The media sector in the Pacific should be supported with an enabling environment to report “without fear” in the face of ongoing challenges brought about since the covid-19 pandemic, according to a new study.

The paper, titled Pacific media freedom since the pandemic, is published in the latest edition of the Pacific Journalism Review.

As part of the research, the authors hosted an online panel discussion with senior Pacific journalists and news editors from Palau, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Fiji in December 2021 and held a follow-up discussion with those journalists in March 2023.

• READ MORE: Disinformation and climate crisis, governance, training feature in PJR
• The July 2023 PJR table of contents
• Other PJR editions

Researchers from the Australian National University and the University of the South Pacific said there was a need for “ongoing vigilance with regards to media freedom in the Pacific Island countries” post-pandemic.

ANU’s Dr Amanda Watson and USP’s Dr Shailendra Singh, who are the paper’s co-authors, said covid-19 exposed the difficulties faced by media organisations and journalists in the region.

“Covid-19 has been a stark reminder about the link between media freedom and the financial viability of media organisations”, they said, adding “especially in the Pacific, where the advertising markets are relatively small and profit margins correspondingly limited”.

They said media companies “faced challenges during the height of the pandemic due to revenue downturns”.

‘Strives for impartial reporting’
However, the industry “continues to strive to conduct impartial reporting, for the benefit of citizens and the societies in which they live,” they said.

“Media professionals and businesses face various challenges and thus it is important to support their work and ensure that they are able to operate without fear of violence or any other forms of reprisal,” the researchers concluded.

A media study from 2021 found that Pacific journalists were among the youngest, most inexperienced and least qualified in the world.

Dr Singh has told RNZ Pacific in the past that capacity building of local journalists must become a priority for mainstream media to improve its standards and Pacific governments must also play a key role in investing in the industry’s development.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Tokelau’s largest atoll, Nukunonu, is now out of lockdown after experiencing its first community cases of covid-19.

In a statement, the government said Fakaofo Atoll has had two cases at the border and Nukunonu now has six positive community cases — all within the same household.

This includes the two new community cases who are children from the same family who have been isolating together.

• READ MORE: Other Tokelau pandemic reports

The two kids were confirmed as covid-19 positive on Friday, May 26.

Tokelau confirmed its first community case on May 21, becoming one of the last places in the world to record community transmission.

Government spokesperson Aukusitino Vitale said they were all in good health and were being taken care of.

Hospital staff continued to manage their situation daily.

Meanwhile, the Council for the Ongoing Government, chaired by the Ulu o Tokelau (head of government), is set to meet on Friday to discuss the next official covid-19 update.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The World Health Organisation’s decision to remove covid-19 as a global health emergency is the right move, epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says.

The organisation said the virus was now an established and ongoing health issue that no longer constituted a public health emergency of international concern.

Professor Baker said the global status change made sense at this stage, but it did not impact on whether covid-19 was still a pandemic.

• READ MORE: Covid no longer a global health emergency, WHO says
• Other covid reports

Covid-19 was still New Zealand’s number one killer when it came to infectious disease and people should make sure they were vaccinated and take sensible precautions, he said.

“There might be some scaling down in the international reporting of cases, but really it doesn’t make a difference to somewhere like New Zealand.

“It makes no practical difference whatsoever to how countries manage this infection.”

1000 NZ deaths predicted this year
Professor Baker earlier said that this year covid-19 was on track to kill some 1000 people in New Zealand and hospitalise around 10,000.

The threat of long covid also loomed — with one recent study suggesting as many as one in five New Zealanders reported lingering symptoms after their first infection.

He emphasised the need for caution in easing our few remaining protections.

The latest vaccine was one of the best things people could do to guard against the disease, because it included protection against omicron — the current dominant variant circulating in the community.

“You have to always think why the World Health Organisation assigned it [a global health emergency originally] and it’s really related to these certain criteria.

“It is about how severe and how unexpected [the disease is], but it’s really about whether an international response is needed and whether there’s potential for international spread.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand is in the grip of a fourth wave of covid but it is predicted to be smaller than previous mass outbreaks.

The most recent analysis from the Public Health Communication Centre at Otago University indicates there could be up to 12,000 hospitalisations and more than a 1000 deaths this year from covid.

Leading epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the fourth wave was potentially driven by a rise in the XBB subvariant, which had become dominant in the last two months — exacerbated by waning immunity and people spending more time indoors with the cooler weather.

• READ MORE: Other covid pandemic reports

“This pattern of small to moderate sized waves may indicate what we can expect to see with covid-19 in coming years. But there are still major uncertainties given the potential for this virus to continue to evolve,” he said.

A Flourish data visualization

There was growing evidence that subsequent infections tended to be less severe, which was good news — but there was no room for complacency, Professor Baker said.

“It’s a very different virus to influenza.

“With influenza, you might get it once or twice a decade. But with covid 19, it looks like you might get it once or twice a year.

“And each time you get this infection you’re running all of those risks of getting seriously ill, going to hospital or worse, and potentially developing long-term effects.”

Even those who escaped serious illness could be off work some time, which was having an impact on the workforce.

Covid-19 was still the leading cause of death from infectious disease in New Zealand, with 2419 deaths last year.

“Covid-19 is also a major cause of hospitalisation, with more than 22,000 admissions in 2022… and the virus is a source of inequalities with Māori and Pasifika markedly more likely to be admitted to hospital and die from this infection.”

A Flourish data visualization

Professor Baker and his colleagues have also been examining the multiple monitoring systems for covid-19, and suggest it could be time to transition to a “sustainable and enduring surveillance system” that covers other important respiratory infections, such as influenza and RSE.

This need had become more critical now that the Health Ministry had ditched its plans for covid-19 prevalence surveys, he said.

“A potential alternative is establishing sentinel surveillance of respiratory infections. For example, routinely testing a random sample of people attending specific health care settings such as general practices and emergency departments or community sites such as schools.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says Aotearoa New Zealand is experiencing its fourth wave of covid-19 infection and warns people to stay vigilant.

He said it was not as intense as the previous waves but it was definite, with a gradual rise in the number of self-reported cases every day, as seen in RNZ’s ongoing database of covid-19 information.

A Flourish data visualization

“It’s the first distinct rise, a sustained rise in cases this year.

• READ MORE: Other covid-19 reports

“We’ve seen that numbers reached a low point in February and have been tracking up since then.”

The average number of daily cases sits at about 2000 at the moment, but Professor Baker said the actual number could be higher with people less inclined to test and report.

He said other indicators including the number of hospitalisations, people in intensive care units, deaths and traces of the virus in wastewater were also pointing to a new wave.

He encouraged people to get the new covid booster, isolate if they were infected, and mask up in poorly ventilated environments.

“It’s really important that everyone who has a position in authority thinks about the health of their workforce and their school population and the social venues that they operate in.”

A Flourish data visualization

Professor Baker also said that the Ministry of Education should provide monitors to reduce transmission in early childhood centres.

He also encouraged people to mask up on public transport.

“If you’re on a bus commuting … or train, you are going to be in that indoor environment for many hours every week and the ventilation is poor, so that would be a situation where I think masks should still be worn by everyone.”

Last week, cabinet decided to keep the few remaining covid-19 restrictions for at least the next two months.

Most pandemic rules have been scrapped, but people still have to self-isolate for seven days if they test positive, and masks must be worn in hospitals in some circumstances.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Jacinda Ardern’s resignation as prime minister in January was a courageous and pragmatic decision for herself, her family and her party.

Although many said she had done a great job as leader, she rightly reminded us that a great leader is “one who knows when it’s time to go”.

Since hitting stellar heights in mid-2020, Ardern’s Labour Party had dropped significantly in the polls and was trailing the opposition National Party throughout 2022.

• READ MORE: NZ election 2020: Jacinda Ardern promised transformation — instead, the times transformed her
• Anniversary of a landslide: new research reveals what really swung New Zealand’s 2020 ‘covid election’
• Women leaders and coronavirus: look beyond stereotypes to find the secret to their success

The “Jacinda effect” had switched from being a uniting force to a polarising one. With an election coming in October, it was time for a change.

Her decision to stand down was as politically astute and timely as her elevation to leader of the Labour Party in August 2017. After all, Labour is now ahead of National in recent polls.

By the time she gives her valedictory statement to parliament later today, Ardern will have served as an MP for nearly 15 years. While the intervening period has undoubtedly changed her, she remains in many ways the same person she was as a novice backbencher.

In her maiden speech to the House of Representatives in 2008, she expressed the small-town values that got her started:

Some people have asked me whether I am a radical. My answer to that question is very simple: I am from Morrinsville. Where I come from a radical is someone who chooses to drive a Toyota rather than a Holden or a Ford.

She described herself as a social democrat who believed in human rights, social justice, equality and democracy. She spoke especially about work, education, community and the reduction of poverty – child poverty in particular.

All fine aspirations. But back then, Ardern’s Labour Party was looking at nine long years in opposition after Helen Clark’s three-term government lost power.

Unable to break the run National’s John Key enjoyed as prime minister, Labour went through one leader after another while Ardern rose through the ranks.

In mid-2017, despite a mood for change, it still looked like the election wouldn’t go well for Labour, at the time polling down around 25 percent. Then, at the beginning of August, Andrew Little handed leadership of the party to Ardern. With just seven weeks until the election, it was either an inspired move or the ultimate hospital pass.

As history shows, however, Ardern’s elevation immediately energised Labour’s campaign. It also drew international attention to the New Zealand election, as what became known as “Jacindamania” changed the mood on the streets and in the media.

Accidents of history
Critics sometimes labelled Ardern the “accidental prime minister” — a rookie “appointed” by Winston Peters, whose New Zealand First party held the balance of power in post-election negotiations. Conventional wisdom has it that Ardern simply offered Peters a better coalition deal, despite her party having won fewer seats than National.

But Peters gave those critics some more ammunition during a recent TV interview. He appeared to reveal that New Zealand First was forced to choose coalition with Labour when then-National leader Bill English alerted him to a potential leadership coup by Judith Collins.

According to Peters, English had assured him Collins didn’t have the numbers to pull it off. (Collins would eventually become National leader, of course, losing spectacularly to Ardern at the 2020 election.)

This sliding-doors version of events may be conjecture. But Peters can’t have forgotten how Jenny Shipley had rolled previous National leader and prime minister Jim Bolger in 1997.

That ultimately led to the breakup of the National-New Zealand First coalition in which Peters had been deputy prime minister and treasurer.

Perhaps, then, we have Collins to thank for Ardern’s elevation to the top job. We’ll probably never know.

Rise and fall
The “Jacinda effect” wasn’t a flash in the pan, however. Labour’s election support went from 25 percent in 2014 to 37 percent in 2017, and then to an extraordinary 50 percent in 2020. Coming on the back of Ardern’s exemplary leadership through the covid pandemic, it was an unprecedented result under the country’s proportional MMP system.

Her belief in “kindness” as a political force appeared to have been vindicated, if not for long. While New Zealand eventually recorded the world’s lowest excess mortality rate during the pandemic, this success was far from cost-free. In particular, there was a human and political price to pay for the lockdowns and border closures.

Businesses struggled, many New Zealanders abroad couldn’t return, and many resisted the pressure to be vaccinated. No nation escaped unscathed, and in New Zealand resistance to vaccine mandates boiled over on the grounds of parliament in early 2022.

Some protesters were angered by Ardern’s trademark empathy and kindness, which they now perceived as a false front. Due to the extremist elements among the protests, she refused to address them directly.

Ardern’s positive leadership reputation was earned on her responses to tragedies: the Christchurch terror attack, the Whakaari-White Island eruption, and the pandemic. But no sane politician would have welcomed such crises.

Nor were they part of Ardern’s social democratic plan. In fact, they hindered it. She did a lot for child poverty and family incomes, in line with her core values. But those achievements were overshadowed by a pandemic response that upended her government’s fiscal policy.

Promise unfulfilled
So, if catastrophes were the making of Jacinda’s career as prime minister, they were also the breaking of it. From her first campaign speech in August 2017, she had created a sense of promise that her government was ultimately unable to fulfil.

She claimed climate change was her generation’s “nuclear-free moment”, and that a decent, affordable home was everyone’s right. It sounded great, but on both counts progress fell short of expectation and need. Later, she would capitulate on a full capital gains tax to help solve the housing crisis. That allowed coalition partner Peters to claim credit for the backdown.

But it would also be wrong if the lasting narrative was one of failure to deliver. Her government’s Child Poverty Reduction Act now mandates reporting on progress towards poverty targets, bringing the problem into the engine room of fiscal policy. The Healthy School Lunches program helped reduce food insecurity.

Future governments will encounter strong political resistance if they try to rescind those measures.

Even those tireless advocates for children, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), gave Ardern qualified approval following her resignation — although the truce didn’t last long. CPAG was back on the attack when Stats NZ reported “child poverty rates for the year ended June 2022 were unchanged compared with the previous year”.

A complex legacy
In the end, Ardern did not use the single-party majority she won in 2020 to fix the things she had wanted to fix. When her government saw a problem, its default setting was to say “let’s centralise it” — as if that would do. Good social democratic government was sidelined by bureaucratic shakeups in healthcare, education and (before the plan was cancelled) public broadcasting.

An elaborate structural reform of water services became mired in controversy over Māori co-governance and loss of local democratic control. The sixth Labour government’s only potentially historic contribution to the development of New Zealand’s social security system — a proposed unemployment insurance scheme — was quietly shelved after criticism from both left and right.

So, will Ardern be remembered as one the great Labour leaders? To do so would put her in the pantheon of Michael Joseph Savage and Peter Fraser, who achieved so much in social security, healthcare and education, and who led the country through the Second World War.

It would also place her next to Norman Kirk, whose 1972-75 government universalised accident compensation, introduced the domestic purposes benefit, and stood against French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Ardern with baby Neve in 2018, the second prime minister to give birth while in office.
Getty Images

It’s a high bar, but not unreasonable to make the case. Ardern broke through barriers for women, most notably giving birth to her daughter while she held office. She united the country after the mosque shootings, soothing what could have become a divisive moment.

By listening to the scientific evidence and advice about covid, she helped save countless lives.

Ardern will undoubtedly be remembered as one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s outstanding prime ministers. This may not be for reasons of her choosing, though. Once the disaster management is accounted for, there are no major lasting achievements for which her government will be cited in the history books.

What will be remembered is Ardern’s exemplary and highly effective leadership through covid. Yet there is no “kind” pathway through an unkind pandemic.

Nevertheless, Jacinda Ardern is owed gratitude for all that she did — and acknowledgement of all she had to endure — to get her nation through it.

Dr Grant Duncan is associate professor, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Travellers from China to Australia will be required to have a negative pre-departure covid-19 test from January 5 — and New Zealand says it is now assessing the health risks.

China has seen skyrocketing covid case numbers, and a range of other countries including the United Kingdom, the United States and France have also imposed testing requirements.

NZ government duty minister Stuart Nash said tonight that New Zealand was currently assessing the situation.

• READ MORE: Other covid-19 reports

“I’ve been informed today that Australia has announced pre-departure testing for travellers arriving from China. This measure is being taken in response to the rapidly unfolding situation in China,” he said.

“New Zealand has a public health risk assessment under way which will be completed in the next 24 hours.

“Our response will remain proportionate to the potential risks posed by travellers and in the context of the international situation.”

New Zealand, to date, had said it has no plans to introduce testing for Chinese visitors, the Ministry of Health said last week.

An ‘abundance of caution’
Australia’s Health Minister Mark Butler said this decision was taken out of an “abundance of caution” and a temporary measure due to the lack of detailed information about the epidemiological situation in China.

“That lack of comprehensive information has led a number of countries in recent days to put in place various measures — not to restrict travel from China, it’s important to say — but to gather better information about what is happening epidemiologically in that country,” he said.

Butler said the government warmly welcomed visitors from China, and Australia was “well positioned right now in the fight against covid”.

“The resumption of travel between China and Australia poses no immediate public health threat to Australians,” he said.

Butler said universities and the tourism industry would also welcome the resumption of travel from China, as would people who had long been separated from their family and friends.

“We know there are many many hundreds of thousands of Chinese Australians who have been unable to see family and friends for months — and, in some cases, years — and their ability to do that over the coming period will be a matter of considerable joy for them, particularly as we head into the Lunar New Year period,” he said.

Butler said that, although the subvariant that appeared to be driving the wave in China was already present in Australia, the situation was “developing very quickly”.

Concerns over new variant
“There are concerns, in an environment of cases spreading so quickly, about the possibility of the emergence of a new variant,” he said.

“Now there’s no evidence of that right now.

“This is a measure taken out of an abundance of caution to provide Australians and the Australian government with the best possible information about a fast-evolving situation.”

Butler said the Chinese government was informed about the measures this morning.

“It won’t come as any surprise to the Chinese government that Australia is putting this arrangement in place, I don’t think, given the broad range of countries that have taken similar steps over the last 48 to 72 hours,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

With restrictions eased, public health warnings muted and mask wearing now almost non-existent, the risk of contracting covid-19 is still very real, particularly as people come together for Christmas parties and family gatherings.

Daily covid-19 numbers are the highest they have been for four-and-a-half months.

Immunologist Dr Anna Brooks of the University of Auckland says she is gravely concerned at the cavalier approach hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are now taking to covid, particularly thinking that if they have already had it, they are not at risk of reinfection.

• LISTEN TO RNZ NINE TO NOON: Interview with Dr Anna Brooks
• Other covid pandemic reports

Dr Brooks tells Kathryn Ryan about how New Zealand is coping with the pandemic’s enduring impact and looks ahead to what could be a deadly summer of reinfection.

Kathryn Ryan: What is going on at the moment with this rise in reported cases? Are we in another surge of covid? 

Dr Anna Brooks: Yes, that absolutely seems to be the case.

These variants that are circulating have a better chance of infecting us because they’re evading our immune defences and so reinfections are going to be far more common than we’ve experienced for example, in the second wave.

