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.

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.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced which regions will move into red and which into orange as the new traffic light system comes in on Friday.

Ardern confirmed that all of Northland would join the Auckland region in red, along with Taupō, Rotorua Lakes, Kawerau, Whakatāne, Ōpōtiki, Gisborne, Wairoa, Rangitīkei, Whanganui and Ruapehu districts.

All other regions would be in orange.

• READ MORE: WHO begins special session amid concerns over omicron variant
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“At orange, the big change here for parts of the country which will enter into this setting is that for the vaccinated and where vaccine passes are used, there are no gathering limits,” Ardern said today.

“People can gather again safely. At red, it will feel a lot like level 2. Your vaccine pass lets you go everywhere but number limits of 100 will apply to most activities.”

For Aucklanders, the changes meant they would be able to see family and friends indoors again.

• There were 182 new community cases
• 93 people were in hospital with the virus
• Five of the new cases were in Northland, 167 in Auckland and 10 in Waikato
• 123 of the new cases were yet to be epidemiologically linked
• Five close contacts are self-isolating after a local border case reported yesterday in Canterbury

New omicron variant
The world may not learn the true level of the threat posed by the new omicron variant of Covid-19 for several weeks, says a University of Otago scientist.

“I think it’s right to be concerned at this moment, but we need to know more,” he said.

Institute of Environmental Science and Research principal scientist of genomics professor Mike Bunce told RNZ Morning Report the country was well-placed to deal with the new threat but it was important to maintain border protections to “buy us time”.

At the weekend, the government moved nine countries into the very high risk category, restricting travel from those countries to New Zealand citizens only and requiring a full 14 days in MIQ.

“If we see more widespread cases in those countries then we will consider whether they need to be classified as very high risk countries,” said Ardern.

Omicron does not change the advice on vaccine boosters, which are now available to anyone who had their second dose six months ago, she said.

A group of Māori kaumātua in Auckland were among the first in the country to receive their booster doses on Monday morning.

No cases of omicron have so far been identified in the country.

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

Ninety percent of Pacific people in Aotearoa New Zealand have had their first covid-19 vaccine, while 11 district health boards (DHBs) have reached 80 percent first doses for Māori, the Ministry of Health says.

There were a total of 17,899 doses administered yesterday, including 5679 first doses and 12,222 second doses.

To date, 92 percent of eligible people in New Zealand have had their first dose and 85 percent are fully vaccinated.

• READ MORE: Two cases of Omicron variant of Covid-19 detected in Australia
• 144 new community cases reported in New Zealand today, one further death
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

The ministry said the country’s Pacific communities had reached “some key vaccination milestones”, with 90 percent having officially received their first dose, and 80 percent fully vaccinated.

Eleven of the 21 DHBs had reached 80 percent first doses for Māori, it said in a statement.

The ministry also highlighted how Capital & Coast DHB is just 1131 doses shy of reaching the 90 percent fully vaccinated milestone.

More than 2.1 million My Vaccine Passes have been issued.

Auckland events encourage vaccine uptake
This weekend is the last chance New Zealanders have to be fully vaccinated with both injections in time for Christmas.

More than 20 vaccination events were held in Tāmaki Makaurau this weekend, ahead of the Auckland border restrictions easing on December 15.

Tāmaki Makaurau vaccination programme director Matt Hannant said live music, free food and spot prizes were offered at events across the city.

People can also now pre-book to get the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is available from Monday, he said.

144 new cases today – one death
In a separate ministry statement today, 144 new community cases of covid-19 have been reported in New Zealand, with one further death.

New Zealand’s most restrictive border controls will be eased early next year, the government announced today.

Most fully-vaccinated travellers into New Zealand would not be required to go through managed isolation from early next year, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said.

A seven-day self-isolation requirement will take the place of MIQ.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

Hipkins revealed fully-vaccinated New Zealanders would be able to travel from Australia without having to quarantine from 11.59pm on 16 January, and from 11.59pm on 13 February that would extend to fully-vaccinated New Zealanders from all countries.

