A looming election join me Steve Clemons in conversation with leading voices on the bottom line your weekly take on u. S. Politics and society on aljazeera. And for the ok in watching this stream now into the past few months the stream is taking the round the out looking at the Global Pandemic and the impact its having a very citizens around the world today we still post at the pacific nations and ask if their isolation is actually helping them tackle coverage 19 and what issues and challenges they may well have if you are new to hear from you jumping to the chat and he can be part of the conversation im going to start the conversation introducing the guests and theyre going to say you say ambassador it is wonderful to have you here on the strain tell everybody. I am. I am a member present i did not allow an ambassador to the United Nations based out of new york. And get to have use a pia oakum to the string tell everybody hume you are. The morning of 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 ProtectionDivision 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 is fiji doing as far as covert numbers of consent in a little closer total case is 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 person on board to fiji. And so that means that one is have no cases of carnivorous no one has been sick. Aboard it inquired. 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 booties to your own citizens how did that go down. Well it wasnt popular thats for sure and even then the government was a little concerned that the problem was being offloaded but i think that in the long run knowing what we know that Health System then of has to make a 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 even if you want to get some money to was about the action that you took yes. Allow a narrative the rest of the other pacific 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 drive right 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 we were able to on ive been credited incident offline it. Was a matter of yeah 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 and part of that reason this particular plow is the plows president was determined that he was going to put his citizens above the economy and this is how he put it is 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 decisive efforts on doing that just last week we had their total of. 57 which is 47 citizens and students repetitive back home finish their quarantine the 11 medical referral patients of that were getting from our taiwan medical referral they were. I think allow their president and had managed to achieve one of the impossible is ensuring that these flights 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 in and 2 weeks in country im horrified at. Just sure that theyre not free but theyre still still for 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 pm want to play one of your stories in the samoa observer just going have a shot 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 the one of the big challenge is a big family is you have a family to love each other. And its just the patient that. 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. 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 a small island built in the states because you dont really hear about what weve been doing regarding corner virus and where we stand 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 in youd be reporting on can you explain what the impact of cocaine 1000 has been not deaths 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. The market and. Trinkets and things i 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 at the percent by the end of the. 6 percent by the end of the year which is huge. You need. 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. 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 if this carries on for the next year closed. And were going to see a. Real trauma in this country. 80 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 lock downs 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. 00 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 we are 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 900. 00 even 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 air the super hero of nature and the whole emphasis from last year is in your engine a on the climate is. So when the best Health Crisis is king in charge of overshadowed what you would see Climate Crisis and then of course the ocean crisis for a 4th of. Ocean states what were seeing now is is trying to recover from this Health Crisis for maintaining 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 and a climate of crazes 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 forth as Pacific Islands when you are much much more vulnerable now than 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 actions 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 a lot of the Member States have decided to have the Climate Conference and the Ocean Conference is more next year hes still trying to address that and 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 send. 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 Session saying to the countries we need a 1000000000. 00 to sort out the acidification of the ocean. And now theres nothing to ask for i suspect. You plan to bring in james webb piece an economist 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. The tommy gun for this pos done a good job of preparing for a potential losses in. Her Disaster Response measures in her continuing Financial Guidance reforms theyve got is also that. This is a poor appliance or an increase in cash. Through as elsewhere and dissipate as im sure and as far as put a huge drag on more it is than public resources. In our lives ultimately the recommitment intro image original programs will be a major life 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 oh 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 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 where we took very extreme strong measures as soon as we got one case of corporate 19 with than a week we had close 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 care 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 might think. But its very busy trying to plan ahead. But i think the economy is a big question. How livelihoods a big portion of someones economy is actually which is money that families. Mostly from the start. In the United States and unfortunately. Especially the someone who already have also been hard hit by economic those countries so there were. Economies in those countries. So that. Money on island island. Really. Werent talking about how they. Would be looking out field. Thank you ambassador. Thank you for your conversation and questions to take time to hear. From fossil fuels to. Develop. Requiring Innovative Solutions to me. As a global power developing to the Basement Company that is uniquely positioned to deliver a good speech. We provide business great social economic benefits and provide innovative and farming to. Generate the british parliamentary future. The health of humanity is at stake a Global Pandemic requires a global response. W a. Cho is the guardian of Global Health delivering lifesaving tools supplies and training to help the worlds most Vulnerable People uniting across borders to speed up the development of test treatments and of that. Keeping you up to date with whats happening on the ground in the ward and in the lab now more than ever the world needs w. H. O. Making a healthier world for you. For everyone. Its very difficult as a shop or restaurant or to buy shrimp with the confidence that what youre serving is going to be good seafood by nature is a hybrid model in sometimes from his wrist losing production drugs. That are approved for use in us the f. D. A. Simply isnt testing enough on the imported market to really find our genes violet presently take no one else is there. A diverse range of stories from across the globe from the perspective of our networks journalists on aljazeera d. This is aljazeera. News hour on canal a dog coming up in the next 60 minutes you cannot get away with killing a journalist and lets not forget that these is a state exit. The murder trial of journalist to market shakti has begun in turkey without the 20 saudi