So, there might be a bit more complacency because we’ve had two waves and people may have thought, “Well, I had it once I didn’t get it again,” and that’s really just not the case.

These variants, there’s a whole bunch of them out there and many of them we actually won’t even know exist because of the low level of data collection and variant tracking.

New subvariants
KR: We’re getting new subvariants; just explain what that means for your existing level of protection, either from previous infection and/or from vaccination — these subvariants will be better at evading than what we had before. 

AB: Exactly. What’s happening is as each new variant or subvariant is evolving, it’s doing so to evade our immune protection.

So absolutely, that can be from the vaccinations and/or previous infection.

What we’ve sort of had in our country, is we had that really large first wave, which was the BA.1 and [BA.2]… then the next wave we had was BA.4 and [BA.5], so we’ve got some what we call hybrid immunity within the community, absolutely. But it’s not enough to stop reinfection when the subvariants are still able to skip round our antibody response and infect us.

And as we know, our vaccinations are a great starting point for preventing severe illness but they’re not great at preventing infection. So, if these variants are capable of infecting any of us, regardless of our baseline immunity, then we’re going to see cases rise, we’re going to see severe illness and hospitalisations and deaths again — that’s the facts.

Impact of reinfection
KR: Can we talk about reinfection? Because I think people have had that sense of, ‘I’ve had it, so I’ve got a few months free now.’ But is there also a sense of, ‘I’ve had it and I didn’t have any major issues, so I’ll be fine next time too.’ Can you explain what we’re learning about the impact of reinfection and what to assume, or rather not to assume? 

AB: I think that’s exactly right. I think there’s a general feel that if you’ve had covid, you survived it perfectly fine, that if you get it again, it’ll be the same.

But what we’re seeing coming through the literature — and these are really large-scale studies that have been tracking reinfections — is that each infection or reinfection is increasing your health harms or your risk of health harms.

So, that’s where we really want to raise awareness right now, that people aren’t complacent about the fact that just because they’ve had at once, they’re not at risk, because everyone is at risk.

What we don’t understand is how long the body takes to get back to what I call a baseline level of [recovery in the body] and you won’t necessarily feel that. You may have had your infection, it may have been very mild and you’re like, ‘Yeah, that was nothing.’ But it’s not really nothing if you then go and get another reinfection, and then another one on top of that.

We don’t really know, especially now there are so many variants circulating, we just don’t know what the risk factors are and even the ability… to get exposure to multiple variants over a short period of time.

The literature is telling us each infection is risky, and reinfections increase that risk. Some of the publications are suggesting that that risk lasts for at least six months and that those are risks of heart attacks, strokes, clotting events, all those things that nobody wants as a risk factor.

Inflammation risk
KR: Just explain again why inflammation, that elevated immune response and why inflammation associated with it is a risk factor for long covid? 

AB: What we understand from all the research that’s going on is that, first of all, this virus is not just a respiratory virus.

That was where the first level of complacency crept in, when we started to see less respiratory failure, and the lung issues, and kicked off with Omicron.

But essentially, Omicron has been a different beast, and remains that way. What we do know is that it still has the ability to impact our blood vessels, our blood vessels feed all our organs.

Part of the immune response when we get infected, we know that the virus can cause clotting issues, and that probably happens in all of us. It’s part of an immune response to form clots to get the infection under control and perhaps what’s going on is that some of us resolve that inflammation and that clotting, and we all go back to normal, and in others, that doesn’t happen.

And that’s just one part of the picture. What I believe a lot of the literature is pointing towards — and it is one of the hypotheses we’re chasing down — is also that your immune system has had a hammering to a certain extent and we don’t know how to actually detect that, we don’t know how long it takes to resolve, but it kind of puts us all in a slightly vulnerable position.

What we are starting to see more coming through, and again, as I say, as part of the research we’re looking into, is that it disrupts our immune control of what we are wandering around with every day and that’s all our microbiome, and including latent or dormant viruses that we got in childhood, that live with us for life.

Some of the research is indicating that we get a reawakening of our viruses and some of the ones that are well known are chickenpox. Many of us get chickenpox, and then we get shingles. When our immune system — our immune control — breaks down, we get an outbreak of shingles because the shingles presentation, if you like, indicated that you had chickenpox as a child.

Epstein-Barr virus
That’s one virus we know, the other one that is kind of front and centre that everyone’s chasing down a bit more is Epstein-Barr virus. So this is EBV, or what we know of as glandular fever, and most of us are exposed to this.

The numbers are around at least 90 percent of us wander around controlling EBV dormantly… but at the same time, we know that not everyone gets severely impacted by EBV.

We’re starting to wonder whether it’s viruses like that, that inhibit us all, that are getting reawakened through a loss of immune control. And that could be contributing to what we now know as post-viral illnesses because, obviously, long covid is front and centre because this pandemic is uncovering that, but it also loops into myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome.

EBV has been a strong contender as being a cause of that illness too, so it’s really showing us that we haven’t done enough research into understanding how our immune systems wonderfully control latent viruses or dormant viruses that we contract as youth, as children, and maybe that’s part of the picture here.

KR: So the question now is, what is it you can do to go forth and have a fabulous Christmas, a good holiday, enjoy life as fully as possible but still manage this continuing risk?  

AB: We all want to have fun in summer and gatherings and all the rest of it. My main message at the moment is that I want to make sure people understand that there is a risk… and we want people to manage their own risk, but not just their own risk, because vulnerable people are getting more and more shut away, because they no longer feel safe to be anywhere because they’re vulnerable to infection.

Those two things coming together, we’re basically in a position where we’re now essentially being told to look out for our own selves, because there’s very little public health messaging about the risks.

It’s two things here. It’s education that the risk isn’t going away, you want to protect yourself and understand those risks, and know that… any infection comes with a risk and there are people out there that are getting more and more concerned about their health not being taken seriously, because people around them don’t care anymore…

Keeping businesses open
I think some simple measures will keep businesses open too… You know, quite often when we’re raising awareness you feel like it’s the economy or businesses that are like, ‘Oh, make covid go away.’ We’re actually raising this awareness to keep businesses open. We want businesses to thrive over summer, but if there are no health protections in place, and you have customers in enclosed spaces, and your staff are getting infected, you’ll have no staff, you can’t open and so on and so forth.

I think the most obvious one is flying and public transport… if we’re not masking on planes, is that a ticking time bomb before there are no staff and you can’t get to your holiday destination?

KR: Back to your other key point, which is that reinfection being the trend possibly of the summer, those rates are getting quite high… are they getting close to a third of new cases being reinfections? 

AB: Yeah, it looks that way. We have to remember that without a surveillance programme of you know, random testing, we have actually very little intel on what that number is going to be.

[If] we’re not collecting random data, then we have no idea how much asymptomatic spreads happening or how many people are getting infections.

We can’t forget about that. We need to remember that that is why we RAT before an event, that is why we RAT before we go to a Christmas function. It’s not just because you’ve got symptoms — we don’t know how many people are getting asymptomatic infections.

That’s now become an individual choice, whether you do that, because it’s not part of any public health messaging that you should check to make sure you’re not asymptomatic.

So, if we don’t know how many people are out there asymptomatic, they’re not going to be testing, they’re not going to be reporting, and then they won’t even know if in a month, two months’ time they get an infection, whether that’s a reinfection.

That’s what we would love to see from a scientific position, and, you know, safety and understanding all of our risks, is actually gathering data so we can understand this and that includes knowing what variants are out there.

Every time around immune system is waning, depending on how long ago we were infected, or boosted or vaccinated, then the chances of our illness…being worse is going to increase as well. So severity, risks increase the further ago your immune response was.

RAT tests and variants
KR: Are the RAT tests just as effective with the new variants? 

AB: We’ve heard that the RATs are picking up the variants. It’s only as good as how good the person is testing as well.

KR: Are the boosters keeping up with the variants? 

AR: Boosting revives your immune system… the data showed any boost is going to give you that little bit more protection, because what it’s doing is training the immune system, and it’s reviving it, it’s waking it up, and you’ve got more circulating antibodies. They might not be perfect at shutting down the variant that you get infected with, but it’s going to do a better job than being completely non-boosted.

But what we’d like see is, there are the bivalent vaccination boosters that will protect you more against the BA.4 and [BA.5] strains. And essentially what we really need is a new generation of vaccines that sterilises and stops infections.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

A Pasifika health leader hopes the Royal Commission into the Covid-19 pandemic will look into the equity of the response and resource allocation.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday announced a Royal Commission into the government’s covid-19 response which will be chaired by Professor Tony Blakely, an epidemiologist working at the University of Melbourne.

He is joined by former National Party MP Hekia Parata, and the previous secretary to Treasury, John Whitehead, as commissioners.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Pasifika Futures CEO Debbie Sorensen on the Royal Commission and the equity of communities
• NZ announces Royal Commission into government’s covid-19 response
• Domestic violence, isolation hit Pacific women during pandemic, says USP survey

Pasifika Futures chief executive Debbie Sorensen said Pasifika people were essentially left to form their own response during the earlier stages of the pandemic.

That was despite Pasifika people working a large proportion of jobs in MIQ facilities and at the airport and other front line locations, she said.

Many affected Pacific families experienced a great deal of hardship, she said.

It was important for the inquiry to look at the covid-19 response in regards to specific communities, she said.

Slowness of response
“We’re really clear that equity in the response and in the resource allocation is an important consideration.”

One issue was the slowness of the government’s response to both Pacific and Māori communities during the height of the pandemic, she said.

“Advice was provided to the government, you know cabinet papers provided advice on specific responses for our communities and that advice was ignored.”

An important aspect of the inquiry should be reviewing how that advice was given to the government, its response to it and how the government’s sought more information, she said.

The inquiry’s initial scope appeared to be very narrow, but it could be broadened as it went along, Sorensen said.

“The impact on mental health and the ongoing economic burden for our communities is immense — you know we have a whole generation of young people who have not continued their education because they were required to go in to work.”

Sorensen said often young people had to work because they were the only person in their family who had a job at that time due to covid-19.

Mental health demand
The pandemic also increased demand for mental health services which were already under pressure, she said.

Anyone who was unwell unlikely to be able to get an appointment within six to eight months which was shameful, she said.

Sorensen would have preferred the inquiry had been announced earlier, but it was an opportunity to better prepare for the future, she said.

But Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority, chief medical officer Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen told Morning Report he had some concerns that the probe into the covid-19 response was coming too soon to gain a full picture.

The pandemic was ongoing and starting the inquiry so early may obstruct a complete view of it, he said.

“I understand that there’s people champing at the bit and [saying] we should’ve done it before but it’s very difficult to do that and adequately learn the lessons.”

Understanding how to get a proper pandemic response was in everyone’s interest, but the pandemic was now still in its third wave, he said.

About to begin
Nevertheless, the inquiry was about to get underway and it could make a large contribution if it was done well, he said.

“I’m sure there will be many Māori communities that want to have voice in the inquiry and you know contribute to a better understanding of how we can manage pandemics really well.

“We’ve had pandemics before and they’ve been absolutely tragic. We’ve got this pandemic and the outcome for us is something like two to two-and-a-half times the rate of hospitalisations and deaths, so Māori communities are fundamentally very interested in bedding in the learnings that we’ve achieved in the pandemic.”

Dr Jansen hoped the inquiry would provide enduring information about managing pandemics with a very clear focus on Māori and how to support the best outcomes for the Māori population.

Inquiry’s goal next pandemic
The head of the Royal Commission said the review needed to put New Zealand in better position to respond next time a pandemic hits.

Professor Blakely said the breadth of experience and skills of the commissioners was welcome, and would help them to cover the wide scope of the Inquiry, ranging from the health response and legislative decisions, to the economic response.

Reviewing the response to the pandemic was a big job, he said.

“There’s already 75 reports done so far, I think about 1700 recommendations from those reports, New Zealand’s not the only country that’s been affected by this cause it’s a global epidemic, so there’s lots of other reports.”

The inquiry panel would have to sit at the top of all that work that had already been done “and pull it altogether from the perspective of Aotearoa New Zealand and what would help best there.

The inquiry needed to make New Zealand was prepared for a pandemic with good testing, good contact tracing and good tools that the Reserve Bank could use to support citizens in the time of a pandemic, Professor Blakely said.

“Our job is to try and create a situation where those tools are as good as possible, there’s frameworks to use when you’ve entered another pandemic, which will occur at some stage we just don’t know when.”

Professor Blakely said he was flying to New Zealand next week and would meet with Hekia Parata and John Whitehead to start thinking about the shape of the inquiry going forward.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

While some women at the University of the South Pacific’s 14 campuses found working from home enjoyable during the covid-19 pandemic, others felt isolated, had overwhelming mental challenges and some experienced domestic violence, a Pacific survey has found.

Titled “University Women Remote Work Challenges”, the survey was funded by the Council of Pacific Education (COPE) and was supported by the Association of the University of the South Pacific staff (AUSPS)

The research report, released last month, was conducted by Dr Hilary Smith (an honorary affiliate researcher at the Australian National University and Massey University) for the women’s wing of AUSPS.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific gender research

“This survey confirms that many of our university women had support from their family networks while on Work From Home, but others were left feeling very isolated,” said Rosalie Fatiaki, chair of the AUSPS women’s wing.

“Women with young children had a lot to juggle, and those who rely on the internet for work had particular frustrations — some had to wait until after midnight to get a strong enough signal,” she said.

Around 30 percent of respondents reported having developed covid-19 during the Work From Home periods, and 57 percent had lost a family member or close friend to covid-19 as well as co-morbidities.

In the survey there was also evidence of the “shadow pandemic” of domestic abuse and although the reported levels were low, it was likely the real incidence was much higher, said Dr Smith.

‘Feelings of shame’
“That was because of the feelings of shame (reporting domestic violence). In the Pacific Islands families and communities tend to be very close-knit groupings,” Dr Smith said.

Only two of the 14 USP campuses in 12 Pacific countries avoided any covid-19 closures between 2020 and 2022 — the shortest closure was two days in Tokelau and the longest at the three Fijian campuses of Laucala, Lautoka and Labasa lasting 161 days.

There had been no cases on the Tuvalu campus until the second quarter of this year.

“For women who had older children they said they enjoyed the time with their families,” Dr Smith said.

“And it was more difficult for those with young families,” she said.

She stressed the importance of being careful with the survey in relation to domestic violence.

“With this kind of survey, we had to be a little bit careful. We can’t say we got evidence of how much there is because it is a very tricky thing to survey and especially in this kind of survey,” Dr Smith said.

‘Sensitive issue’
“And because it is a sensitive issue and people tend not to identify and it is something that people tend to be ashamed about pretty much.

“The survey was totally confidential, and we set it up so no one would who the respondents were.

“It was impossible to find out through the ANU programme we used.

“But the fact people did give some evidence then I think that we know that it is actually quite significant, and we assumed that the prevalence was quite higher.”

She said that she was not saying there were more incidents, but from media reports, particularly in Fiji, she had suspicions that it was higher than reported in the survey.

“We were responding to the fact that there were other news reports in Fiji we referenced, and there has been the other report by the UN (United Nations) women about it,” she said.

The report “Measuring the Shadow Pandemic – violence against women during Covid-19” was released by the UN in December 2021 and the Violence Against Women Rapid Gender Assessments (VAW RGA) were implemented in 13 countries spanning all regions — Albania, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, Nigeria, Paraguay, Thailand and Ukraine.

There was general support of national statistical offices (NSOs) or national women’s groups and funding from the policy and Melinda Gates Foundation, which found an incidence of 40 percent of reported domestic violence.

‘There in Pacific”
“So, we weren’t saying that it was more than in other countries, but we were saying it was there in the Pacific.

“It could be more, or it could be less but because the evidence had been already highlighted in Fiji, we were just picking up on that.”

AUSPS had specifically asked for it to be followed up because of “widespread murmuring” that domestic violence was occurring.

“My colleagues at USP had indicated they wanted to follow it up because they had heard that it was an issue for some women,” Dr Smith said.

In her recommendations she had suggested counselling for women and a safe space on campus, but she was unsure if it would be acted on.

Limited counselling
There was limited counselling available already and some had suggested that it should be done through religious denominations, she said.

She said internationally people had struggled with mental health issues during the pandemic, so it was common to all communities.

“There was a relatively high incidence in Fiji, and we reported the findings from the survey,” Dr Smith said.

Among the recommendations for support during isolation was the setting up of a helpline and regular calls from senior personnel and support staff.

She said even if this pandemic had passed there were other events like natural disasters, politics, and wars to be mindful of.

“Human-made or nature-made or the prevalence of other pandemics, we are basically saying the university should be prepared,” Dr Smith said.

The New Zealand government has announced a Royal Commission into its covid-19 response.

The Commission will be chaired by Australia-based epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, former Cabinet minister Hekia Parata, and former Treasury Secretary John Whitehead.

It will start considering evidence from February 1 next year, concluding in mid-2024.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid-19 response reports

The Royal Commission will look into the overall covid-19 response, including the economic response, and find what could be learned from it.

Some things — like particular decisions taken by the Reserve Bank’s independent monetary policy committee, and the specific epidemiology of the virus and its variants — will be excluded.

Announcing the moves, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a Royal Commission was the highest form of public inquiry in New Zealand and was the right thing to do given covid-19 was the most significant threat to New Zealanders’ health and the economy since the Second World War.

“It had been over 100 years since we experienced a pandemic of this scale, so it’s critical we compile what worked and what we can learn from it should it ever happen again,” she said.

Fewer cases, deaths
“New Zealand experienced fewer cases, hospitalisations and deaths than nearly any other country in the first two years of the pandemic but there has undoubtedly been a huge impact on New Zealanders both here and abroad.”

All mask wearing requirements in Aotearoa New Zealand — except in healthcare and aged care — will be scrapped, and household contacts will no longer need to isolate, the government confirmed today.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Covid-19 Response Dr Ayesha Verrall confirmed cabinet’s decision to scrap the Covid-19 Protection Framework — known as the “traffic light” system — and the majority of related public health restrictions.