From April 30, all fully-vaccinated foreigner travellers would also be able to come to this country without having to quarantine, though proof of vaccination would be required.

All travellers not required to go into MIQ would still require:

• a negative pre-departure test proof of being fully vaccinated;
• a passenger declaration about travel history, a day 0/1 test on arrival;
• a requirement to self-isolate for seven days, and
• a final negative test before entering the community.

Government ‘still cautious’
Hipkins said: “It’s very encouraging that we as a country are now in a position to move towards greater normality. I do want to emphasise though that travel in 2022 won’t necessarily be exactly the same as it was in pre-2020 travel.”

The government defended its decision not to open the trans-Tasman bubble before Christmas.

Hipkins said the government needed to remain cautious about how much risk the country was exposed to in a short period of time.

He said loosening restrictions domestically and at the border need to be staggered.

215 new covid-19 cases
There were 215 new community cases of covid-19 today — 181 in Auckland, 18 in Waikato, three in Northland and 12 in the Bay of Plenty.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield this afternoon said 87 people were being treated in hospital, eight people of those in intensive care.

The Ministry of Health said 118 of today’s 215 new cases were yet to be linked.

There were 18,880 vaccine doses given yesterday — 6496 first doses and 12,384 second doses, meaning 92 percent of eligible people in New Zealand have had their first dose and 84 percent are now fully vaccinated.

Traffic-light system legislation
Legislation setting up the traffic light system — including mandating vaccinations for some workforces — has been pushed through Parliament in less than 24 hours.

Passed under urgency, the bill was opposed by the opposition National, Act and Te Paati Māori parties.

National called it secretive, divisive and unduly rushed. Act said the government had plenty of time to move it through the regular process involving greater scrutiny, and the Māori Party called it a “cruel law change” that would victimise vulnerable communities.

MPs also rejected a change to the traffic light system, which would have seen places of worship and funerals exempt from vaccine certificate requirements.

National’s Simeon Brown had put forward a proposed change to the bill.

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

New Zealand will move into the covid-19 traffic light system at 11.59pm, Thursday,  December 2, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today.

That is in 11 days from today, November 22 — and Ardern said it was important that people prepare.

At a post-cabinet briefing this afternoon, Ardern said: “The hard truth is that delta is here and it is not going away”.

• READ MORE: 205 new community cases of covid-19, 1 death in NZ
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“And while no country to date has been able to eliminate delta completely once it’s arrived, New Zealand is better positioned than most to tackle it because of our high vaccination rates and the inbuilt safety measures in the traffic light system like vaccine passes.”

Ardern said the most important thing to communicate about the traffic light system was “for the most part, if you’re vaccinated, you can go about doing all the kinds of things you’d usually expect … what varies is just how large those gatherings are at different levels”.

Vaccine levels would play a key determining factor for which regions go into red and which go into orange, Ardern said.

“We will look at … vaccine rates, we will look at case rates, and that will be the major determining factor but we’ll also be pragmatic. So you know, a good indication is if you’ve hit 90 percent first dose is a good indication of where you’re heading.”

Legal requirements
Cabinet decided on the December 3 date (the first full day of the traffic light system) today, which allowed for the legal requirements in getting the system set up, Ardern said.

Legislation would be introduced and passed this week to enable that, Ardern said.

Watch the media briefing

The covid protest outside Parliament earlier this month served as a warning that Aotearoa New Zealand is not immune to the kinds of anger seen overseas. As Labour Party whip Kieran McAnulty put it, “I think everyone needs to be aware that things are starting to escalate.”

McAnulty himself had been abused by some with strong anti-vaccination views, and there has been increasingly violent rhetoric directed at government politicians and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

As a result, security for MPs has been stepped up.

• READ MORE: Departing AUT lecturer makes false covid, mosque attack claims
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

As the recent report from research centre Te Pūnaha Matatini showed, there has been a sharp increase in the “popularity and intensity of covid-19 specific disinformation and other forms of ‘dangerous speech’ and disinformation, related to far-right ideologies”.

