The 30 action this is the moment to also trade on fighting everyone we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on the ground 0. And for the ok in watching this story now in for the past few months the stream is taking a look around the world looking at the Global Pandemic and the impact its having on very citizens around the world today we stop at the pacific nations and ask if their isolation is actually helping them tackle covered 19 and what issues and challenges they may well have if you are new we would love to hear from you jump into the chat and he can be part of the conversation im going to start the conversation introducing the guests and theyre going to say hello to you so ambassador it is wonderful to have you here on this train tell everybody. I am. I am a member present i did not allow an ambassador to the United Nations based out of new york. Good to have use a pia oakum to the string tell everybody hume you are. The morning good evening or an answer there marilyn are a part of the some of the very best and only daily news. So great to have you and dr lee show welcome to the stream nice to see you tell everybody who you are. A doctor an Infectious Disease if you do all the just and i have the Health Protection Division Within the ministry of health and medical services in fiji. We have represented it in our conversation we have allowed we have fiji we have samoa. Im going to start with a tweet the on your twitter feed its pinned on us what if each just going to click on the im wondering how hes fiji doing as far as covert numbers of consent are in a little closer total cases 18 total active cases the 0 recovered 80 a good job deft 0 day since the last case 72. 00 days since the face case 100. 00 and to update us how is fiji doing tonight. Yes so this is from a couple of days ago were now simply 4 days since our last case 104. 00 days since our 1st case were 18 cases in total so far all of them have recovered nobody has died were very thankful for the position that were in. And were really right now looking to the future now that we have. Really contained the outbreak in feed you we dont like to say that we called it free because we believe that as long as the rest of the world has called it 19 theres always a threat so we like to call ourselves call it contained. People tell us about and 19 how impacted is it right now in terms of people being sick if anybody is sick. So more was very fast right in the early days of march when things started happening around the world the government immediately. When you 1st of all we close the borders stop letting anyone in including actually some of our own citizens that were coming in. To fiji. And so that means that one has had no chances of a carnivorous no one has been sick. Of inquiring. And the government is very much hoping to keep it that way staggering. So that people can stay in quarantine sort of at a time. That is extraordinary actually even clean new goodies to you own citizens how did that go down. Well it wasnt popular thats for sure and even then they gave it up it was a little concerned that the problem was being offloaded but i think that in the long run knowing what we know about someones Health System then of has a big deal with any outbreak of disease here especially an Infectious Disease we have no cure for. That i think people in now realizing ok we need it tonight and serious measures to deal with this and get a handle on what were going to go through im busted the moment that you understood about the Global Pandemic you would. You basically want to get some money to was about the action that you took yes or. Allow a narrative the rest of the other person think are in countries in that. You know when w h o d care the pandemic of course for small island you took a bit of a sort of quick start panic dr wright and i think that helped and helped us to prepare and reach out to our partners taiwan United States be able to move to close our borders the last week of march and then ensure that we remain free and 1st week of April Manisha in capacities therefore were able to on ive been credited incident offline and there. Was a matter of. That sort of panic mode of that really kind of helped us out once the penny was the carrot you in the enviable situation of now to say that you are free there are many places around the world that can actually say that a part of that reason in this particular plow was the plows president was determined that he was going to put his citizens above the economy and this is how he put it this have a listen. Our capacity our reality is situation here is that youre better off with prevention then trying to do something about it later on so it became a question of economics or peoples lives and the right thing to do for anybody in this world is to consider peoples life profits come and go but you only have one life to live and thats the basic moral that we have been following a massive icy not an articulate that knows go ahead. And we need because of the president s the size of efforts on doing that just last week we had their total of. 57 which is 47 citizens and students repatch rated back home finish their quarantine. 11 medical referral patients of that were getting from our taiwan medical referral they were. I think allow the president and the head managed to achieve one of the impossible is ensuring that this fight the worry of the local students and. That he was able to do this and they did it 2 weeks pretty quarantine before they arrived and then 2 weeks in country and 5. Just sure that theyre not free but theyre still south korea and think its i think if im not mistaken with a cell or and you know the like 6 weeks but it was a good effort to do that so appealing want to put out one of your stories in the samoa observer just going to have a share everybody here on my laptop American Samoa over well were sick elderly returning from some talk about this because this is a story that weve been lacking on the risk now is from retelling nice important topic 90 how do you prevent that from happening. So this is a new development American Samoa and only just open the borders to each other. To allow a swift and organizer petry action and then once the citizens are along theyre planning to close the border again. I think yes its just like how other countries are dealing with a quarantine expectations and then quarantine on arrival and appearance of this been a bit of a mix mostly people are going into managed quarantining which isnt a Hotel Facility organized