‘I’m always afraid’: Fiji reels as it moves from Covid haven to frontline

Largely spared an outbreak earlier in the pandemic, the Pacific nation is now grappling with a rising caseload, and a shrinking economy

For most of the pandemic, when Fijians tuned in each night to updates from the country's health experts, they were greeted with the same message: the nation had reported zero, or one or two cases that day.

While most countries around the world grappled with surging Covid cases and overwhelmed health systems, Fiji - a country of about 900,000 people in the south Pacific, about a four-hour flight from Australia - was largely spared a widespread outbreak. Like many countries in the Pacific, the impact of Covid on Fiji was chiefly economic, as tourism-dependent economies contracted, but there were few deaths.