The traffic light system will end tonight at 11.59pm.

• READ MORE: Other reports about NZ and the pandemic
• Covid-19 traffic light system, vaccine mandates and most mask requirements to end – the details
• Covid-19 update: 1149 new community cases, 225 hospitalisations and three in ICU
• Today’s covid health statistics

Today’s media briefing.    Video: RNZ News

They said the changes would include:

• Mask-wearing only required in healthcare and aged care: including hospitals, pharmacies, primary care, aged residential and disability-related residential care
• People who test positive for covid-19 must still isolate for seven days, but household contacts no longer required to provided they take a RAT test every day
• All government vaccine mandates to end on 26 September 26
• Removal of all vaccine requirements for incoming travellers and air crew
• Leave support payments to continue
• All New Zealanders over age 65, and Māori over age 50, to get automatic access to covid-19 antiviral drugs if they test positive for Covid-19
• From Tuesday, case and hospitalisation number reporting becomes weekly, not daily

Ardern said it marked a milestone in New Zealand’s response to the virus.

She said people may still be asked to wear a mask in some places but it would be at the discretion of those managing the location, not a government requirement. Vaccination requirements would also be at the discretion of employers.

‘Claim back certainty’
“Cabinet has determined that based on public health advice we are able to remove the traffic light system and with that decision claim back the certainty we have all lost over the last three years,” she said.

“For the first time in two years we can approach summer with the much needed certainty New Zealanders and business need, helping to drive greater economic activity critical to our economic recovery.

She said there was no question the actions of New Zealanders had saved thousands of lives, but the risks were changing.

“When we moved into our first lockdown the objective was simple: To save lives and livelihoods,” Ardern said.

“I’m sure there will be many who over the years will pore over the details of every nation’s response including ours. They’ll certainly measure the outcomes in different ways but when you look at countries of our size and compare them, they’ll find the tragic loss for instance of 15,500 people in Scotland and less than 2000 in New Zealand.

“The most recent health advice now tells us that with the lowest cases and hospitalisations since February, our population well vaccinated, and expanded access to anti-viral medicines, New Zealand is in a position to move forward.”

New Zealand could move on with confidence that its actions had successfully managed cases down, she said.

‘Never to be taken alone’
“This pandemic was never one to be taken on alone, and it never was. And so today I say again to everyone from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

“I know there will be those concerned by the changes made today. I can assure you that we would not make them if we did not believe we were ready but we also need to remember that not everybody experiences covid or its risk — including to our disability community — in the same way.

“That’s why isolating covid cases to protect our most vulnerable is important, and why treatment is too.”

She said she hoped it would be the first summer where the “covid-19 anxiety can start to heal”.

“As a nation, covid has hurt us in many ways but perhaps the one we talk about less than others is the toll it’s taken on everyone’s mental health. I see that toll — I see it in my colleagues, in my community in Tāmaki Makaurau, and especially I see it in our kids.

“I don’t want people’s wellbeing to be the price of covid, but it is going to take a concerted effort from us as government and others for that not to be the case.”

Ardern said one of the byproducts of the pandemic had been that New Zealand now have some of the most advanced mental health tools in the world, and the government had taken a number of steps to improve mental wellbeing support.

Two apps a highlight
This included two apps she highlighted for anyone who may need them: Groove and Habits.

Ardern finished her statement with a line from when New Zealand first went into lockdown: “‘For the next wee while, things will look worse before they look better’. It turned out to be true, things did get worse, things did get hard, but it’s also true that finally they will and can be better”.

Ardern said looking back, decisions were often being made with imperfect information but the decisions were made with the best intentions and she stood by it.

She said the government had been open to the idea of an independent inquiry into the response but was still getting advice about what that would look like.

“We do want to learn from this period and I think you’ll see that we’ve been taking that approach all the way through.”

Asked if it was the end of the covid response, Ardern said she hoped the change would give people huge confidence and optimism.

“We are moving on because this pandemic has moved on.”

The traffic light system used things like gathering limits but that was no longer fit for purpose, she said.

“We don’t need those extraordinary measures, so we won’t use them.”

Right time to remove ‘traffic lights’
Dr Verrall said New Zealand had succeeded in avoiding the devastation caused by the pandemic overseas, and now was the right time to remove the traffic light framework and begin a new approach to managing the virus.

“Together we have got through this with one of the lowest cumulative mortality rates in the world.”

She announced another 40,000 courses of antiviral medication had also been purchased and would be freely available to older New Zealanders.

“Anyone over the age of 65, and Māori and Pacific people over the age of 50, or anyone who meets Pharmac requirements, can access the treatment in the early stages of contracting the virus,” she said.

“This means more than double the number of New Zealanders will be able to access these medicines if they need them than previously.

She acknowledged that lessening the restrictions caused concern to disabled and immune-compromised people.

“I want to reassure those Kiwis that we are making these changes because risks are lower, in fact cases are more than 10 times lower than what they were earlier in the year and we now have layers of protections in place.”

She said the support was not ending and hoped that removing the remaining vaccine mandates would ease the staffing pressures disability services have been under.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

United States-based medical doctors have praised the Marshall Islands for an “unprecedented” response to its first covid outbreak, as the positive case numbers declined dramatically this week after a record-setting first two weeks.

“The Marshall Islands has exceeded most expectations to deliver testing and treatment for large numbers of people, and to provide care for those with covid,” said Dr Richard Brostrom, the US Centers for Disease Control Field Medical Officer who arrived in Marshall Islands last week to assist the Ministry of Health and Human Services.

Brostrom has been engaged in the US response in all US-affiliated islands, including most recently in the Micronesian states of Pohnpei and Kosrae.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the Marshall Islands covid outbreak

The Marshall Islands was seeing above 1000 positive cases daily last week, but those numbers dropped to the low hundreds by Monday this week as the omicron BA.5 variant appeared to peak and drop off quickly.

Last week, Johns Hopkins University, which tracks covid cases globally, reported that the Marshall Islands set a seven-day all-time record for the rate of positive cases of covid.

“But what the data also shows is a jurisdiction that is able to test, treat and provide access to healthcare,” said Dr Brostrom.

“BA.5 will behave the same everywhere,” he said. “The Marshall Islands had access points for people to get tested and treated, it was prepared and it handled thousands of people in a short period of time.”

14 died in two weeks
No deaths have been reported since last Friday. During the first two weeks, 14 people died of covid. The majority of the deaths were among people who were not vaccinated or partially vaccinated, the ministry reported.

Health authorities put the low number of deaths down to widespread use of PaxLovid, a five-day treatment that Dr Brostrom said was 90 percent effective in reducing symptoms of covid.

“The use of PaxLovid in Marshall Islands is appropriate, by the book, and unprecedented,” Brostrom said.

He said PaxLovid had been well used in all US-affiliated islands with covid. But uniquely in the Marshall Islands, more people sought healthcare and didn’t stay home when they got covid, he said.

“It was an opportunity for the Ministry of Health to deliver PaxLovid,” he said.

‘One of the best responses to this pandemic the world has seen’
Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal praised health workers and community volunteers for their response under pressure when more than 200 were initially sidelined by covid in the early days of the outbreak.

“As this current outbreak of covid-19 begins to lessen, the facts say, even with the complicated logistical issues and limited resources that we have in the Marshall Islands, and even though we have a very immuno-compromised population, we have had one of the best responses to this pandemic the world has seen,” said Niedenthal.

“Our goal from the beginning has been resolute: Let the science catch up to the virus, and now we are seeing the result of over two years of diligent prevention and preparation.”

Among unprecedented events in the Marshall Islands, Niedenthal said the nation was the “only country in the world to have been able to offer people of all ages vaccines before we had community spread of the virus”.

He added: “Our current fatality rate of 0.1 percent of covid-19 cases ranks as among the best in the world with only Palau having a similar fatality rate for this virus.”

Dr Brostrom was part of a “surge support medical team” involving CDC, WHO, Taiwan and other medical officials that arrived during the second week of the outbreak.

What the visiting doctors have seen in the first two weeks of the outbreak was “an amazing delivery (of services) that we haven’t seen elsewhere,” Dr Brostrom said.

Speed in setting up care sites
Dr Brostrom said the Ministry of Health’s speed in setting up the alternative care sites in the community was key to dealing with the BA.5 variant that is in Marshall Islands. BA.5 is milder in its effect than earlier variants but much more contagious.

“It is so fast that if you spend a week to get sites set up, you missed the boat.”

He said the country had seen a five-day surge in cases, a further five days at the peak number, and now five days of numbers dropping down.

“It is most certainly going down,” he said.

“It’s amazing to see how the Ministry of Health has responded — not just now, but for two and a half years,” said Dr Sheldon Riklon, one of two Marshallese US-trained medical doctors working at rural clinic in Majuro.

“The Marshall Islands has done well. The Ministry of Health leadership prepared the Marshall Islands for this.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

One year on from Aotearoa New Zealand’s longest covid-19 lockdown, an epidemiologist says further lockdowns cannot be ruled out, instead preparing to do them better.

On 17 August 2021, New Zealand went to alert level 4 because the deadly delta variant had arrived.

Aucklanders had no idea that day that they would still be in lockdown until December, and that after 18 months of trying to keep covid-19 out, it would be here to stay.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 update in NZ: 16 further deaths, 4489 new community cases
• Other NZ covid reports

The city was asked to hold the line so the country could get vaccinated, something critics said should have happened much earlier.

Auckland University epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson was vocal in urging the country to aim high and vaccinate more than 95 percent of eligible people.

Reflecting back, he said New Zealanders responded well, with most areas hitting that mark or higher by the measurements at the time.

Much had been learnt about the virus — and how to respond to it — since then, with the highly contagious but less harmful omicron variant changing everything at the start of this year, he said.

But the danger was not over.

Random severity of variants
“I think there are a lot of people who think, ‘oh look, it’s getting less severe over time so we’re fine,’ but it’s pretty random whether the next variant is going to be less severe or not,” he said.

Either way, it would need to be at least as spreadable as omicron to take over, he said.

The government has said lockdowns are not part of any future covid-19 plans, with the traffic light system taking its place.

But Professor Jackson said that may not “cut the mustard” if the worst happened.

“If we get a new mutation that is more severe, that kills more people, then we’ve got something huge to worry about,” he said.

“If that happens, if people start dropping dead in the street like the original version of covid, we will have little choice but to lock down.”

That was why the country still needed to be prepared for the worst, he said.

Frontline of delta outbreak
As an Auckland GP and co-leader of Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā, Dr Rawiri McKree-Jansen was at the frontline of the delta outbreak and lockdown and the vaccine rollout.

Some Māori and Pacific health teams had initially struggled to be given the resources they needed, or to be listened to.

The work they were able to do for their communities and the country showed what they were capable of and should be a lasting legacy, Dr McKree-Jansen said.

They were crucial to the vaccine roll out and helped the most vulnerable, especially those isolating.

“The mobilisation was impressive, relentless and co-ordinated,” he said.

“Those features are remarkable and give us a great sense of optimism about the contribution that Māori communities and Māori health professionals can make and I hope that is enduring.”

When it came to new variants, he said while it was important to be vigilant about what may come next, it was also important to focus on what was happening now.

“Omicron’s not done with us yet … I’m keen that we don’t forget the lessons we’ve learnt from the Delta and Omicron outbreaks – and supporting communities is fundamental to that.”

Both Professor Jackson and Dr McKree-Jansen acknowledged the people who had died since pandemic began, many more since the omicron outbreak that reached so many people.

But they said they were also grateful that many were protected by the lockdown and the vaccine rollout.

16 more people die
RNZ News reports that another 16 people with covid-19 have died and there are 4489 new community cases today, according to the Ministry of Health.

There are 496 people in hospital, 13 of them are in a high dependency unit

Yesterday the ministry reported another 21 people with covid-19 had died and there were 533 people in hospital, including 12 in intensive care or a high dependency unit.

Deputy Director-General and Public Health Agency head Dr Andrew Old told media this afternoon that modelling from Covid Modelling Aotearoa showed New Zealand was continuing to track at the lower end of what was expected in terms of a second wave this winter.

“We passed a peak in cases earlier that the modelling suggested and now hospitalisations are also declining suggesting these too have peaked. It’s sitting somewhere between 800 and 850 occupied beds across the country in late July,” he said.

Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand interim national medical director Dr Pete Watson said the recent drop in covid-19 cases was an encouraging trend.

“By each one of us sticking to public health measures we are making a difference,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the covid outbreak in the Marshall Islands a Public Health Emergency.

A total of 571 new omicron cases of the virus were recorded in the latest 24-hour reporting period.

Three people have died and more than 10 percent of the population in the capital Majuro have tested positive, according to the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health and Human Services.

• READ MORE: Marshall Islands covid spread demonstrates super variant
• Other Marshall islands public health reports

The WHO has declared the outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

All schools will be closed for the next two months, just one of the measures under the government’s disaster management plan.

The number of positive cases has skyrocketed from a handful on August 8 to more than 1000 by the weekend.

RNZ Pacific’s Marshall Islands correspondent Giff Johnson said the outbreak had led to staff shortages at many businesses.

“Everybody’s operation is affected. I went next door to buy some drinks and the owner is doing the cash register … all cashiers are out of action with covid. The Post Office had to close down because so many people came down with covid.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Marshall Islands is a live demonstration that the omicron BA.5 variant is the most contagious covid variant yet to appear.

In the first five days of the outbreak in the Marshall Islands, more than 10 percent of the population in Majuro, the capital, has tested positive, reports the Ministry of Health and Human Services.

From initial confirmation of a handful of positive cases in the community on August 8, the number of positive cases skyrocketed to the one-day total of 1064 testing positive on Saturday, August 13, at the three community-based “alternative care sites” established to test and treat local residents.

• READ MORE: Other public health reports in the Marshall Islands

This brings Majuro’s total in the wake of the outbreak to more than 2000 cases in a population estimated at 20,000. There were nine early hospitalisations, with most reported to be recovered by Sunday.

President David Kabua on Friday signed a proclamation of a “State of Health Disaster,” which outlines duties of all ministries and government agencies to respond.

It also gives the government the power to access emergency funding for the response to the initial outbreak.

Health authorities reported two deaths in the first week — both men. The first was a 23-year-old man, the second a 69-year-old.

Both pronounced dead
They were both pronounced dead on arrival at Majuro Hospital’s emergency room, Health officials said. Their vaccine status was not announced.

Majuro experienced a chaotic first couple of days as alternative care sites (ACS) were rolled out at two local schools and at an outdoor sports court, with thousands of islanders crowding in to get tested.

By Friday the influx of hundreds of volunteers to support the Ministry of Health and Human Service in managing the flow of people led to improvements in the service.

“What we are seeing at these sites is what we expected, the ACS sites are getting better and more organised as we go along,” said Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal Sunday.

“Much of the chaos is beginning to die down, though it is still there for sure, but this will continue to get better.”

Spread was not contained to Majuro Atoll, the capital. Within a day of the initial confirmation of positive cases in the Majuro community last Monday, the first case was identified on Ebeye, the densely populated community next door to the US Army’s Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll.

In addition, several isolated outer atolls at week’s end were reporting multiple residents with covid-like symptoms.

All remote island flights suspended
All flights on Air Marshall Islands and all government ships to remote islands were suspended August 9 in an effort to contain the spread. But travellers from the previous week to remote islands unwittingly caused the spread.

August 12, a special Air Marshall Islands flight took a health team to Wotje Atoll, confirming multiple positive cases, training the local health aide to conduct further testing, and leaving a supply of PaxLovid and other therapeutic medicines for islanders, according to health officials.

RMI COVID-19 Update eo in an 08-12-2022. pic.twitter.com/lsjjXfWVin

— V7AB Radio Marshall Islands (@v7abradio) August 11, 2022

Health teams were attempting to visit other remote islands for similar follow up Sunday, but all AMI pilots reportedly tested positive, putting flights in limbo.

Although the government did not require a lockdown, most churches cancelled in-person services Sunday and the one main road in the capital atoll was unusually quiet as people appeared to be staying home.

Restaurants also saw the number of customers decline dramatically, although most continued to see ongoing demand for takeout meals.

“We at the Ministry of Health and Human Services are very proud of the response that has come in from all corners of our country to help us deal with the health crisis,” said Niedenthal.

The ministry struggled in the initial phase of the outbreak with more than 200 of its staff, including many doctors and nurses, testing positive for covid — many exposed before they knew it was circulating in the community.

Covid-free success
Until last week the Marshall Islands had successfully employed some of the world’s strictest quarantine rules for people entering the North Pacific nation. This had kept it covid-free for the first two-and-a-half-years of the covid pandemic.

A reduction of quarantine time in recent weeks, coupled with unprecedented numbers of people coming in through the managed quarantine process is suspected to be the cause of the outbreak.

The government had earlier announced it was going to eliminate the managed quarantine requirement and open the borders on the October 1.

“As expected, the outbreak continues to gain strength,” Niedenthal said on Sunday.

“We had over 1000 cases in Majuro yesterday, almost double from the previous day. About 75 percent of the people we test are positive, which is an incredibly high positivity rate.”

Outbreak escalating
Last week, as the outbreak was escalating, Majuro traditional leaders sent a letter to President Kabua calling for the borders to be closed and opposing the announcement that medical teams arriving this week would not be required to quarantine.

The medical surge support teams are from the US Centers for Disease Control and other agencies. Niedenthal emphasised the importance for delivering services to the public by these medical professionals.

He described these as “boots on the ground medical support professionals” and said they would be tested on arrival and then sent right into the field to support ongoing services by local Health authorities.

“As a country we have moved from prevention to mitigation because we are now fighting this disease,” he said.

“The days of quarantine upon arrival are now over. I know some people are nervous about this, but we at the Ministry of Health are not and we are the ones on the frontline,” Niedenthal said.