The analysis noted a broader threat: “That covid-19 and vaccination are being used as a kind of Trojan Horse for norm-setting and norm-entrenchment of far-right ideologies in Aotearoa New Zealand.”

Terror threat: medium
Last year, New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (SIS) warned of the “realistic possibility” that continued covid restrictions or further vaccination requirements could trigger an act of violent extremism.

The country is not alone in this, of course. Covid-19 has seen dissent and angry protest rise globally, with inevitable concern over an increased risk of terrorism or violent extremism.

Right now, New Zealand’s official terror threat level is assessed as “medium”, meaning an attack is deemed “feasible and could well occur”.

By contrast, Australia’s threat level is set at “probable” and Britain’s at “severe”. According to its Department of Homeland Security, the US “continues to face a diverse and challenging threat environment as it approaches several religious holidays and associated mass gatherings”.

The lone actor problem
An SIS terrorism threat assessment from February this year, coupled with a “Threat Insight” from the Combined Threat Assessment Group in November 2020, divided potential terrorists in New Zealand into three groups based on faith, identity and politics. What they share is a willingness to use violence to achieve their goals.

The most likely scenario involves a lone actor, inspired by any ideology and probably using an unsophisticated means of attack, without any intelligence warning. However, a small anti-government cell was also considered a realistic possibility.

The SIS assessment noted there are almost certainly individuals who advocate the use of violence to promote racial or ethnic identity beliefs, as well as individuals potentially prone to faith-based violent extremism. As for politically motivated actors, the SIS was more reassuring:

While some individuals and groups have lawfully advocated for signicant change to current political and social systems, there continues to be little indication of any serious intent to engage in violence to acheive that change.

The February report is heavily redacted, so needs to be placed next to the November “Threat Insight”. That report noted a “realistic possibility” of terrorist acts depending on how Covid-19 and the associated economic and social impacts unfolded, and how individual extremists might be affected. It concluded:

The situation in New Zealand over the next 12 months is likely to remain dynamic. There is a realistic possibility further restrictions or potential vaccination programmes […] could be triggers for New Zealand-based violent extremists to conduct an act of terrorist violence.

Still a peaceful place?
If there is any comfort to take, it might be that New Zealand has risen in the 2021 Global Peace Index, putting the country second only to Iceland.

This represents a return to relative normality after the 2019 Christchurch terror attack saw New Zealand drop 79 places in the Global Terrorism Index in 2020 (ranking 42nd, just behind Russia, Israel and South Africa).

But while there are other reasons to be hopeful — notably New Zealand’s comparatively low and apparently reducing homicide numbers — there remain reasons for concern. From the Lynn Mall terror attack through to the murder of a police officer or the tragic shooting of an innocent teenager, serious violence is not uncommon.

There has also been an increase in firearms injuries, many (but not all) gang-related. Figures released under the Official Information Act show the police are facing increased risks: between March 2019 and July 2021, officers had firearms pointed or discharged at them 46 times.

New Zealanders can have some faith the system, however. Two potential shooting events, one involving a school, were foiled by police. The New Lynn extremist was already subject to monitoring so tight he was shot within 60 seconds of launching his attack.

Security intelligence also detected espionage in the military, and was instrumental in New Zealand Cricket calling off its tour of Pakistan due to a plausible terror threat.

A ‘see something, say something’ culture
All of this underscores the need for everyone to do what they can to combat alienation and misinformation in the community, anchored by tolerance, respect and civil behaviour. And it also requires that people be prepared to report acts of suspicious activity or threats of violence (online or not).

As the Royal Commission on the Christchurch terror attacks noted, the likeliest thing to have prevented the tragedy would have been a “see something, say something” culture — one where people could safely raise their concerns with the appropriate authorities.

“Such reporting,” the commission concluded, “would have provided the best chance of disrupting the terrorist attack.”