by the government. A handful have been allowed to go into quarantine at home like diplomatic representatives to manage their own quarantine but for the most part that spend the idea is if you want to come to be ready to get a test at the inquiry into pain and dont let anyone visit you even though they might see you because thats one of the big challenges and if the families you have a family to love each other. And its just the patient the. I would have been going on. I want to bring in Benedict Canyon she is a journalist she is to kenya. And in the background you hear wildlife you see vegetation you hear the sounds of so bearing that in mind were moving from. 19 and not even which is the economy hes been. Was most. Have. Not the big crises especially her. And. Her lao north korea she means no revenue i think the biggest challenge. In your. Mind that this is he. She you started off with those incredible statistics for covert 90 no deaths everybodys recovered you are contained but you dont have a buffer about whats happening with the economy can you describe whats happening in fiji right now people doing. First of all i think id like to thank you for giving a voice to Pacific Island countries and small built in the states because you dont really hear about what weve been doing regarding corner virus and where we stand on something i could really say is that leadership has been key to our success in tackling this virus leadership thats guided by science in particular. Weve also been quite lucky that we have had chance to prepare we watch what other countries are doing and we adapt control measures accordingly. The same will go for our recovery when it comes to a Socio Economic recovery as well as you know weve done very well terms of containing the virus within feet but. We also existing in a call that night 19 well right now we are gearing ourselves to how we live in that world so that includes measures that will work to its recovery. Im going to go to use you can give this question to you subpoena. How is the economy doing the Pacific Islands you dont have to do all of the Pacific Islands but the ones and youve been reporting on can you explain what impact of 1000 has been not jeffs but in terms of the economy. Yeah i think. Yes its really really devastating thats the simple way to put it. Like i said when its not terrorists theres no revenue and not only do they bring. Money to spend in hotels they also get the market and. Trinkets and things they spend money on taxis transport the ferry between islands so every Little Corner of been affected by this. Is predicting that the g. D. P. Will contract by i believe. By the end of the. 6 percent by the end of the it which is huge. You need. It people really really devastating on a personal level a lot of. But economically it did some damage too because tourists. Jobs suffered in the wake of the epidemic so. A lot of people anymore a good 10001500 people. Lost their jobs are waiting to go back to a job that they dont know what will look like. And actually inspired by the. Facebook page so those who dont have. Baking cakes for groceries or trading cuttings for building supplies. Basically get by and i think the government is doing what it can but its a small government with a small budget and so despite its best that it can only do small measures which help theres no denying that like taking utility prices down people to access their pension. Generous ways with low Interest Rates but theres no denying that this carries on for the next year. And were going to see a. Real trauma in this country. A to sneak a strong fiji and he wants to know all of it any estimates of the time it will take able to go back to work factories. And take on. Ok so as part of our response to corbett 19 we did. Put in place lockdown for certain geographical areas around where cases are coming out from but at this point now were pretty much open for business internally we lived out of our structures just in the last week we opened up schools so all of that has opened up a lead to go back to a secure was saying about the Measles Outbreak because fija was also had a Measles Outbreak at the end of last year we had 31 cases in total and no deaths and we were able to control it within. 3 months but what we found is that our response to the Measles Outbreak actually prepared us for quick 19 because measles is such a contagious disease what we had to do with cases worse find them isolate them treat them test them quarantine find the context quarantine them so theres very much a similar things to what we had to do for cobbett 19 so when covered 900. 00 came around of course we already had ds measures in place and we just built upon them and we. Developed them at a larger scale so getting getting our military forces for example in training them as contect traces so we had that going and unlike a lot of other Pacific Island countries we had been tested we had cases we had 18 cases that we were able to successfully contain and were quite confident that going crew are looking forward. If we do start to open up that we already have systems in place for finding cases quickly testing them isolating them so that were able to prevent spread so this is this is all tied into our plans for the future if we can continue to contain the covered 911. 00 while the rest of the world is still struggling. It is very unusual for us to have a conversation about the pacific nation and not speak about Climate Change so i want to bring this story in from you 5 b o w thank you for being part of the conversation as coronavirus affect pacific nations with their battle with Climate Change and stuff thats. Thats an interesting question and i think its thats the biggest question because. For a for us and for me or a thought that in the beginning of the year the secretary general of the clear the year the super year of nature and the whole emphasis from last year is in your engine a on the climate is. So when best Health Crisis is king in charge of overshadowed what you would see Climate Crisis and then of course the ocean crisis for a focus of. Ocean states what were seeing now is is trying to recover from this Health Crisis by men staining our vulnerability to it because at the end now we have an admission of impact where the Additional Health is on top of an ocean crites is and a climate of cranes is of which countries in the pacific for example of one who want to is considered one of the most Vulnerable Countries in the world and so you know as Pacific Islands when you are much much more vulnerable now then you have been ever take a look at 40 percent of our g. D. P. Relies on tourism we went from having over 100000. 