“Please respect these public health decisions. We knew this would have to be a fast shift in strategy that would trouble some people because we had been working so hard (and) successfully to prevent the disease from coming into the Marshall Islands.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The P&O Pacific Explorer has docked in at Queens Wharf in Auckland from Sydney, the first cruise ship to arrive in Aotearoa New Zealand nearly two and a half years.

New Zealand Cruise Association chief executive Kevin O’Sullivan told RNZ First Up that being the first back in the country’s shores, it was a symbolic event for New Zealand.

“It’s going to be a very exciting day and it will be very exciting for the guests coming ashore as well.”

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘Cruising back to New Zealand and the Pacific will be ramping up over the coming months’

P&O spokesperson David Jones told Morning Report cruising back to New Zealand would be ramping up over the coming months.”

Twenty ships were due to dock in the country before Christmas, he said.

Its arrival also marked the reopening of cruising to the Pacific, with the ship on its way to Fiji next.

About 2000 people — including crew and 1200 passengers — were on board.

Below occupancy
‘We’re actually deliberately operating below occupancy because we’ve really only been back in business for a few months.”

“Cruising is the same but different,” he said.

“You’ve still got the same experience, the relaxation, being taken to great destinations but the changes are the protocols.”

The Pacific Explorer was based in Australia and followed Australian covid-19 rules, Jones said.

“The protocols are probably tighter than any land based environment.”

Passengers and crew need to be fully vaccinated, wear masks when they embark and disembark and when they cannot easily isolated on board.

If there was a covid-19 case onboard, the person and those occupying the same cabin would go into on board quarantine facilities, O’Sullivan said.

Up and running globally
Cruising had been up and running around the world for a long time, he said.

“We’re last really to get cruise ships back so all the hard work’s been done on the cruise ships a long long time ago and we’re getting the benefit of it.”

The last season before the pandemic arrived had an economic value of $550 million, and was on it’s way to being a billion-dollar industry, he said.

“For Auckland alone, the value of that last [truncated] season was around about $200 million.”

Retail NZ said the arrival of cruise ships was welcome news after the long winter of Covid-19.

The next cruise ship would arrive in October.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Protesters blocked roads in central Auckland this afternoon for the second time in two weeks, marching past the main entrance to the city’s hospital.

The Auckland motorway onramp used by protesters two weeks ago was closed ahead of another rally at the Auckland Domain today.

Aucklanders were warned to prepare for traffic disruption in the central city.

• READ MORE:  Covid-19 update: 25 further deaths in NZ, 4790 community cases, 648 in hospital
• Other NZ protest reports

The Brian Tamaki-led Freedom and Rights Coalition gathered at the Domain for a “Kiwi Patriots Day and March” before a crowd of about 1000 marched out onto the streets about 1.30pm.

After passing Auckland City Hospital and over the Grafton Bridge, the protesters turned up Symonds St, before heading down Khyber Pass Road past the closed on-ramp and back towards the domain, where the crowd dispersed.

Auckland City East Area Commander Inspector Jim Wilson said it was a “peaceful protest, which police monitored accordingly”.

He said while there were no arrests or incidents of note, a review phase in the coming weeks will determine if any follow-up action is required.

‘Balancing the safety … with protest’
“The police focus today remained on balancing the safety of all protesters and the public, while acknowledging the right to protest peacefully and lawfully,” he said.

“We note the activity did disrupt traffic in central Auckland where some motorway on and off-ramps were temporarily closed by Waka Kotahi to minimise further disruption.

“These have now reopened and there are no further network issues.

“We would like to thank the members of the public who deferred their travel through the affected areas today and acknowledge those that were inconvenienced.”

Counter-protesters were also in the area today.

Two weeks ago, about 1000 coalition members swarmed onto Auckland’s southern motorway, causing significant problems for traffic.

Ahead of today’s protest, Waka Kotahi closed both the Khyber Pass on/off-ramps — used by the protesters last time — and the Symonds St on/off-ramps, although these have now reopened.

Protesters were demonstrating over a range of anti-government issues, including against public health measures in response to the covid-19 pandemic.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Late last month, New Zealand Health Minister Andrew Little stated what most who work in health already know.

Healthcare is all about people – the people being cared for and the people doing the caring.

Population growth, ageing and a pandemic mean there is no shortage of those needing care, but in New Zealand and globally, there is a chronic shortage of healthcare workers.

• READ MORE: Nurses are leaving the profession, and replacing them won’t be easy
• A burnt-out health workforce impacts patient care

Little stopped short of calling it a crisis, but researchers and international agencies alike agree with a survey of New Zealand doctors that the health workforce is in crisis.

In 2016, the World Health Organisation (WHO) projected a global shortage of 18 million healthcare workers by 2030. That was before the covid-19 pandemic. Between 80,000 and 180,000 healthcare workers have died globally during the pandemic’s first 16 months, according to the WHO’s conservative estimate.

“Public statements from political leaders that there is ‘no crisis’ in the health system have seemed increasingly out of step with doctors’ experience over the past year” https://t.co/dXMhA38XIO

— Emma Espiner (@emmawehipeihana) July 11, 2022

Add to this the impact the pandemic has had on the mental health of frontline health staff, including reports of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a healthcare workforce seven times more likely to have severe covid and now carrying the burden of long covid.

It’s clear healthcare is no longer the attractive sector it once was.

A highly mobile workforce and a global shortage
Like the cost-of-living crisis, the health workforce shortage is not unique to Aotearoa New Zealand.

This year’s budget included NZ$76 million for medical training and primary care specialists, but doctors who started training this year will not be specialists until 2034.

Meanwhile, Labour’s solution is to undertake an international recruitment drive. It is hailing New Zealand as one of the easiest places in the world for healthcare workers to come to. But are our newly opened borders attractive enough?

Overseas recruitment drive for nurses gains ‘good response’ https://t.co/RZrM4fW67L

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) July 13, 2022

In my health economics lectures I often use an anecdote about the Indian doctor who gets a job in the UK (colonial ties and a multicultural society), the British doctor who moves to Canada (less administration and more family friendly hours), the Canadian doctor who moves to the United States (specialists have much higher earning potential), and the US doctor who undertakes missionary work in India.

This highlights two issues: the health workforce is highly mobile and employment isn’t always about money. Aotearoa New Zealand is competing in a global health workforce market, and minister Little recently acknowledged the health sector as “fiercely competitive”.

But this isn’t a new phenomenon for New Zealand.

The health workforce in New Zealand has one of the largest shares of migrant workers, with 42 percent of doctors and almost 30 percent of nurses foreign-born (second only to Israel and Ireland, respectively). This is much higher than the aggregate estimates showing one in six doctors practicing in OECD countries studied overseas.

The OECD estimates the number of foreign-born doctors and nurses in OECD countries has increased by 20 percent, twice the growth rate of the overall increase across the workforce. This is what is most concerning.

The health workforce is not equally distributed. Migration of workers from low- and middle-income countries to high-income countries like Aotearoa New Zealand is a real threat to achieving universal health coverage and sustainable development goals.

New Zealand needs to be mindful that promoting our open borders is not at the expense of under-performing health systems with much greater need.

Losing healthcare workers to Australia
Outflow is also a problem in New Zealand, with New Zealand-trained doctors and nurses crossing the Tasman every year. Add to this the international recruits leaving New Zealand for Australia and there most definitely is a health workforce crisis.

As our nearest neighbour, Australia is aggressively recruiting staff. And like pavlova and Phar Lap they are happy to claim what is ours as theirs. An easier route to citizenship and voting rights will make Australia even more desirable.

How can New Zealand compete in this market? Minister Little refers to encouraging New Zealanders to return home, including lifting their pay. Research shows it’s not all about income. Location and professional development opportunities are important factors when choosing career moves.

The healthcare reforms helped tempt me back to New Zealand after 22 years away. Perhaps working in a system which has equity as its focus may encourage those who are clinically trained to return as well.

There is considerable research to inform policies around retention and recruitment. The New Zealand Ministry of Health may wish to look to the UK, which was historically dependent on EU health and care workers and now has a health workforce depleted by both Brexit and the pandemic.

In the recent LSE-Lancet Commission on the future of the NHS, British scholars argued a sustainable workforce needed integrated approaches to be developed alongside reforms to education and training that reflect changes in roles and the skill mix, and more multidisciplinary working.

The LSE-Lancet Commission authors flagged the need for better workforce planning. New Zealand’s approach to workforce forecasting has also been criticised previously.

Planning aside, a possible solution worthy of discussion is the required skill mix of the workforce, particularly with technological advancements and changing health needs. For example, the introduction of non-medical prescribers has improved job satisfaction, released clinical time and increased patient access.

New Zealand’s once-in-a-generation health reforms offer a logical time to undertake workforce reforms. We need to learn from our own historical mistakes and avoid disconnecting the workforce from the policy reforms.

If minister Little and the ministry are to solve this, he will first need to admit there is a health workforce crisis.

Aotearoa New Zealand is unfortunately not alone in its quest to adequately staff healthcare, but the transformation of the health sector to create a more equitable, accessible, cohesive and people-centred system means New Zealand is uniquely placed to put those people who deliver care at the centre.

Dr Paula Lorgelly is professor of health economics, University of Auckland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

On Friday I watched Ashley Bloomfield’s last afternoon health update. After all we’ve been through over the past couple of years, and the major role he had in communicating to us and keeping us safe, I’ve got to say I felt a bit emotional.

The end not of an era, sadly the virus is still very much with us, but in a way a part of what has been one of the major events in all of our lives.

His humble, calm, well informed voice was a great antidote to some of the stupidity that we saw overseas in the early days of the pandemic, I’m looking at you America, but sadly we see more and more of that here in Aotearoa.

• READ MORE: Other Nick Rockel articles at Asia Pacific Report

Maybe it was always there; I guess you’d have looked pretty stupid slagging the guy off in the comments section two years ago.

Not anymore apparently.

I was going to include some of the negative comments here from during his last briefing to demonstrate how full of hatred, conspiracy theories, and misinformation these people are. But when I went back and looked at them they just made me feel sad and I decided I didn’t want to repeat any of them even to mock them.

Of course the poisonous hatred and stupid fuelled negativity aimed at Dr Bloomfield on social media is minor compared to the Tsunami of Bile frothed by those attacking Jacinda for things like — it being her Birthday the other day.

Rewinding back
Isn’t it reassuring to know we live among people who see red fury at people wishing the Prime Minister a Happy Birthday, or a Doctor giving medical advice?

What must celebrations be like at their place?

“Don’t say Happy Birthday to that little bastard he hasn’t even finished putting 100 pins in his Jacinda and Ashley dolls yet”

“C’mon Kev he is only four!”

But let’s rewind back to the beginning, the early days of the daily update…

We were listening to scientists not business people. The messages were clear about putting our lives, our family’s lives, and the lives of those around us in the community first; the message wasn’t filtered through what CEOs or corporate sponsors wanted.

We were told saving lives mattered, washing hands mattered, and commerce would just have to wait for once as much of it was put into an induced coma until it was safe to listen to business people, or certain politicians, again.

The cryogenic switch
And who was flicking that great cryogenic switch, who was saying “don’t go to work stay at home and chill, if you’re able work online in your underpants” as if some deadbeat mate you knew in high school had turned up to stay indefinitely.

It was Dr Bloomfield.

Who told us of each new outbreak, scientific break through, the vaccine rollout, or sadly life lost?

It was Ashley. I’m sure we can all remember certain updates, I particularly remember the spread in a West Auckland old peoples home, which wasn’t far from us and brought it very close to home.

The youngest member of our household would listen to the updates hoping there would be an increase in numbers, not too many he didn’t want people to be ill, but just enough to keep schools closed a bit longer. Funnily enough he was less enthusiastic about the restrictions applying to football and dance classes.

Dr Bloomfield called those making racist comments about people infected with covid “gutless” — could he have been any more awesome?

And who could forget the day we went to zero community cases – what a day! It was like we had won the World Cup except it was something that actually mattered.

The Vaxathon spirit
A little later there was the Vaxathon that made those of us of a certain age fondly remember Telethons of old. It even remarkably captured some of that same spirit in the age of everything on demand — or maybe it was just us oldies that thought so.

We had this guy telling it like it is, the Doc was giving it to us straight. Of interest especially to we middle aged white guys was the fact here was a guy capturing the nation who if push came to shove and he had to take to the dance floor he’d probably dance a lot like us.

So what turned people?

Was it the positivity, the being well informed and not putting up with any nonsense? He didn’t outright mock “alternative theories” but it was pretty clear what he thought of them.

Was it standing alongside The Prime Minister the two singing in unison how we could all be kind in our socialist utopia that put people first?

Was it having certain media people and opposition politicians finding any angle to criticize the approach we were taking and attacking Dr Bloomfield for his performance? I remember one of the reporters at a press conference even asked him if he should offer his resignation.

Or was it having a nerd tell them whether they could go out and play with their friends and their toys or not?

The silent majority
It struck me, as it often has looking at comments; surely the silent majority are decent people grateful for how well we have been served by Dr Bloomfield. Is it really possible that this many people are filled with anger and disinformation, or are they just the loudest and actually mainly fake?

We saw people opposing health measures increasingly of course. First they were anti the vaccinations, then anti the mandates that were there to keep people safe and could so easily be avoided with a little prick.

Now that life is by and large back to normal, albeit with a disturbing number of daily cases and deaths, they are anti any ongoing measures — anti the wearing of masks!

People who genuinely believe, or at least claim, that masks not only don’t inhibit the spread of disease but will actually say until they are blue in the face that masks make the spread worse!

The mind goggles. Imagine if the anti-mask crowd took that approach to other areas of life?

“Don’t you throw that water on me everyone knows it only makes being on fire worse!”

What else do people decide — meh I’ve been doing this a couple of years I can’t be bothered any more?

Seat-belt lessons
We didn’t decide a couple of years after seat-belts were introduced that, you know what, people are still dying in car accidents so I’m not wearing one any more — in fact if you do your research you’ll find seat-belts make car crashes more dangerous!

People don’t say you know when I’m driving home tonight in the dark I’m going to go with Natural illumination – the light from the moon. No more artificial illumination for me, everyone knows this has worked for thousands of years.

Walking on the footpath instead of the road or wearing a parachute jumping from a plane? Not for them, you can only hope they’re wearing condoms.

Have these people always been around? Will they always be like this? Is this Darwin at work?

Evolution is painful to watch.

For the rest of us Covid hasn’t actually gone away but could it be that some us are already looking back to the height of the pandemic, the lockdowns as inconvenient as they were on occasion, as a better simpler time?

Getting our priorities right
A time when we got our priorities right of family and caring for each that doesn’t always occur?

A time of people over profits – it was a bit of an adventure – it didn’t feel much like it queuing in the rain for groceries, but in hindsight….

Didn’t he do well – Ashley, there he was yesterday getting a standing ovation, still smiling, still calm – he really did us proud!

Thank you Dr Bloomfield, we will remember what you did.

Nick Rockel is a “Westie Leftie with five children, two dogs, and a wonderful wife”. He is the publisher of The Daily Read where this article was first published. It is republished here with the author’s permission.

The government of Niue has announced the country will move to covid-19 alert level red after it recorded nine new cases of the virus in the past 24 hours.

After recording its first cases of the virus in the community today, Niue’s government now says growing case numbers indicate community transmission is possible.

In a statement, Niue’s Minister of Health and acting Premier Sauni Tongatule said: “These cases are from different households and four of the cases are not linked to the border. This indicates the possibility of community transmission of covid-19.”

• READ MORE: NZ covid-19 update: 4238 new community cases, number of attributed deaths rises to 1502
• Other Pacific covid-19 reports

Tongatule announced the country would move immediately to its highest Covid-19 alert level but stopped short of an enforced lockdown

“Following the Niue National Covid Emergency Response Plan, where there are local cases that exist in the community, and with the high possibility of community transmission, we will move to Covid Alert Code Red. This will take effect immediately.

“However, there will be no lockdown in place as we take action to mitigate or minimise the impact of the disease in our communities as much as possible,” Tongatule said.

Close contacts and persons of interest associated with positive cases had been informed to get tested, he said.

Tongatule said Niue’s public service and essential government services would continue to operate.

He advised the public to limit their movement and interactions outside of their households this weekend and asked that they practice social distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene.

Director-General for Social Services Gaylene Tasmania said anyone with covid-19 symptoms should go to the drive-through testing service at the Niue Foou Hospital which will be open from 9am to 6pm local time tomorrow.

NZ covid-19 deaths top 1500
In Wellington, the New Zealand Ministry of Health reported today that the number of cases confirmed as attributable to covid-19 had risen above the 1500 mark, as 4238 new community cases were reported.

The ministry said in the statement that there were 1502 deaths confirmed as attributable to the coronavirus, either as the underlying cause of death or as a contributing factor.

It said the average increase in deaths each day attributable to covid-19 over the past week was now 19.

Another 23 deaths of people with covid-19 were also reported today.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

After guiding New Zealand through two and a half years of a pandemic, Dr Ashley Bloomfield’s time as Director-General of Health has come to an end.

We look back on some of the key moments during his time in the role:

• READ MORE: Dr Ashley Bloomfield steps down – he has earned his knighthood!
• Other reports on Dr Ashley Bloomfield

22 May 2018
Dr Ashley Bloomfield was named as the new Director-General of Health while he was serving as the acting chief executive of Capital and Coast District Health Board.

2019
The health system faced some big challenges in 2019. Dr Bloomfield fronted health responses to both a measles outbreak and the Whakaari/White Island disaster.

27 January 2020
“Kia ora koutou katoa, welcome to the Ministry of Health, thank you very much attending this briefing this afternoon. My name is Dr Ashley Bloomfield, I’m the Director-General of Health.”

After two and a half years of a pandemic, it is probably hard to remember a time when Dr Ashley Bloomfield needed to introduce himself.