As the pandemic stretches into the next year, with likely ongoing restrictions and unforeseeable complications, this remarkable sentence is worth remembering. It suggests the best defence against extremism is to be found within ourselves, and in the robust and safe communities we must create.

Dr Alexander Gillespie, professor of law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

New Zealand has reported 149 community cases of covid-19 in the country today, including nine outside Auckland.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said there were 83 people now in hospital — up 13 from Saturday — including five in intensive care.

The new cases reported today included 140 in Auckland, six in Waikato, two in the Bay of Plenty and one in Canterbury.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“The spread of covid-19 cases to regions throughout New Zealand is a reminder that everyone needs to heed the advice that will help keep our communities as safe as possible,” the statement said.

“That includes ensuring you and your loved ones are fully vaccinated if eligible, get tested even if you have only mild symptoms, wear a mask, keep a safe distance from people outside your bubble, and keep track of your movements outside your home.”

Earlier today, a positive case was confirmed in Hawke’s Bay and testing is underway in the area. The person had travelled to the region from Auckland, with a travel exemption.

The ministry said this afternoon that the the person was relocating from Auckland and advised to isolate in Hawke’s Bay after the positive result was returned. The case is currently isolating safely and remains well.

Contacts tested negative
Contacts have so far tested negative for covid-19.

The Bay of Plenty case reported today is in Tauranga and is a contact of a known cluster, while four of the six new cases in Waikato are linked to earlier cases.

The ministry said the Christchurch case was an initial weak positive result and was being further investigated. The case recently travelled to the North Island, and was linked to another case in the Lower North Island.

There were no further cases reported in the Wellington region today.

The ministry said 84 of today’s 149 new cases were yet to be linked.

On Saturday there were 172 community cases reported in New Zealand, 148 of which were in Auckland.

There have now been 6850 cases in the current community outbreak and 9608 cases of the coronavirus in New Zealand since the pandemic began.

21,501 vaccine doses
There were 21,501 vaccine doses given yesterday — 6002 first doses and 15,499 second doses.

The ministry said 91 percent of eligible people in New Zealand had now had their first dose and 83 percent were fully vaccinated.

It said 12 district health boards (DHBs) had now reached the 90 percent first dose vaccination milestone, with South Canterbury the latest area to achieve it.

More than one million people had now downloaded their My Vaccine Pass.

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

As New Zealand readies for more covid-19 cases, warnings about the ability of public hospitals to cope are escalating.

There are 289 intensive care unit (ICU) or high dependency unit (HDU) beds at the moment, with Minister of Health Andrew Little insisting that could be ramped up to 550 if needed.

But that has been roundly questioned by opposition MPs, clinicians and ICU experts, including a recent New Zealand Medical Journal article concluding fully staffed, extra capacity would be more like 67 beds.

It describes New Zealand’s “comparatively low ICU capacity” as a “potential point of vulnerability” in the covid-19 response.

Intensive care
There is a reason it is called intensive care.

Patients there are so sick, each one has a nurse with them around the clock.

Those there because of covid-19 are usually struggling to breathe, their lungs unable to give their body all the oxygen it needs to function.

There are doctors, physios, pharmacists who come and go to give vital care but it is the nurses who are the constant.

That’s why the shortage of ICU nurses is at the heart of the debate.

New Zealand’s intensive care was already in a perilous position long before covid-19, with one of the lowest number of beds per capita in the developed world.

Doctors and nurses have been asking for help for 10 years, failing to make meaningful traction with successive governments.

The small community pulled together, pooled resources, when crises like the White Island eruption and the mass shooting in Christchurch hit.

But covid-19 is different. It is here for longer and will hit everywhere.

Political football
Little is “assured that we will manage and we will cope”.

High vaccination rates will mean fewer people will actually end up in hospital and “the vast majority who then get infected will be able to be cared for in the home with appropriate sort of monitoring, the stuff we’re putting in place at the moment”, he says.