00 tourists a month. Had one of our for a cold. Towards them very close still generate 22 in what and what were trying to transition to a low Carbon Economy because thats what theyre in or the Global Solidarity is one hind and sure in our climate agreement thats why it is you know a lot of the Member States have decided to have the Climate Conference and the Ocean Conference is more next year is to try to address that as my president alluded to earlier its not an internet and economy worsens for him or his and mark. Its. For the people having them. So weve been sharing some of your reporting as weve been talking so we looked at you were putting for the media as a break but are you connecting are you finding theres a connection between Climate Change and. I think the biggest connection is the financial one. Its a little. Probably a little under research there now but i think what were going to see is that. Countries like. You need Financial Assistance to. Transition to a low Carbon Economy but also develop adaptation images like. Giant sea walls and mangrove fields and things like this that cost a lot of money. And all of that money all of this Global Wealth is actually being eaten up at the moment by the press and thats not to say. We need to deal with this and we need to deal with it well. But i think. One of the. Head of the you in negotiations put it quite well that weve had about 10 years to sort this out and. Having somewhere between 3 and 18 months because. I think countries like sam are going to feel it really. Intimately because once we are in a strong negotiating position in these international saying to the countries we need a 1000000000. 00 to sort out the acidification in the ocean. And now theres nothing to ask for i suspect. To point to bring in jobs where peace in economy hes been talking about this fiji today was so well prepared so well prepared for. Now what to do is have a listen to james webb. Tom to you 1st pos done a good job of preparing for a potential losses in. Her Disaster Response measures in her continuing Financial Guidance reforms the governments also that. This is a poor appliance or an increase in cash. Through as elsewhere and disappears on some issue and as far as put a huge drag on more it is than public resources. There is in our lives ultimately the recommitment intro image original programs will be a major law in others and disappear to come sooner rather than lies. Solely c. F. E. And the Global Pandemic is the kind go beyond that thinking of well whos going to come to fiji right now hes travelling his flight other planes even landing one now what do you think if the next year maybe. I think ill just go back to the Climate Change issue because i have a really good. The connection between Climate Change and convert 19 well at the peak of our break of course we had a category 4 Tropical Cyclone pass through fiji truck herald it was the 3rd cycle on of the season and we know that Climate Change also impacts on it increases Severe Weather weather events like Tropical Cyclones so similarity between a pandemic like call it 19 and Climate Change is that scientists have been warning about this for years we knew that there would be a Global Pandemic we didnt know when it would come but we would do for one the same thing with Climate Change and a big issue is that quite often around the world people dont think that something will affect them they see something happening to people in power of countries for example in the pacific you get coastal inundation Sea Level Rise increase in Severe Weather then but we may not look like you we may not sound like you but one day it will affect you it will affect your neighbor picked you directly this is happening has happened in the car in the covered 1000 pandemic where it started in china and now its everywhere the same thing is happening and will happen with Climate Change now looking forward towards what were doing for cover 19 in the future of course weve got to adapt to a post called bit 19 the world and learn how to live in that world so recently announced that were getting ready for International Travel again and setting up what we call dollar bubbles so our government has been very clear that lives come 1st and thats why we took very extreme strong measures as soon as we got in one case of course but 19 with than a week we had closed our International Borders and because of that and the other measures that were put in we were able to contain it now looking for willing to see how we can live within within that so are. Well a bubble concept for example is starting out so that you we can actually separate our local community from incoming tourist while making sure that we have the appropriate testing and quarantine measures in place we also have a new contact racing app called here feed you which is modeled off the app in singapore again looking for to the future and seeing how we can 1st save god lives at the same time allow our people to have libel hoods as well. Im just wondering what is the next big story that you are working on that youre planning on that you can see its going to be an issue for you as a reporter. Well thats a good question i think despite what people may think someone may seem like on the outside but its very busy trying to plan ahead to fire and something happens. But i think the economy is a big question. How people maintain livelihoods a big portion of someones economy is actually remittances which is money that family send home some of the same mostly from the start and new zealand. In the United States and unfortunately. Especially the some one community have also been hard hit by economic crisis in those countries so the remittances nightjar out the economies in those countries. So that when you combo of money on island and on money off island now you see really. A situation here and i think that were going to keep talking to people about how they. Will be looking out fieldwork at the observer sippy and thank you elise thank you ambassador we. Thank you for your conversation and your questions to take a seat next time taking. A Global Pandemic mass protests demanding economic recession and geopolitical tensions not to mention the small matter of a looming election join me Steve Clemons in conversation with leading voices on the bottom line your weekly take on u. S. 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