Before New Zealand had its first case of covid-19, back when it was referred to simply as a coronavirus (WHO would name it covid-19 on 12 February 2020), Dr Ashley Bloomfield and Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay held a media stand-up.

Like most of the early briefings, it was held at the Ministry of Health.

It was two weeks after the first confirmed case outside of China had been identified and across the ditch, Australia had four cases. There had been 56 deaths worldwide.

28 February 2020
Almost exactly one month later, New Zealand’s first covid-19 case was confirmed in someone that had returned from overseas.

Reminiscent of a format we would come to know more intimately as time went on, the evening news would cut to a live press conference where Dr Bloomfield and then-Health Minister David Clark would provide more details of New Zealand’s first case. (Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was in Australia at the time.)

The following day, supermarkets would see a rush of customers buying up toilet paper, hand sanitiser and tinned food.

March 2020
We would start to hear a lot more from Dr Bloomfield as the second, third and fourth (who had been at a Tool concert) cases of covid-19 were confirmed in early March.

By the end of the month New Zealand would be in lockdown and Dr Bloomfield had become a daily part of our lives.

“It did feel a little bit like I was having a performance review at one o’clock every day, broadcast live on television. But that’s as it should be — your job is to ensure that we’re being held accountable for our response,” he said.

Daily cases had jumped to numbers in the eighties and the briefings had shifted to the Beehive, against a backdrop of yellow and white striped Unite Against Covid-19 branding.

On 29 March, during the 1pm briefing, Bloomfield would announce New Zealand’s first covid-19 death.

4 May 2020
“No new cases”. For the first time since New Zealand went into level 4 lockdown on 25 March, Dr Bloomfield announced there were no new cases of covid-19. It would be a phrase we would hear more of as the first community outbreak would start to slow.

And it evoked such emotion that “There are no new cases of covid-19 to report in New Zealand today” came second place in Massey University’s Quote of the Year.

August 2020
In an effort to encourage people to test for covid-19, Dr Bloomfield had his first covid-19 PCR test while filmed at a community testing site.

“It was much less painful than tackling Billy Weepu on the rugby field a couple of weeks ago.”

*Raises eyebrows
With millions of people stuck at home in isolation watching daily media briefings, it was no surprise that Dr Bloomfield would find himself in meme-territory.

This was Dr Bloomfield’s response when he was asked about 5G in 2020:

And a year later when Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said people should go outside and “spread your legs”.

Festival debut
Who would have thought Dr Bloomfield would grace the main stage at Rhythm and Vines festival?

December 2020
Dr Bloomfield was awarded the New Zealand Medical Association’s highest accolade — The Chair’s Award

17 August 2021
The prime minister announced another nationwide lockdown after a case, assumed to be the delta variant, was detected. That meant the 1pm briefings, and daily doses of Dr Bloomfield, were back too.

22 September 2021
As New Zealand tackled the delta outbreak, Dr Bloomfield broke the news that we may never get to zero cases of covid-19.

A portrait pie of Dr. Ashley Bloomfield. Photo: Supplied / Devoney Scarfe

October 2021
During Super Saturday, Dr Bloomfield was caught on camera busting a move at one of the community events.

Dr Ashley Bloomfield’s dance moves.

6 April 2022
Announced he was stepping down.

“It seems we’re at a good point in terms of the pandemic, the response is shifting, I’m also confident that the system is in good hands with the changes that are afoot, and most certainly my family will be very pleased to have a little more of my time,” he said.

May 2022
Dr Bloomfield tested positive for covid-19 while he was at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.

Professional history

• In May 2018, Dr Bloomfield was appointed the new Director-General of Health.
• Dr Bloomfield was the acting Chief Executive for Capital & Coast District Health Board from 1 January 2018.
• From 2015-2017, he was chief executive of the Hutt Valley District Health Board – the first clinician to lead the Hutt Valley District Health Board.
• In 2017 Dr Bloomfield attended the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme.
• Prior to becoming chief executive at the Hutt Valley DHB, Dr Bloomfield held a number of senior leadership roles within the Ministry of Health, including, in 2012, acting Deputy Director-General, sector capability and implementation.
• From 2012-15 he was Director of Service, Integration and Development and General Manager Population Health at Capital & Coast, Hutt and Wairarapa District Health Boards.
• From 1999-2008 he was a Fellow of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine. Since 2008 he has been a Fellow of the NZ College of Public Health Medicine.
• In 2010-2011 he was Partnerships Adviser, Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health at the World Health Organisation, Geneva.
• Dr Bloomfield obtained a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at the University of Auckland in 1990.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Federated States of Micronesia will reopen its international borders on Monday.

President David Panuelo said anyone wishing to travel will need to be fully vaccinated, including boosters, against covid-19 and have had a PCR test 72 hours prior to departure.

The moves comes despite the country discovering its first case of covid on July 19.

• READ MORE: Other covid-19 reports in the Pacific

Panuelo said community spread is increasing, and thousands of people are already infected.

In an address to the nation, he said he would soon issue a decree requiring everyone to wear masks in public places.

“I will require all persons who feel sick to get tested and to stay home,” he said.

“I will request that all citizens stay home unless it is essential for them to go to work, to go shopping, or to otherwise conduct necessary errands.”

Hard lockdown ruled out
But he has ruled out a hard lockdown to tackle the outbreak.

“The advice I have received from our Department of Health and Social Affairs is that the initial transition period from being covid-19 free to covid-19 infected will take about one to two months for each State.

“We will see cases rise, plateau, and then lowered in our country. Afterwards, we should be fully emerged into our new status of covid-19 protected.”

Starting on Friday, July 29, vaccines for infants aged between six months and four years old will be available across the country.

Panuelo said the FSM had “significant supplies” of the antiviral drug Paxlovid, and monoclonal antibodies to treat people.

“What is needed now is for all of us to work together in practising peace, friendship, cooperation, and love in our common humanity with each other,” Panuelo said.

“We need to get vaccinated. We need to get tested. And we need to stay home if we are sick or if our family is sick. These are dark days, but we will endure beyond them. The sun will rise tomorrow, and, God willing, we will adapt to and overcome covid-19.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Plans are underway to help Tokelauans stuck abroad, mostly in New Zealand and Samoa, to return home.

The general manager for the office of the Taupulega (council of elders) of the atoll of Nukunonu, Asi Pasilio, said borders had been shut for more than two years with the country maintaining its covid-19 free status.

Pasilio said no firm date had been set just yet because it depended on the reopening of Samoa’s border.

• LISTEN TO RNZ PACIFIC WAVES: Lydia Lewis’ story on Tokelau
• Tokelau family under house arrest for nearly a year over vaccine defiance

She said officials were working towards being ready for the first repatriation flight, with quarantine restrictions to take place in late August or early September.

“Currently in Nukunonu and Tokelau we are preparing for our first repatriation flight in a few years, mostly in New Zealand and Samoa,” she said.

“We have essential workers that need to return home. But to do that we need to prepare this by making sure we have the quarantine houses are well set up and the support for their arrival making sure that we have enough health staff to look after the quarantine services for when our people arrive.”

Family again refuses to get vaccinated
A family that has been under tunoa — effectively house arrest — on Nukunonu in Tokelau for the past 11 months has once again refused to get vaccinated.

Vaccinations are mandatory in Tokelau and local councils and village elders are making sure the rules are kept.

Mahelino Patelesio, his wife and two adult children, have been placed under tunoa, to protect the community.

He said it had been a struggle since they refused the vaccination and have been confined to their property on the beach.

Tokelau’s government says it was maintaining tough measures to keep the territory covid-free.

The Taupulega in Nukunonu has not ruled out loosening restrictions and the Patelesio family is expected to be discussed again next week.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The covid-19 pandemic has already generated its own mythology. In Britain, they talk of the “myth of the blitz” – the idea of a society that pulled together in the Second World War to withstand the bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe with pluck, bravery and humour.

In Australia, our covid-19 myth is about a cohesive and caring society that patiently endured lockdowns, border closures and other ordeals. Like many myths, ours has some foundation in reality.

It might be a poor thing when considered alongside wartime Britain’s wartime sacrifices, and you have to ignore the empty toilet paper shelves in the local supermarket, but it still has its own force. It might be especially potent in Melbourne, where the restrictions were most severe and prolonged.

• READ MORE: We lost the plot on covid messaging – now governments will have to be bold to get us back on track
• Grattan on Friday: Albanese needs to step up (and mask up) to help create a new mindset to meet the covid crisis

The covid-19 myth is now presenting its puzzles to true believers. If you imagined we all pulled together for the common good, and because we have the good sense to look after our own health, you are likely to find it strange that we are now apparently prepared to tolerate dozens of deaths in a day.

Australia’s total covid death toll is now above 11,000 – New Zealand’s has topped 2000.

More than tolerate: there has been a preparedness to pretend nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

All of this seems a far cry from those days when we hung on the daily premiers’ media conferences and experienced horror as the number of new infections rose above a few dozen a day, a few hundred, and then a thousand or so. Have our senses been blunted, our consciences tamed?

A product of power
Public discourse is never neutral. It is always a product of power. Some people are good at making their voices heard and ensuring their interests are looked after.

Others are in a weak position to frame the terms of debate or to have media or government take their concerns seriously.

The elderly — especially the elderly in aged-care facilities — have carried a much larger burden of sacrifice than most of us during 2020 and 2021. They often endured isolation, loneliness and anxiety.

They were the most vulnerable to losing their lives — because of the nature of the virus itself, but also due to regulatory failure and, in a few places, gross mismanagement.

Aged Care Minister Anika Wells has provided @abcnews with new details on COVID cases in residential aged care homes:

983 current outbreaks
6000+ residents infected
3250 staff are positive

ADF support for aged care homes will be continued until the end of September.

— Henry Belot (@Henry_Belot) July 24, 2022

Casual and gig economy workers, too, struggle to have their voices heard. On his short journey to an about-face over the question of paid pandemic leave, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at first said the payment was unnecessary because employers were allowing their staff to work from home.

Yet the conditions of those in poorly paid and insecure work have been repeatedly identified as a problem for them as well as for the wider community, because they are unable easily to isolate.

Up to his point, however, our democracy has spoken: we want our pizzas delivered and we want to be able to head for the pub and the restaurant. And we are prepared to accept a number of casualties along the way to have lives that bear some resemblance to those of the pre-covid era.

The “we” in this statement is doing a lot of heavy lifting. There is a fierce debate going on about whether governments — and by extension, the rest of us — are doing enough to counter the spread of the virus.

Political leadership matters
Political leadership matters enormously in these things.

In the years following the Second World War, Australia’s roads became places of carnage, as car ownership increased and provision for road safety was exposed as inadequate. It peaked around 1970, with almost 3800 deaths — more than 30 for every 100,000 people.

Road fatalities touched the lives of many Australians. If not for the death of my father’s first wife in a vehicle accident on New Year’s Day in 1954, I would not be around to write this article today.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the coming of mandatory seatbelt wearing and random breath-testing helped bring the numbers down. Manufacturers made their cars safer.

Public campaigns urged drivers to slow down and stay sober. These were decisions aimed at avoiding avoidable deaths, despite the curtailment of freedom involved.

A British seat belt advertisement from the 1970s.

These decisions were also in the Australian utilitarian tradition of government, “whose duty it is to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number” – as the historian W.K. Hancock famously explained in 1930.

The citizen claimed not “natural rights”, but rights received “from the State and through the State”. Governments made decisions about how their authority could be deployed to preserve the common good and protect individuals — from themselves as well as from others.

Pragmatic position
Governments have during the present surge so far been willing to take what they regard as a pragmatic position that the number of infections and fatalities is acceptable to “the greatest number”, so long as “the greatest number” can continue to go about something like their normal lives.

But this utilitarian political culture also has its dark side. It has been revealed persistently throughout the history of this country — and long before anyone had heard of covid-19 — as poorly equipped to look after the most vulnerable.

The casualties of the current policy are those who have consistently had their voices muted and their interests set aside during this pandemic — and often before it, as well.

These are difficult matters for governments that would much prefer to get on with something other than boring old pandemic management. The issue is entangled in electoral politics — we have just had a federal contest in which major party leaders studiously ignored the issue, and the nation’s two most populous states are to hold elections in the next few months.

Governments also realise that restrictions and mandates will meet civil disobedience.

But covid cannot be wished away. At a minimum, governments need to show they are serious about it to the extent of spending serious money on a campaign of public information and advice on issues like mask-wearing and staying home when ill.

They usually manage to find a sufficient stash of public money ahead of each election when they want to tell us what a beaut job they’ve been doing. They might now consider whether something similar might help to save lives.

Dr Frank Bongiorno is professor of history, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Samoa’s Ombudsman Luamanuvao Katalaina Sapolu says the human rights effects from the covid-19 pandemic have been catastrophic.

She has just submitted Samoa’s eighth State of Human Rights Report to Parliament.

Luamanuvao said that over the past two years families had lost loved ones, businesses suffered, unemployment rates increased, and freedom of movement was restricted.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific covid-19 reports

She said there had also been a grave impact on children’s right to education, and the right to health continues to be challenged with resources stretched to the maximum.

But she said human rights principles continued to play an important role in addressing discrimination and inequality and providing inclusion of everyone in the prevention of, and recovery from covid-19.

The report provided an analysis of the impact of the pandemic and government measures on the rights and freedoms of Samoans, especially on the most vulnerable groups.

The report also included recommendations for the government to ensure its covid-19 measures were consistent with the constitution, domestic laws, and policies safeguarding human rights, as well as Samoa’s international human rights obligations.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A prominent New Zealand epidemiologist is calling for much wider mask mandates, saying the roll-out of free masks, while positive, will make a “fairly small” difference to the covid-19 outbreak.

The government yesterday announced masks and rapid antigen tests would be made freely available while the country battled a resurgence of covid-19 and other winter illnesses.

University of Otago’s Professor Michael Baker told RNZ News much more was required to prevent the worst outcomes of a “really grim winter”.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 update: 11,382 new community cases and 23 further deaths
• Other covid-19 reports

“We are missing the fundamental measure to stop sharing this virus widely and that is universal mask use indoors.”

23 more deaths
The Ministry of Health reports there were 11,382 new community cases of covid-19 yesterday and a further 23 deaths with the virus.

In a statement, the ministry said a child less than 10 years old had died, while five other people who died were in their 70s, nine were in their 80s and eight were aged over 90. Of these people, 11 were women and 12 were men.

All the deaths being reported occurred in the past seven days, the ministry said.

That takes the total number of publicly reported deaths with covid-19 to 1760 and the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 20.

Dr Baker said New Zealand needed to shift to becoming a “mask-using society”, which he believed could be achieved only through mandating their use in most indoor environments.

“The very ad hoc approach to requiring mask use is eroding the social licence for them,” Dr Baker said.

“You go to one social event, and everyone’s wearing a mask, and so you feel comfortable. Next day, you go to a different one, and no one’s wearing a mask, except you, and that feels a bit odd. We need to get rid of those inconsistencies.”

Fear of political backlash
Dr Baker said he believed the government had opted for a greater focus on personal responsibility for fear of a potential political backlash.

“Unfortunately, we’ve politicised this issue too much and politics is starting to take over from the science.”

But, speaking to RNZ Checkpoint, Covid-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall said it was “not simple” to implement mask mandates.

“It impacts the running of many businesses and we need people to take a pragmatic approach to this.”

Dr Verrall said, however, she would encourage everyone to wear a mask while indoors as much as possible.

She rejected the suggestion the government’s approach to tackling rising covid-19 cases was based on politics over health.

Dr Verrall would not say if the predicted peak of 1200 hospitalisations a day would be a crisis, but said the government was doing everything it could to avoid the scenario playing out.

‘Real health pressures’
“I think it’s really important we respond to the very real pressures in our health system, and I’ve been in close contact with healthcare workers, as well as following the statistics we get to make sure we know what the facts are, and that we respond to them and fix the problems that exist,” she said.

“A lot of what we set out today is designed to do that.”

Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono said the development was “about time”, but he would have liked to see masks made mandatory in schools.

“We’re all over it, we’re all tired… but it’s just no excuse to drop the ball because here’s the thing: there are people still in hospital, people dying from covid,” he said.

“The numbers are going up and we are in the middle of winter, so what we need here is that leadership.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Former Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins says his apology to journalist Charlotte Bellis does not extend to the Aotearoa New Zealand government’s MIQ system generally.

Bellis, a New Zealand journalist based in Afghanistan at the time, had gone public in January with her struggle to secure a spot in the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) hotels while pregnant.

Hipkins publicly apologised to her in a statement this morning, admitting her MIQ application was deactivated in error and some of his comments about her case had been wrong.

• READ MORE:  Chris Hipkins apologises to Charlotte Bellis for comments on MIQ application
• Other MIQ reports

He later told reporters there was no settlement payment involved, and both parties wanted to leave the matter behind them.

“We’ve concluded the matter. I’ve conveyed to her privately and now publicly my apology and she’s indicated she wants to leave it at that — and I’m happy to do that too,” he said.

“Right at the beginning, clearly there were a few things that got lost in communication, lost in translation. I do regret that and so my apology in that sense is a very genuine one.”

Hipkins was removed from the covid-19 portfolio just over a week ago, taking over police instead, with Dr Ayesha Verrall taking over the pandemic response.

Timing of the apology
He said the timing of his apology to Bellis had been agreed with her.

“She indicated that’s the timing that she wanted,” he said. “Obviously it would have ideally been better to have had this done before I gave up the covid portfolio rather than the week after, but ultimately MIQ’s been winding down now since February so I think everybody’s moved on from it.

“She indicated that she wanted something more public. I was happy to do that, it took a little bit of time to negotiate that and to get all of that ironed out.”

The National and ACT parties urged the government to also apologise over the handling of MIQ generally.

National’s Covid-19 Response spokesperson Chris Bishop said if Hipkins could apologise to Bellis, “then the government can surely apologise to all the Kiwis caught up in the lottery of human misery that was MIQ”.

