A group of doctors have hit the phones to support Pasifika families who have tested positive for covid-19 and been transferred into managed isolation.
The chairperson of the Royal New Zealand College of GPs’ Pasifika chapter, Monica Liva, said about half the people infected with the virus in Auckland were Pasifika.
She contacted Pasifika doctors who could talk to people in their first language and hear any concerns they might have.
“It’s also to take off the load off the MIQ medical team, so that they can focus on the urgent covid-19 needs,” Dr Liva said.
Dr Liva said she had been heartened by the number of GPs agreeing to help.
TikTok take-up for vaccines
The North Island iwi Ngāti Porou have launched a covid-19 vaccination campaign aimed at rangatahi using the social media platform TikTok.
The video challenge calls on young people to encourage their whānau to get vaccinated.
Ngāti Porou’s Taryne Papuni said TikTok was a natural first pick to get the message across.
“That’s one of the mediums that they’re always on, always on the TikTok or the Instagram.
“We thought yeah, we can reach a lot of our people, a lot of our young ones that way and hope that the young ones will actually lead for their elders.”
Earlier this week, Ngāti Porou hosted a vaccinations clinic at Te Poho o Rawiri Marae.
There have also been multiple events on this weekend targeting Pasifika vaccination rates.
18 new community cases in NZ
The Health Ministry reported 18 new community cases of covid-19 in New Zealand today, with all but two epidemiologically linked to previous cases.
There was no media conference today. In a statement, the ministry said there were now a total of 1165 community cases associated with the latest outbreak of the delta variant of the virus.
It said 934 of Auckland’s 1148 cases had now recovered.
The ministry said there were five cases in the past fortnight that were still not linked to previous cases.
The 16 linked cases reported today are all in isolation at home or in MIQ.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