He acknowledges any move to surge up would mean deferred operations for things like hip and knee replacements, and people needing a lower level of care getting it somewhere other than a hospital.

“The impact will be on non-covid patients who can be safely referred to other places for their care and recovery at the hospital.”

National Party MP Shane Reti says there are simply not enough specialist ICU nurses.

“Five point three nurses [needed per ICU] bed, it’s orphaned out and what we know from specialists … is that instead of the hundreds of beds that Andrew says we’ve got we’ve probably only got about 67 to surge to.”

Not wanting to sound like a “political caricature”, Little, however, lays the blame at the feet of the previous National government.

Heath underfunded
“Our ICU capacity – if we’re talking about just designated ICU wards, and ICU beds, yep, that’s been a long standing problem … the reality is health has been underfunded for a long time, particularly when it comes to health facilities and buildings,” he says.

He is confident any outbreak can be managed, saying expanding to 500 or so beds would require an increase to about 200,000 covid-19 patients across the country.

However, Reti says that the May 5 public sector pay freeze has impacted on staffing, with some going to Australia, and that New Zealand’s now competing with the world for ICU nurses with an immigration system that’s not friendly to them.

Nursing shortage
Even with the known nursing vacancies, New Zealand’s needs could be met with the training of about 1400 more nurses to work in ICU under supervision, Little says.

Through May 2020 till mid August this year, there were no new, resourced ICU beds in Auckland DHB, but the ICU nurse headcount dropped from about 250 to just over 212.

Reti says the nursing shortage is a major obstacle.

“When Minister Little says, ‘I’ve trained up 1400 ICU nurses’ — no you haven’t, what you’ve done is you’ve given them half a day’s online training and half a day on a mannequin.

“In no shape or form is that an ICU nurse — they’ll be valuable, don’t get me wrong — but valuable for turning patients in ICU?”

Auckland has the biggest ICU unit in the country, and needed to find nurses from across New Zealand on September 1 when eight active cases arrived there, he says, showing just how thin the margins are.

On the ground
Vice-president of the Australasian College of Intensive Care Rob Bevan says right now intensive care is coping well.

That is due, in large part, to high — and rising — vaccination rates and the fact that Auckland’s been in lockdown.

Quieter lives mean fewer car accident and workplace falls, while hospitals have delayed many of the planned operations which might involve ICU recovery.

But Dr Bevan, a specialist at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital, says more beds will be needed next year when covid-19 is in the community and life was comparatively back to normal.

“There is going to be a burden of covid that people will need hospitalisation and intensive care for that we need to add onto what we were doing before,” he says.

“And acknowledging that our intensive care bed capacity before was still not enough to care for everybody without resorting to the deferment of planned care on occasion.”

Many who work in intensive care say the government and health bosses are wrong to count physical beds (and the equipment that comes with them) when there are not enough nurses to use them all.

Shocked by ‘training’
When they said they were training other nurses to help in ICU, the nurses organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku said she was shocked to learn what that meant.

“Four hours online training — to go and support in ICU. Those decisions about what’s in the best interests of nursing have not been made for nurses,” she said.

Indeed, specialist ICU nurses say they would have to spend time supervising the online trained back-ups, adding more work to an already very challenging job.

And Bevan says surging up to more than 500 beds is not a realistic picture.

“That is a crisis, short term, and largely unsustainable model that we would have had to have moved to had we been overwhelmed like they have been in other parts of the world,” he says.

“But that would most likely achieve worse outcomes for all patients in ICU than they have in other parts of the world compared with our best model of care that we’ve been able to provide to date.”

The message is starting to get through to those who made decisions, he says.

Intensive care meetings
Intensive care bodies are meeting with the Ministry of Health twice a week and there is work underway to try to recruit more nurses from overseas, he says.

But it has to go beyond talk and into action, first to sort the short term problem but then to keep building on that over the next several years.

“The next pandemic is inevitable … it might be in 10 years, it might be in 100 years, but it is coming,” Bevan says.