“The High Court has found that MIQ unjustifiably breached New Zealanders’ rights from September to December 2021. The government should do the right thing and apologise for the way MIQ operated,” he said.

“There are countless other examples that haven’t hit the headlines. Other pregnant women who couldn’t return home. Kiwis trapped offshore who watched their visas expire in the countries they were in. People who missed the deaths of cherished loved ones and the birth of new lives.”

‘Caught out spinning’
ACT leader David Seymour said the government was not apologising for the misery its policy caused, just getting caught out spinning it.

“The government has rightly apologised for spreading misinformation about a citizen’s personal circumstances, now it should apologise for running MIQ selection so inhumanely and running it four months longer than necessary at enormous cost to the taxpayer and economy,” he said.

He said then Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield had advised MIQ was no longer necessary in December last year, and the government should be apologising for the $178 million it cost to maintain through to March.

“Included in that period was Charlotte Bellis’ repeated failed attempts to get a spot, forcing her to seek refuge with the Taliban,” he said.

Hipkins said they were very different matters.

“In this particular case there were some aspects of the information that I released that were incorrect and so I absolutely have acknowledged that and have apologised for that. In terms of MIQ I will maintain — and the courts in fact have maintained — MIQ was absolutely justified,” he said.

“What the court did find … the way we allocated space in MIQ wasn’t right. We tried a number of different things during that time to try different booking systems, to try and make that system fairer.”

Not contesting court ruling
He said he acknowledged the court’s ruling and was not contesting it, but repeated that the system as a whole was justified.

“Were MIQ ever to have to happen again in the future then those responsible for it would have to find a different way of allocating space within MIQ — but MIQ itself was absolutely justified.

“It’s the reason that we were able to go as long as we did without having covid-19 in the community.

“It’s also the reason why over the summer break, people managed to have a summer break and were able to have that opportunity to get their boosters before omicron arrived in the community.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Although Fiji was unaffected by the first wave of covid-19, its tourism sector — the lifeblood of the economy — has been devastated by border closure across the world due to the pandemic in the past two years.

Thus, when the Fijian Tourism Expo (FTE) returned after a break of two years, Fiji Tourism’s CEO Brent Hill was in an upbeat mood, especially because they have been able to attract more than 500 participants to the Expo in these competitive times for the travel industry.

But, having experienced the vulnerabilities, sustainability was very much in focus during presentations at the event here.

• READ MORE: Other Fiji tourism reports

In 2022, Tourism Fiji comes with a vision to “inspire the world to come and experience Fiji — where happiness finds you” and our purpose is to “ensure that Fiji is promoted and marketed as a tourist destination for the purpose of maximising sustainable and long terms benefits to Fiji”, said Hill, in presenting a brief overview of their past achievements and their two-year strategic plan to the FTE.

The 8th FTE was held on May 11-13 at the luxury Sheraton Beach Golf and Spa Resort near Nadi, the gateway to Fiji where its international airport and many tourist resort islands are located.

The three-day event attracted more than 88 exhibiting companies, 90 buyers and 10 media delegates eager to learn the strategic plan Tourism Fiji has set for the small island nation.

The semi-government agency was supported by Fiji’s Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport and was declared opened by Minister Faiyaz Koya, who highlighted the negative impact of covid on the tourism industry.

‘Guided by robust policies’
“During this time, we were guided by robust policies that led to our border re-opening,” he said in his opening address.

“Our out-of-work tourism workers were among those supported by half a billion dollars (US$230 million) in direct and indirect assistance paid by the Fijian government. We took the last two years as an opportunity to re-invest.

“From upgrading our tourism facilities and renowned hospitality, to piloting new products.”

Hill’s presentation at the FTE highlighted that during the pre-pandemic period, the tourism sector represented 38 percent of the Fijian economy bringing in 36.5 percent employment making up over 118,000 jobs in a population of just over 896,000.

In 2019, the overseas visitor economy in Fiji was worth F$3 billion (US$1.37 billion) and had attracted 960,000 international arrivals, mainly from Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the United States.

Fast forward two years later into the post-pandemic period, the plan of tourism Fiji is to increase the visitor economy to F$3.37 billion.

Also, a high end goal of attracting 1 million international visitors by 2024 has been set. Hill highlighted that the two year strategic plan, 2022 to 2024, was strategised after consultations were done by meeting with tourism industry and also seeking people’s feedback on what Tourism Fiji’s priorities should be.

Six key priorities
From these consultations, they have pulled out six key priorities for the two year plan.

Sustainability is a key ingredient of the plan that includes shaping perceptions of Fiji, promoting the value of tourism to Fiji and enabling an efficient, high performing and innovative team to take the industry forward.

“For Tourism Fiji, it is very important as an organisation that we set our values. As a team, we really wanted to identify the core of who we are as a true Fijian and I’m very proud of the values that we actually came up with as a team and we want to make a difference,” said Hill.

Citing data from the global benchmarking agency Smith Travel Research (STR), Hill said that in 30 of Fiji’s key hotels that accounts for about 8500 rooms, the occupancy was running at 20 percent levels.

“That is a stunning rebound recovery and not to be sneezed at,” he points out, adding, “I know that there is dozens of tourism organisations around the world that would be begging to have their occupancy at those kinds of levels.”

Many of the exhibition booths at the FTE represented luxury boutique type resorts in small “paradise” islands that surround Fiji’s main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu.

Many of these islands are so small that it may include just the resort which is usually privately owned (leased from traditional land owners).

Resort occupies whole island
One such resort is Beachcomber Island, just 17 km and 40 minutes by fast ferry from Port Denarau, the site of the Expo.

The resort occupies the whole of the privately owned 8 ha island, where staff works on a 21 day shift followed by 7 days leave to go back to “civilisation”. The resort which is very popular with foreign tourists was closed from 20 March 2020 until April 1 this year.

The resort manager, Nemia Merani, that she had to keep a skeleton staff of 5 during this time to help maintain its facilities, even though they had no income coming.

Pre-pandemic they used to employ 50-60 staff but now they only have 15-20 staff on the island.

“People from overseas are still hesitant to come,” she said. “Things that help us are day visitors not only weekends but weekdays too.

“We are selling to locals everyday. During the weekend we have a surge in numbers and after this we go right down again.”

Ironically, this resort was too expensive for local tourists pre-pandemic but the prices have been reduced for locals now.

‘Overseas visitors slowly picking up’
“Overseas visitors — especially from Australia — are slowly picking up and if that continues we will survive,” Merani said optimistically.

From presentations made at the Expo, the pandemic has also raised awareness among tourism operators here about the sustainability of the industry and the need to tap into local resources much more.

Even the five-star Sheraton hotel where the Expo was held made a special presentation on how they are developing a supply chain of local farmers feeding into their menus.

Since the borders were opened on December 1 last year, according to government figures, 119,000 tourists have arrived in Fiji, with 46,000 coming in April alone.

“I believe that we can work together collectively for providing the value of tourism to Fiji,” argues Hill pointing out the networking that took place here.

“Part of that is that we need to continue to tell the story of tourism and tell the story of what it is that we’re all about.”

Sheryl Lal and Akansha Narayan are final year journalism students at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. This story ror In-Depth News was initially published in USP’s student journalism newspaper Wansolwara. Both IDN and Wansolwara collaborate with Asia Pacific Report.

Aotearoa New Zealand has reported 9570 new community cases of covid-19 and a further 32 deaths today, bringing total publicly recorded deaths with the coronavirus 1017.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said the total number of deaths was up by 31 from yesterday as they had removed a case which had been previously reported twice.

“This case was initially reported on March 10. The deaths being reported today include people who have died over the previous six weeks, since April 5.”

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid outbreak reports

The seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 17.

“Of the people whose deaths we are reporting today; two people were from Northland; nine from the Auckland region; two from Bay of Plenty; two from Taranaki; one from Tairawhiti; four from MidCentral; two from Hawke’s Bay; three from the Wellington region; one from Nelson-Marlborough; four from Canterbury and two from Southern.

“One person was in their 20s; four people were in their 40s; two in their 50s; four in their sixties; nine in their 70s; nine in their 80s and three were aged over 90.

“Of these people, 10 were women and 22 were men.”

The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers is 8024 — last Wednesday it was 7533, the ministry said.

It said there are 425 people in hospital, including nine in ICU.

Yesterday, the ministry reported 9843 cases and eight deaths.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Striking New Zealand health workers have picketed around the country, saying they are fed up with being underpaid and undervalued.

About 10,000 allied health staff who work at district health boards have walked off the job for 24 hours, with rolling demonstrations.

They are health workers who are not doctors or nurses.

• READ MORE: Other NZ public health reports

One of the first pickets has been outside Hutt Hospital, with workers chanting and holding signs, and getting lots of beeps of support from passing cars.

Social worker Lorraine Tetley said her team was losing social workers to higher paid jobs in the public sector.

Those left behind felt undervalued, she said.

“They’re essential workers who work on the frontline during the pandemic. Every day we work with risk and we work with vulnerable families and we’re not paid fairly for the work we do,” she said.

Working hard under covid
Dental therapist Char Blake said they had been working really hard, especially after the lockdown and covid restrictions.

“We love caring for patients but is just really hard to pay for things with the price of things going up and we’ve waited 18 months for a pay rise,” Blake said.

Her service was six people short, and in danger of losing more.

“It can be quite stressful at times — we have to do more than we are supposed to at times. We don’t want to let our patients down,” she said.

Jane McWhirter tests newborn babies’ hearing and says she is earning the same amount as her 16-year-old daughter who works at Dominoes Pizza.

She says even though she is training on the job, she is doing important, skilled work and she and her colleagues deserves better.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Her daughter Neve tested positive on Wednesday, she added in the post. Her partner Clarke Gayford tested positive on Sunday.

“Despite best efforts, unfortunately I’ve joined the rest of my family and tested positive for covid-19,” Ardern wrote on social media.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 update: 29 deaths, 7441 new cases in New Zealand

Reports of her covid status follow a statement yesterday by Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield that thousands of new cases of covid-19 were being reported every day in New Zealand, but this was likely to be half of the number of actual cases.

With a further 29 deaths with covid-19 and 7441 new cases yesterday, Dr Bloomfield said the impact of the severity of omicron was still visible.

Prime Minister Ardern has been symptomatic since Friday night, according to a statement, and has “moderate” symptoms. She returned a weak positive Friday night and a clear positive this morning on a RAT test.

Ardern will be required to isolate until the morning of Saturday May 21.

Missing the Budget
Ardern, who has been isolating since Gayford tested positive, will now have to miss the Budget announcement on Thursday and the release of the government’s Emissions Reduction Plan on Monday.

“There are so many important things happening for the government this week,” she wrote.

“I’m gutted to miss being there in person, but will be staying in close touch with the team and sharing some reckons from here.

“To anyone else out there isolating or dealing with covid, I hope you take good care of yourselves!”

Ardern’s upcoming travel to the United States, scheduled for late May, will go ahead as planned at this stage. She is scheduled to give the commencement speech at Harvard University on May 26.

Former Labour Party president Mike Williams hopes she will be well enough to travel.

“After two years of isolation, internationally she’s a rock star attraction, and it does the country a hell of a lot of good to get her out and about.”

Williams said Ardern, 41, was young and fit, so should be fine.

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson will take the post-cabinet press conference on Monday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

New Zealand reported 7970 new cases of covid-19 in the community and 28 further deaths today, a day after cases in the country topped one million.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said 381 people were in hospital with covid-19, compared with 368 people in its previous update yesterday.

There are 10 people in ICU.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid reports

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed today that the border would fully reopen from the end of July — three months earlier than planned, including for cruise ships and international students.

It was also announced that visitor visas from the Pacific Islands would open online from Monday, May 16.

The Health Ministry said the seven-day rolling average of reported deaths was 15.

Of the 28 deaths reported today, two people were from Northland, five from Auckland, three from Waikato, three from Bay of Plenty, two from Whanganui, three from the Wellington region, four from the Canterbury region and six from Southern.

One was in their 40s, one in their 50s, two in their 60s, eight in their 70s, 11 in their 80s, five in their 90s.

Eighteen were men and 10 were women.

Yesterday, New Zealand recorded more than one million cases of covid-19 since the pandemic began. New Zealand’s population is 5 million.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Wearing glasses or getting a runny nose is enough to qualify for a mask exemption under current New Zealand’s Ministry of Health criteria — and a doctor says its time for tougher rules.

Hearing aids, hayfever or a tendency to get dry eyes are also reasons to request the legally binding card that says you do not need to wear a mask when normally required to under covid-19 rules.

Some doctors say the reasons are far too loose, with people simply needing to tick just one of the symptoms on the ministry’s website list to get an exemption card sent to them.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘I want masks to be legitimate and used and trusted’ — Medicine specialist Dr Gary Payinda
• ‘It’s very clear that masks work and it’s very clear you can get sufficient fresh air through them’ – Covid-19 modeller Dr Dion O’Neale
• Facemask exemption criteria

Northland medicine specialist Dr Gary Payinda said the card was a great idea for people who had legitimate reasons for not wearing a mask.

But the current list of criteria was so wide it was absurd — almost everyone in the country would qualify, he said.

“If we’ve made it so easy that literally anyone can click a box and say I have a ‘condition’ … we really have to ask is it still a public health measure.”

With so many other measures relaxed, masks were one of the last lines of defence against the virus, and so everyone who could wear one, should be, he said.

Compromising public health measures
He told RNZ Morning Report that compromising one of the most effective public health measures was not doing the community a good service.

“We want the right people to be protected by this law and we want masks to still be a meaningful way of reducing the burden of covid in the community.”

“If we make an exemption process so easy to get that it’s meaningless, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.

“I want masks to be legitimate and used and trusted, and that won’t be the case if anyone can literally tick the box and say, ‘face coverings give me a runny nose’ and that’s enough to get a mask exemption.”

The criteria have come under scrutiny as the government changes the process for getting a mask exemption card.

Until now, cards were issued by the Disabled Persons Assembly but the new ones are issued by the Ministry of Health and have legal standing.

They are intended for people to show to shops or other businesses so they do not have to explain potentially sensitive reasons why they may have an exemption.

The ministry said it had tried to make the process for applying for a card uncomplicated to avoid marginalising vulnerable communities.

Small minority misuses system
The vast majority of New Zealanders had shown they wanted to do the right thing to protect their communities and only a small minority had tried to misuse the system, it said.

A spokesperson indicated the criteria may be changed as the new card comes into effect but was not able to respond with more details before RNZ’s deadline.

Existing cards, issued with the current criteria, can still be used when the new ones come into effect.

The Disabled Persons Assembly welcomed the new card system, telling Midday Report the old system had been causing distress for some in the disabled community.

Prudence Walker said people had not been believed, refused service or had the police called on them.

She hoped the new card would improve things.

Dr Payinda said there were many good reasons — because of both physical and mental health — that people could not wear masks and he supported them doing that but the current list was open to abuse.

Current criteria wideranging
The current criteria for requesting a card according to the Ministry of Health website include having the following conditions if they make wearing a mask difficult: asthma; sensitive skin or a skin condition like eczema; wearing hearing aids; getting migraines, having glasses, dry eyes or contact lenses; hay fever; difficulty breathing; dizziness, headaches, nausea or tiredness; a runny nose from wearing a face covering; a physical or mental illness, condition or disability.

Needing to communicate with someone who is deaf or hard of hearing is also one of the criteria.

Covid-19 modeller Dr Dion O’Neale said attempting to force those who were adamantly opposed to masks to wear one wouldn’t be effective.

“If they want to be difficult about it they’ll manage to tick the box and say I’m wearing it, and wear it badly.”

Most people did want to protect themselves and those around them, so it was important to keep the messaging clear on how masks work and when to wear them, he told Morning Report.

“It’s physics. The mask, if it’s well fitted, it’s going to be filtering out small particles. If those particles are viruses you’re not going to be infected by them, or if you’re breathing in a much smaller number of those particles you’re going to have a much lower exposure dose, so your infection risk is much lower.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Cook Islands has reported the country’s first covid-19 pandemic death.

The 63-year-old woman died on the way to hospital on the island of Aitutaki, Prime Minister Mark Brown said in a statement posted on Facebook.

“It is with great sadness that I announce that we have recorded our first in-country death attributed to covid-19,” Brown said.

• READ MORE: First covid-related death recorded in Cook Islands
• Covid-19 update: 5662 new community cases, nine further deaths reported in New Zealand

“The deceased was a 63-year-old woman on the island of Aitutaki.

“She had had all three anti-covid vaccinations, but also had several serious underlying health conditions.”

“It is tragic, but not unexpected that we might lose someone to covid.

“I, together with Te Marae Ora [Ministry of Health], am sending our condolences to the family who have just lost a loved one, our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time and the people of Aitutaki.”

4727 total cases
Rarotonga reported 73 new cases of covid-19 in the 24 hours to this morning, while Aitutaki reported 43 cases.

The Cook Islands has had a total of 4727 cases, 3990 of whom have recovered.

The islands had their first case of covid-19 detected only in February, far later than much of the world.

The Cook Islands News reports that Health Secretary Bob Williams warned: “While most cases can be treated at home if matters deteriorate, people should not hesitate to seek medical attention.

“Earlier intervention might have prevented this tragedy.

“This is a very serious illness which has claimed many millions of lives around the world. covid-19 can be a deadly disease — particularly for elderly people, and those with underlying pre-existing health issues.

“I want to reinforce our plea to people to take the precautions we’ve been talking about for the last two years.

“Sanitise, wear a mask and get tested or to quickly alert the covid-19 response teams on each island should you develop symptoms.”

In New Zealand, the Ministry of Health today reported 5562 new community cases of covid-19 — the lowest in two months — with nine further deaths, taking the total to 674.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

In a recent article (Weekend Herald, April 16) John Roughan wrote that the covid-19 pandemic has been an anticlimax in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Surprisingly, he acknowledges covid-19 has killed about 25 million people worldwide, so hopefully he was referring to New Zealand’s 600 deaths. He goes on to ask how many lives we in New Zealand have saved and states that it’s “not the 80,000 based on modelling from the Imperial College London that panicked governments everywhere in March 2020”.

