been 98 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, with 96 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April this year.
“We also have recorded 41 COVID-19 positive patients who died from the serious medical conditions that they had before they contracted COVID-19; these are not classified as COVID-19 deaths.
“There have been 388 new recoveries reported since the last update, which means that there are now 13,610 active cases.
“There have been 17,444 cases during the outbreak that started in April 2021. We have recorded a total of 17,514 cases in Fiji since the first case was reported in March 2020, with 3,765 recoveries,” cited the Fiji Ministry of Health website.