I beg to differ. It is because governments panicked everywhere that the number of deaths so far is “only” about 25 million.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid outbreak reports

A recent comprehensive assessment of the covid-19 infection fatality proportion — the proportion of people infected with covid-19 who die from the infection — found that in April 2020, before most governments had “panicked”, the infection fatality proportion was 1.5 percent or more in numerous high-income countries. Included were Japan, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Without stringent public health measures, covid-19 is likely to have spread through the entire population, and an infection fatality proportion of 1.5 percent multiplied by 5 million (New Zealanders) equals 75,000.

That’s close to the estimated 80,000 New Zealand lives likely to have been saved because our “panicking” government, like many others, introduced restrictive public health measures.

Public health successes are invisible
What Roughan fails to appreciate is that public health successes are invisible. Unlike deaths, you cannot see people not dying.

Without the initial public health measures and then the rapid development and deployment of highly effective vaccines (unconscionably largely to high-income countries) there would have been far more deaths.

Roughan asks “is this a pandemic?” He states that 25 million covid deaths are only 0.3 percent of the world’s population (“only” 16,000 New Zealand deaths).

How many deaths make a pandemic? In 2020, covid-19 was the number one killer in the UK, responsible for causing about one in 10 deaths in every age group, with each person who died losing on average about 10 years of life expectancy.

In the US, more than 150,000 children have lost a primary or secondary caregiver to covid-19.

So, has our pandemic response been proportionate?

Stringent public health measures were highly effective pre-omicron, but are unsustainable long term.

New Zealand is incredibly fortunate
We are incredibly fortunate that highly effective vaccines were developed so rapidly.

Even the less severe omicron variant is a major killer of unvaccinated people, as demonstrated in Hong Kong, where the equivalent of 6000 New Zealanders have been killed by omicron in the past couple of months, due to low vaccination rates.

Unfortunately, despite our high vaccination rates, we are unlikely to be out of the woods, and it is likely a new covid-19 variant will be back to bite us. The only certainty is that the next variant will need to be even more contagious to overtake omicron.

As long as covid-19 passes to a new host before killing you, there is no selection advantage to a less fatal variant. We are just lucky that omicron was less virulent than delta.

Pandemics over the centuries have often taken several generations to change from being mass killers to causing the equivalent of a common cold.

What response will we accept as proportionate to shorten this process with covid-19 without millions of additional deaths?

As immunity from vaccination or infection wanes, we will need updated vaccines to prevent regular major disruptions to society.

A sustainable proportionate response
Unlike the flu, which has a natural R-value of less than two (one person on average infects fewer than two others), omicron appears to have an R-value of at least 10. That means in the time it takes flu to go from infecting one person to two, to four, to eight people, omicron (without a proportionate response) could go from infecting one to 10 to 100 to 1000 people.

There is no way that endemic covid will be as manageable as endemic flu.

The only sustainable proportionate response to covid-19 is for New Zealanders to embrace universal vaccination.

It is likely that vaccine passes will be required again if we want to live more normally and for society to thrive. It cannot be difficult to make the use of vaccine passes more seamless.

Almost every financial transaction today is electronic and it must be possible to link transactions to valid vaccine passes when required.

Almost 1 million eligible New Zealanders haven’t had their third vaccine dose, yet few are anti-vaccination.

Rather, thanks to vaccination and other public health measures, the pandemic has been an anticlimax for many New Zealanders and the third dose has not been a priority.

As already demonstrated, for the vast majority of New Zealanders, a vaccine pass is sufficient to make vaccination a priority.

Professor Rod Jackson is an epidemiologist with the University of Auckland. This article was originally published by The New Zealand Herald. Republished with the author’s permission.

For the first time since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, Auckland does not have the most new daily community cases reported.

The Ministry of Health reported the region had 869 new cases yesterday, while Canterbury had the most new cases at 2255, Southern DHB coming in second with 1747, and Waikato has 1079.

The rest of the district health boards (DHBs) reported new case numbers below 1000.

• READ MORE: Other reports on the NZ covid outbreak

While the proportion of cases to population in Christchurch has been higher than Auckland for some time, yesterday was the first time it had more in raw numbers.

Auckland’s case numbers peaked in the omicron outbreak almost six weeks ago and this week, all three Auckland DHBs each reported fewer than 100 patients for the first time since late February.

But at a meeting last week, Auckland DHB bosses said they were still only just above minimum service delivery — meaning the only operations they were doing were acute, or planned surgery that could not wait.

Most of the major metropolitan areas in the North Island – Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Wellington and the Hutt Valley – peaked about a week later, according to Otago University epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker.

Rural Southland looked to be last in line for cases to peak, with Canterbury and South Canterbury already having had the highest rate of new infections of any district health board region — close to 500 per 100,000 people — back in late March.

Professor Baker previously said geography was one of the reasons for the persistent case load in the South Island, with the wave washing out of the large cities and into regional New Zealand.

“What we’re seeing in New Zealand is a city pattern and more of a rural pattern,” he said.

“So at one extreme we had Auckland which had peak case numbers on March 4 and it’s really the first DHB where we’re seeing numbers go below 100 cases per 100,000 people.

“And at the other extreme you’ve still got over 300 per 100,000 — so three times higher — in places like Southern, South Canterbury and also on the West Coast.”

But while cases had remained persistently high in the south, deaths and hospitalisations had remained low.

Baker said he expected the drawn-out wave had played a part in that along with high vaccination coverage.

“Having a very sharp peak in Auckland does mean there’s a lot more pressure on the system. Whereas if you have a more prolonged epidemic, as we’re seeing in the South Island in particular, it might be the capacity to manage people at home is better because you’re not seeing so many sick people at the same time.”

As immunity wanes in the community, more people socialising with reduced restrictions, and the possibility of new variants, cases are expected to once again increase during winter.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Covid-19 restrictions for all of New Zealand will ease from midnight tonight but a leading epidemiologist says the country is divided over its risk

From 11.59pm tonight, all of New Zealand moves into the orange traffic light setting, Covid-19 Reponse Minister Chris Hipkins announced today.

He said the change in alert levels was justified for several reasons, including an ongoing decline in cases.

• READ MORE: Covid-19: All of NZ to move to orange setting from 11.59pm tonight
• Other NZ covid outbreak reports

He said case numbers now sit below 10,000 new cases per day for the first time since February 24, and that hospitalisations in Auckland were lower, with all three DHBs each reporting fewer than 100 patients for the first time since late February.

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker told RNZ Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan the move was reasonable for Auckland, which peaked almost six weeks ago.

“But that’s not the situation in the rest of New Zealand and particularly the South Island, even some DHBs in the North Island, like Northland and some of the others in the central North Island, are still seeing case numbers reported yesterday that were about 50 percent of their peak.

“So we are quite divided in terms of risk.”

Face masks out in schools
Under the orange setting, face masks are still required in some environments but not in schools.

Professor Baker said that with only 20 percent of younger students fully vaccinated, without masks there are not many barriers that stopped the virus circulating.

“And we do know anecdotally a lot of the way this virus is getting from one family to another is through transmission at school so this seems like a gap at the orange level.”

Hipkins said schools have been provided with guidance, and they have access to public health guidance so they can consider the advice for themselves.

“Ultimately looking at a school by school basis, in some schools there is still a very strong justification for masks — but not all.

“It is very challenging for schools, it has proven to be one of the most challenging covid-19 requirements.”

People who are young, healthy, fully vaccinated and boosted should be getting out much more because the risk from the infection is much less, Professor Baker said.

High vaccine coverage
“We know now of high vaccine coverage, we’ve actually pushed the fatality rate from this infection now to down to less than, it’s about 0.05 percent which is in a similar range now to seasonal flu — but it’s only because we’re highly vaccinated.”

Prior to vaccination there was a fatality risk of 0.5 percent, he said.

Te Pūnaha Matatini modeller Professor Michael Plank said: “It’s a good time to be relaxing the traffic light settings when cases and hospitalisations are declining in almost all parts of the country.”

Professor Plank is partly funded by the Department of Prime Minister and cabinet for research on mathematical modelling of covid-19.

“We have successfully flattened the curve of this Omicron wave — although hospitalisations and staff absences have put intense strain on our healthcare system, things would have been even worse without our efforts to slow the spread.”

While New Zealand is marking the end of its omicron sprint, it is at the beginning of its marathon, Professor Baker said.

“Covid-19 isn’t going to go away and we are very likely to have further waves of infection as immunity wanes, people’s behaviour gets back to normal, and new variants arrive,” he said.

“As we move away from restrictions and mandates, we need to work on a long-term, sustainable set of mitigations. This should include vaccines, high-quality surveillance systems, a focus on clean air indoors, and financial support for people to isolate when sick.”

Hybrid office/home set-up
With a change in restrictions, Victoria University of Wellington and Umbrella Wellbeing clinical psychologist Dr Dougal Sutherland says the government will no longer encourage working from home.

But Dr Sutherland warned there may be psychological consequences for workplaces encouraging their people to return in person.

Flexibility and agility will be key for adjusting to this new normal, he said.

“It seems likely many people will continue working from home, at least some of the time.

“This presents a challenge to organisations about how they create psychologically safe teams in a dispersed environment. There is also the challenge of how to support people with different levels of anxiety associated with increased human contact.

“Research shows that allowing people to work from home a few days a week is associated with better wellbeing and productivity, so allowing workers to continue a hybrid office/home set-up should be encouraged.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Papua New Guinea’s Police Commissioner David Manning — who is also head of the country’s Covid-19 National Control Centre — has placed United Nations agencies on notice that they must reveal how they have spent virus emergency funding over the past two years.

Manning said Prime Minister James Marap and other Members of Parliament, and independent organisations such as Transparency International, have all called for the release of information on how covid-19 funds have been spent and they have been ignored.

“Unfortunately, these United Nations bodies have refused to provide financial information to the government and people of Papua New Guinea,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other PNG covid-19 reports

This matter has now come to a head with the Controller writing to the World Bank Acting Country Director in Papua New Guinea, Paul Vallely, on March 29, advising that he would no longer endorse any further increase in allocation of funds, or disbursements, under the PNG Covid-19 Emergency Response Project.

“I have repeatedly requested both directly and through auditors, acquittals of previously disbursed funds under this and other similar projects,” the Controller said in his letter to the World Bank on the loan money.

“The recipients of these funds have refused to provide any reasonable account for these monies.

“There is over US$1.3 billion (K4.5 billion) identified on the self-reporting donor tracker as being committed for managing the covid-19 pandemic in PNG.

‘How are UN agency funds used?’
“What our people need to know, and the global community needs to know, is how are these UN agencies using the funds allocated to them.”

Manning advised that the project is to receive no further funds until he is satisfied that previous disbursements have been acquitted.

“Enough is enough, I have called for the past year for this expenditure to be acquitted and they have refused, so now I am demanding compliance with transparency requirements in PNG,” he said.

“With the country going through the height of the pandemic, these agencies were provided with some leniency, but we have heard enough excuses and misleading information.

A substantial part of the funds being spent by these UN organisations had also become a part of national sovereign debt that must be repaid by future generations of the Papua New Guinean people, he said.

“But the terrible irony is that we do not even know what they spent this money on, particularly in areas such as communications and awareness in which they have failed.

“Details that have been revealed on the Covid-19 Donor Tracking Dashboard shows that UNDP, as one example, has facilitated the following funding of their own activities in PNG to an amount of K9 million (US$2.6 million).

“This is one just source of funding that is shrouded in secrecy and there are several others for which we have demanded information but is being ignored by this global body.”

Outraged by wording
Manning said he was outraged by the almost identical wording from UNICEF, WHO and UNDP in response to his requirement for an independent auditor to access their records, in which these agencies essentially said they would ignore the request.

In documents seen by the Post-Courier, UNDP Resident Representative Dirk Wagener and UNICEF PNG Representative Claudes Kamenga wrote to Manning with the same “contemptuous and arrogant” language stating that: “We would like to inform you that UNICEF, as a United Nations Agency, is submitted to the ‘Single Audit principle’ that gives the exclusivity of external audit and investigation to the United Nations Board of Auditors (UNBoA) founded in 1946 through the UN resolution 74 (I) of 7 December 1946.”

Manning said what UNICEF and UNDP were saying to PNG is that they would spend funds that were intended for the people, and they would not tell how they used this money.

“In other words, if these agencies have wasted money that was intended for our people, they claim they can keep it a secret,” Manning said.

“This is exactly what we have seen with the way UNICEF uses public funding for communications and awareness and delivers limited results.

“This is a matter that must be addressed at the highest level of the United Nations, because if this lack of transparency is happening in PNG, you have to ask how many other smaller developing countries are being treated with such contempt.”

The Controller said he would ensure the PNG public and international support partners were kept aware of developments in the matter and if acquittals were forthcoming.

Republished with permission from the PNG Post-Courier.

Health workers in Aotearoa New Zealand are thanking Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield for his work stopping the ailing health system from collapsing in the covid-19 pandemic — and for saving lives.

They say they can relate to him needing a rest.

Dr Bloomfield leaves his job in July, stepping down 12 months early after the huge stress of the past two years.

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: ‘We have had the best outcome in the pandemic in the world and that’s down to good leadership’ – Professor Rod Jackson
• A salute to Dr Ashley Bloomfield from a bitter and ungrateful nation of moaners and feral lunatics
• Covid-19 update: 13 further deaths, 639 in hospital, 11,634 new cases
• Other NZ covid-19 outbreak reports

There are few public servants who have had the same degree of fame.

For two years he has been a regular in the living rooms of the country, particularly in the first lockdown when almost everyone was home turning in every day to hear news of the covid-19 threat.

Emergency doctor and chair of the Council of Medical Colleges Dr John Bonning said Dr Bloomfield had to step up to communicate with the public in a role that would normally have been done by politicians.

He exuded trust and had stellar public health credentials, as a medical doctor who had worked for the World Health Organisation and headed a district health board (DHB), Dr Bonning said.

Engaged and communicated
He engaged and communicated very regularly with health worker groups.

“He felt the pain, he felt the pressure along with the rest of us,” he said.

Frontline GP and chair of the Pacific GP Network Api Talemaitoga said the country was lucky to have a director-general with top public health skills when they were needed most.

That meant Dr Bloomfield understood the practicalities of what had to be done — like limiting numbers, mass masking, vaccination programmes and the importance of communication, he said.

Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins said Dr Bloomfield’s advice had been at the heart of the government’s decision making and he “had saved thousands if not tens of thousands of lives”.

But not everything was perfect under his tenure. There was a blunder that meant high-risk border workers were not being routinely tested as promised, criticisms about spread in MIQ facilities, delays at times over testing, and a slow vaccine rollout for Māori.

Delays over Māori health autonomy
Te Whānau O Waiapareira chief executive John Tamihere said the director-general had done a decent job but he was uncomfortable with the “idolatry” that had sprung up around him.

He had called Dr Bloomfield out over the past two years on issues like the delays giving Māori health groups autonomy to look after their communities, and of the ministry’s initial failure to hand over health data.

It would be mean-spirited to criticise Dr Bloomfield on his way out, he said.

He was a highly-paid public servant who had done a decent job, particularly for mainstream New Zealand, but his copybook was not completely clean, Tamihere said.

“But … Dr Bloomfield will go down as leading a great result when compared with other nations,” he said.

Pacific health groups had shared the concerns about not initially being able to lead the response for their communities, who bore the brunt of early waves of the virus.

Privy to the big picture
GP Dr Api Talemaitoga said while that was frustrating, he and his colleagues on the frontline were not always privy to the big picture Dr Bloomfield was dealing with “in terms of the whole country, the ministry, and his political masters”.

Senior emergency doctor Dr Kate Allan represents the College of Emergency Medicine and said Dr Bloomfield inherited a “broken health system” but led a response that stopped it from collapsing under the weight of covid-19.

“I take my hat off to him. I think it’s been an amazing job and an incredibly difficult job and I can’t imagine how tired he must be,” she said.

Dr Bloomfield is, in turn, quick to credit people like Dr Allan who worked on the frontline to battle the virus.

‘Relentless’
The director-general of health was one of three top health chiefs to announce their resignations yesterday.

Director of Public Health Caroline McElnay and Deputy Director of Public Health Niki Stefanogiannis are also leaving the ministry.

Health Minister Andrew Little told RNZ Morning Report they had been at the forefront of the covid-19 response and had worked tirelessly. “As Ashley said to me in the weekend, he is just exhausted.”

Thousands of front line health workers had done a phenomenal job and would be feeling the same after two years of the pandemic, he said.

There was still work to be done in terms of the rebuild and the nationwide health restructure “because we’ve got to create that extra capacity.”

“I am committed to filling the gaps that are there.”

‘Saved thousands of lives’
Epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson said the key leadership group including Dr Bloomfield, the prime minister, senior ministers and others “saved thousands of lives, it saved our health services”.

“The work that they did over the past couple of years, it’s just relentless.” Jackson said. “I’m amazed that they lasted so long.”

All three were there at the most important stage but it was “a bit worrying” they were leaving. “The next phase is going to be messy, it’s going to be more political.”

However, New Zealand had “fantastic” vaccines and the knowledge on how to slow down and contain a pandemic.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A leading epidemiologist says Aotearoa New Zealand has no idea how many community cases of covid-19 there are in the country because so many people are not recording their rapid antigen test (RAT) results.

University of Auckland Professor Rod Jackson said an upgrade of the testing system and My Covid Record is desperately needed.

His comments follow the leak of a memo from the Northern Region Health Co-ordination Centre (NRHCC) to health providers in the Auckland region on March 26.

• READ MORE:  Covid-19 update: 12,575 new community cases, 654 people in hospital, 15 further deaths
• Covid-19 briefing: ‘The system is in good hands’ – Dr Ashley Bloomfield
• Other NZ covid outbreak reports

The memo states:

“The MoH shared the following with us this week: in the last month we have distributed 50 million RATs into the system and so far less than 1 million results have been reported.”

The memo goes on to mention the increased number of false positives and negatives that occur with RATs (compared to PCRs) and the need to shift towards more PCR testing immediately.

Professor Jackson said the fact that so many people are not recording their covid-19 RAT results means the Ministry of Health’s daily case numbers are meaningless.

“Those numbers clearly demonstrate that expecting people to report the results of self-administered RAT tests was never going to happen on a consistent basis,” he said. “They are only reliable if they are done by trained people and recorded.”

Looking at hospitalisations
Professor Jackson said he did not even even look at the daily case numbers.

“I look at the hospitalisations and, sadly, the number of deaths,” he said.

But Professor Jackson said, in the middle of an omicron outbreak, a switch back to PCR testing might not be feasible due to the sheer number of people who would need to be tested.

“And my concern is people have got so used to easy access to RATs and now they wouldn’t want to wait in line.”

He said RATs are a tool to help slow down the spread of omicron, but their accuracy can be as low as 50 percent.

Auckland University associate professor of public health and Associate Dean Pacific Dr Collin Tukuitonga agrees that poor recording of RAT results highlights the shortcomings of the Ministry of Health’s daily case numbers.

“The reality is we have no idea of the real numbers because people are either not getting tested or, if they are, they aren’t recording their results,” he said.

Real case numbers far higher
“Some people say the real case numbers could be two or even four times higher.”

He said looking at the overall trend shows case numbers are declining in Auckland.

“But in terms of absolute numbers, we have no idea.”

A Ministry of Health spokeswoman said it has continued to monitor and review its approach to testing throughout the outbreak.

She said RATs are the ministry’s preferred testing method as they can be done at home, the results are available quickly and, when people upload their results, they provide an insight into the spread and size of an outbreak.

“We are still undertaking some PCR testing. However, this is mainly focused on priority populations and those individuals who are at higher risk of the effects from covid-19.”

According to the Ministry of Health, from February 22 to April 4 it has distributed 61.6 million RATs nationwide and between December 13 and April 5, a total of 1,614,110 million results have been recorded.

Local Democracy Reporting is a public interest news service supported by RNZ, the News Publishers’ Association and NZ On Air. Asia Pacific Report is a community partner.

RNZ News

Aotearoa New Zealand’s Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield — the man who has tirelessly steered the country’s covid-19 pandemic response for the past two years — is stepping down from his role at the end of July.

Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes revealed Dr Bloomfield’s decision in a statement today.

Dr Bloomfield had signalled to the commissioner late last year he intended to step down before his term officially ended on 11 June 2023, Hughes said.

• READ MORE:  Covid-19 update: 12,575 new community cases, 654 people in hospital, 15 further deaths
• Covid-19 briefing: ‘The system is in good hands’ – Dr Ashley Bloomfield
• Other NZ covid outbreak reports

Speaking at today’s media briefing, Dr Bloomfield said he was most proud of the way the health system and public service had worked so well together to protect the public.

He said the three previous director-generals had also ended their five-year terms early, and he had been thinking for a while about when would be a good time to step down.

“It seems we’re at a good point in terms of the pandemic, the response is shifting, I’m also confident that the system is in good hands with the changes that are afoot, and most certainly my family will be very pleased to have a little more of my time.”

The Ministry of Health today reported 12,575 new community cases of covid-19, with 654 people in hospital and 15 further deaths. Twenty three people were in intensive care, down from 30 yesterday.

Outstanding job
Commissioner Hughes said Dr Bloomfield had done an outstanding job leading the government’s health response to covid-19 and the vaccination rollout.

“Dr Bloomfield has worked tirelessly for more than two years to keep New Zealanders safe from coronavirus,” Hughes said.

“Dr Bloomfield has demonstrated remarkable resilience and courage in leading the health system’s overall response to Covid-19. That response has saved lives.

“I thank Dr Bloomfield for his commitment to public service, his spirit of service to the community and his exceptional contribution to New Zealand’s covid-19 response. I know many New Zealanders will also be thankful for the job he has done.”

Hughes said Dr Bloomfield wanted to stay on until the country had a good hold on the virus, and that time was now.

In a post on Facebook, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Bloomfield had been a true public servant in every sense, through his dedication, drive and calmness.

“He has been central to our COVID success as a nation, and he’s done it with humour and grace (I’ll keep the details of his sporadic mockery of me to myself!),” she said.

“When we spoke about his decision to move on, he mentioned that he wanted to spend time with his family, and that’s the least we owe him. So kia ora from across the Motu, Dr Bloomfield. We thank you.”

‘Give the man a beer’
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins also posted on Facebook after the news was released, acknowledging Bloomfield for being a “reassuring figure” through the pandemic response.

“The amount of pressure he’s absorbed, and the level of commitment he’s shown over the past two years make that an easy decision to understand.

“We thank you Ashley for all you’ve done to keep us all safe. Give the man a beer, he’s truly earned it!”

As a Minister I want to thank Dr Bloomfield for advising the Govt on some of the most important decisions taken in peacetime.
As a doctor I want to acknowledge @AshBloomfield as a colleague who has made an unparalleled contribution to protecting the health of New Zealanders.

— Ayesha Verrall (@drayeshaverrall) April 5, 2022

An acting director-general will be appointed before Bloomfield finishes on 29 July, 2022.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Aotearoa New Zealand will remain at the red covid-19 traffic light setting, says Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Ardern made the announcement at today’s post-cabinet media briefing.

She said the rolling average of cases had declined 36 percent in the two weeks since the government refined the traffic light system.

• READ MORE: Covid-19 update: Nine further deaths and 10,205 new community cases
• Māori dying with covid-19 because of misinformation, says health leader
• Other NZ covid outbreak reports

There had been early data showing an uptick since mid-March in people visiting places of retail and recreation in Auckland, as well as more people returning to workplaces, she said.

While cases were dropping in Auckland, Wellington and Tairāwhiti, others region like Canterbury, Northland and Waikato were not experiencing the same drop. Hospitalisations in some DHBs were not expected to peak until mid- to late-April.

“So for now, New Zealand will remain at red,” Ardern said.

“I know there is an eagerness to move to orange, but we are still frankly amid an outbreak and there is still pressure across our hospital network.”

Nine further deaths
The Ministry of Health today reported 10,205 new community cases of covid-19 and nine further deaths.

There are now 734 people in hospital, including 25 in ICU or HDU.

In a statement, the ministry said the seven-day rolling average of case numbers was continuing to decline — down to 13,218 from last Monday’s 16,102.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said health officials would not be looking at a specific number of hospitalisations when advising a move down to the orange setting, but would rather be considering capacity and pressure levels, which also includes staffing at hospitals.

The next review of the traffic light settings will be on Thursday, April 14.

The country will remain at the red Covid-19 traffic light setting, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

Ardern made the announcement at today’s post-Cabinet media briefing from about 4pm.

Based on health advice
Ardern said the decision today was based on health advice, and the government did not want to move too quickly and lose the progress made.

“It’s less about the case numbers and more about the hospitalisations.”

Asked why Auckland could not move to orange when cases were falling, Ardern said that while there was a decline in hospitalisations, “it is off a high base, the numbers are still relatively high, the pressure on our system is still there, we want to make sure that we’re in the best possible position and we don’t lose the gains we’ve worked so hard for.

“We’ve always said that there is the possibility of moving regions to different levels at different times … but as we’ve said, Auckland has made significant progress but we do still have a relatively high hospitalisation rate.

“We need to look after our healthcare workforce.”

The country needed to help the health system recover and be ready for the expected winter surge, Ardern said, requesting that people get boosted.

“Unvaccinated and people that are not boosted make up a disproportionate number of people in our hospitals. More than 9900 people are due their booster today, please get your booster as soon as you can.”

Looking at overall trends
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ Checkpoint tonight there were a range of considerations cabinet would have to take account of in its April 14 review.

“We’re obviously looking at the overall trends … how many new hospital admissions as well as those who are in hospital – but also the demographics,” he said.

Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins on border opening. Video: RNZ

“We look at something called case weightings because not every hospitalisation is equal, some are in and out of hospital much quicker than others.

“If you think about it from an economic perspective only, the last thing I think people want to see is a sudden surge in cases which puts more people at home, more people having to isolate, because ultimately from a business perspective that’s bad for business as well, it means fewer staff and fewer customers.”

Dr Bloomfield said the weight of advice from paediatricians and other child-health experts and epidemiologists suggested they thought New Zealand had done a good job in protecting children, including being among the first to bring in covid-19 vaccinations for children.

Many district health boards (DHBs) had more than 90 percent of Māori double vaccinated, and booster vaccination rates for Māori, Pasifika and others was very similar in the more vulnerable 65+ age groups, he said.

The covid-19 vaccination programme — including its infrastructure, capacity, and capability — has been transferred across to help the population catch up on MMR and other vaccines, Dr Bloomfield said.

Fourth dose advice
He had received advice on a fourth Pfizer dose and that would be going to ministers very shortly, he said.

“The evidence is still emergent on this … what I would say is that it’s clear that it’s most important for those high-risk groups.”

Ardern said New Zealand’s covid-19 record still stood among the best in the OECD.

“No country has got away without being impacted by covid but in New Zealand the impact on us has been less than most countries we compare ourselves to.”

Meanwhile, Ardern said there “absolutely” was work under way to prepare for any new variants.

Aotearoa had a range of tools that had been kept “in the wings” should we need them, such as mandates, passes and the alert levels system.

Hipkins said the decision to keep New Zealand at red was not informed by the emergence of the new covid variant XE, which will likely come across the border as it opens.

Tracking new variants
“We’re tracking any emergence of new variants internationally very closely. So yes, that hasn’t had an impact on this particular decision because the information there is still very new about new variants, but we’re monitoring that very closely.”

The National Party wants the traffic light system scrapped completely.

The prime minister told RNZ Morning Report vaccine mandates and the traffic light system had made a big difference but said the first omicron peak had passed in parts of the country.

She warned it was only the first wave of omicron and there would be more waves and new variants coming.

Ardern said precautions that were known to be effective in preventing the spread of covid-19, such as mask use and gathering restrictions, would continue to be required, even if it was decided that parts of the country could move to the orange setting.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The first female premier of a Solomon Islands province is appealing to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to help her country manage covid-19 in the community.

People travelling between Honiara and Isabel Province were being tested for the virus at four testing centres, and if they test positive they were isolated at a makeshift centre.

The Isabel Premier, Rhoda Sikilabu, said she was desperate for funding to make improvements to the isolation centres because “they’re filling up and are run down”.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands elects Rhoda Sikilabu as first female premier

“I really, really need support. We have no place to … isolate these people,” Sikilabu said.

She wants New Zealand to provide funding for improvements for the centres.

“I, as a woman and a mother, I have so many worries and concerns for families offloading with babies, children,” she said.

“I really, really need support in covid. Please I would like to appeal to the Prime Minister.”

Focus on environmental and women’s issues
Sikilabu plans to focus on environmental and women’s issues, and is hopeful of bringing changes to her region as well as transform old mindsets.

She wants women to have authority to speak about their land and property in regards to resources.

“Reforestation is one of the priorities that I will tackle and maybe I can impact more on how women can address or say more on their property, their land ownership,” she said.

”The environment is very, very important to women just now.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Yap State Governor Jesse Salalu has declared a state of emergency over a mass resignation of 40 doctors and nurses at Yap State Hospital after authorities declined to consider their grievances.

“Due to the sudden departure of staff, the Department of Health Services is now in need of finding and recruiting qualified nurses and doctors to fill vacancies, so as to minimise disruptions to its operations and services,” stated the emergency declaration.

“There is no sufficient pool of qualified nurses and doctors available on island for immediate recruitment to help prevent or minimise disruptions to the operation and services of the hospital,” Governor Salalu said in his emergency declaration on March 31.

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The emergency status authorises the Department of Health Services to work with Waab Community Health Center to allow the sharing and realignment of human resources to the main hospital.

DHS will also look into the possibility of rehiring local retired medical professionals on a temporary basis.

Led by Dr James Yaingeluo, the doctors and nurses handed in their resignations on March 29 after Salalu declined to hear their grievances.

When Salalu failed to appear at a meeting requested by the medical staff, a representative from the Office of the Attorney-General and a cabinet member refused to discuss the matter with them.

Severe understaffing
Among the grievances are persistently severe understaffing, low salaries resulting in the inability to attract and keep qualified professionals, working without contracts, and the Yap State Legislature’s refusal to release JEMCO-approved Office of Insular Affairs grant funds for wage increases.

Many of the unresolved issues that date back to 2019 have been exacerbated during the pandemic.

Yap is reported to have the lowest pay rates in FSM’s health care sector and has difficulty recruiting qualified doctors and nurses due to the higher compensation offered by other health care institutions in the region.

This is especially true since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic when health care professionals began receiving significantly higher offers from employers.

A year ago, then Governor Henry Falan submitted a supplemental budget request to the Yap State Legislature. Included in the request was $108,614 for doctors’ salaries. The money had been approved by JEMCO, granted by OIA and sourced from the Compact Health Sector.

Dr Mandela A. Bodunrin, the hospital’s then chief-of-staff who has since left, requested the grant to increase doctors’ salaries in order to fill open positions for doctors that were going unfilled.

DHS was unable to compete in the marketplace for the talent it required at the salary levels it was offering.

Further review needed
The legislature has the power to approve all OIA grants prior to their release, but the finance committee stated that further review was needed.

The doctors then on-staff signed temporary contracts at the pay level authorised in the prior budget year while they awaited the legislature’s approval of Falan’s supplemental budget request.

Their overtime and on-call remuneration tapped out the DHS’s FY2021 budget early due to the dearth of doctors.

The temporary contracts expired in February 2021. The money from the grant was “to ensure continuity of the compensation until September 30, 2021,” Falan said. The money would not come from the state’s general fund.

Understaffing and the inablity to attract qualified professionals became an even larger concern as the pandemic rapidly grew in importance within the medical community and compensation ballooned worldwide.

During one of the meetings of the state’s emergency task force addressing covid-19, it was revealed that a number of nurses stated that they would quit once the border was opened and the first case was identified, adding another layer of stress to an already overburdened organisation.

Yap’s border has been closed since April 2020. Repatriation of the state’s citizens who are stranded off-island has been in fits and starts, challenging the small medical team to manage quarantine and testing protocols while tending to the daily needs of the hospital’s patients.

Repatriation flight postponed
The most recent announcement for a repatriation flight arriving from Guam on Wednesday has been postponed.

A team from the FSM Department of Health was on Yap the week of March 27 assessing the state’s readiness to reopen its borders. Their report is being awaited but the lack of medical personnel will now undoubtedly influence that decision.

According to the Yap State Constitution, employees “have the right to form associations for the purpose of presenting their views to the government” and to be “free from restraint or reprisal in exercising this right.

The government shall give reasonable opportunity to representatives of such associations to present their views.”

However, it also states that “employees, whether or not exempted by the public service system, shall not strike or cause work stoppage for the purpose of collective bargaining or presenting their views.”

Further, “the regulations shall prescribe a system for hearing the views of employees on their working conditions, status, pay and related matters and for hearing and adjudicating grievances of any employee or group of employees.

“These regulations shall ensure that employees are free from coercion, discrimination, and reprisals and that they may have representatives of their choice.”

Dominic Taruwemai, the acting DHS director, has not accepted the doctors’ and nurses’ resignations as of this writing.

Joyce McClure is an American journalist who lived on Yap for five years and is now based in Guam. She is a contributor to the Pacific Island Times. This article is republished with permission.

A Māori health leader says a new international misinformation study confirms the alarm many were desperately trying to raise last year about the impact on Māori during the initial vaccine rollout.

The article in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface shows misinformation makes it harder to stop illness spreading during a pandemic.

It states conspiracy theories spread through communities already distrustful of authority.

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It modelled trusting individuals who seek better quality information and take precautionary measures; and distrusting people who reject quality information and have riskier behaviour.

It found major outbreaks cannot be suppressed once the density of distrusting individuals exceeds a certain threshold.

It says its findings highlight the importance of effective interventions to build trust and inform the public.

Māori ‘exposed to significant misinformation for longer’
National Māori Pandemic Group co-leader Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen said the Māori population was younger, so many had to wait to be eligible to get their vaccine dose.

“They [were] exposed to a significant amount of misinformation for longer.

“That’s created a problem for us in terms of getting the momentum for the vaccination programme into the right place.”

Dr McKree Jansen said the unvaccinated were being hit hardest by the omicron wave.

As of Friday, only 88 percent of Māori have had their second dose, and 58 percent their third compared with 95 percent and 73 (72.7) percent respectively of the general population.

As of yesterday, 378 people have died with covid-19 and the seven-day rolling average is now 18.

McKree Jansen said Māori were now dying with covid-19 because of that misinformation.

He said for Māori and Pacific communities it was particularly troubling because those who were dying with the virus were in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, rather than older people in other populations.

He said Māori and Pacific populations should have been prioritised in the vaccine rollout.

The Waitangi Tribunal has released a scathing ruling of the government’s covid-19 response and vaccine rollout, saying Māori were put at risk.

The tribunal said cabinet’s decision to go against official and expert advice and not prioritise Māori breached the Treaty principles of active protection and equity.

Misinformation has disrupted families, but is resolvable
Dr McKree Jansen said misinformation had disrupted social and familial connection but he believed it was resolvable.

“We should actually spend the time and the effort to restore relationships with those people that have been affected by it.

“It is being very clear that health services are here to help people.

“I think it is conversations we’ll have within families to restore mana for people who feel that [they have] been belittled, to ensure that people know that they are loved and that they are cared for.”

He said the focus needed to be on learning the lessons and making sure it did not happen again.

“And making sure that when we say we are committed to equity that we do all the things necessary to achieve it.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.