Little says he has also asked for decisions on three DHBs proposals expanding ICU capacity to be “accelerated”, but even then, those “will be some months away — they won’t be instant”.

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

A New Zealand emergency medical specialist has written about their experience working at an Auckland hospital, issuing a warning ahead of yesterday’s Auckland border announcement.

Auckland’s border will reopen on December 15 for fully-vaccinated travellers or those who test negative for covid-19 within 72 hours of departure. The new rules will apply until January 17.

New Zealand reported 167 new community covid-19 cases today and two deaths.

The medical specialist’s warning:

I see my colleagues, busy caring for patients, contacting specialties, arranging tests, performing procedures, talking with families. I see police lining the corridor. I call for security when I hear someone screaming profanities at one of our nurses. I note that our isolation rooms are already full.

I see that we have one resuscitation room available, the rest are already full. There are three people mentally unwell who need care in a mental health unit, one of who is suicidal and has been in the busy and bright emergency department for over a day. 

There is no room available in any mental health unit in Auckland. We try our very best to provide them with care, but we are not a mental health inpatient unit. There are multiple patients waiting for admission to a ward; I am told that no beds will be available until the next morning. The charge nurse and I sigh. Another evening of balancing emergency care with providing ward care to those we’ve already seen and admitted with hardly any room in the emergency department. The nurses bear the brunt of this burden.

That was in early August, before the current outbreak.

Now, I head into my shift in charge as an Emergency Medicine Specialist. Before I’ve left [home] I have to shave so the N95 mask seals. I ready a box for my clothes (when I get home I strip naked before entering and beeline to the shower, I don’t want to infect my family).

The ambulance bay is packed. Everyone is in PPE, I can’t recognise people. The paramedics look tired. I don my N95 mask, check the seal and enter the department. Inside, all my colleagues are in full PPE. I see all the negative pressure isolation rooms are already full. The pregnant patients wait alongside the suicidal patients and the elderly breathless patients.

I am told the hospital has run out of negative pressure rooms on the ward, but that one might be freed up in an hour. There is no plan in place for what to do if there are no negative pressure rooms available. 

The charge nurse and I make one up. It is not ideal and has some risk. We inform management of the situation, but they can’t magic up new wards. A call from microbiology, “another covid positive result”. I quickly confirm that the patient is in a negative pressure room rather than in our makeshift four bedded very unlikely but theoretically possible covid space. They are. A relief — I would feel responsible for causing extra infections.

I hear security being called. I walk behind them and see someone in a negative pressure room throwing medical equipment around the room. They are covid positive and are thought to be high on methamphetamine. We can’t calm them down, the situation escalates. The security guards have to restrain them, risking covid infection.

A covid outbreak brings so many new incremental tasks and barriers to care and the new addition of significantly increased risk to the personal health and wellbeing of healthcare providers and patients. Paramedics, nurses, health care assistants, doctors, security and cleaners take an extra 3 minutes to don and doff PPE for every interaction. 

If I interact with 20 patients during an in-charge shift – that’s an hour of the shift that I am spending donning and doffing PPE that I could be using to provide care. Rooms need extra cleaning. Wards want to wait for negative covid swabs before admitting people even though they aren’t supposed to — I get it, they don’t want to be infected either. 

Our Emergency Department is more and more frequently overflowing. Ambulances might wait over 30 minutes to transfer their patients to our care leaving them unavailable for 111 dispatches. People can wait half a day for an ambulance transfer between hospitals — there are none available.

We hear a lot about ICU beds. It is absolutely true that we have half the number we should have even in the absence of a pandemic. But this issue is only one part of the problem.

If the number of unvaccinated covid cases increases significantly the problem will be that the entire health system will be overwhelmed — what will that look like?

How many ambulances, emergency department rooms, and ward rooms will there be, and, crucially, will there be enough healthcare workers?

When wards and EDs are full, ambulances cannot hand over care of their acutely unwell patients and so they wait in the ambulance bay for hours and days. When that happens, there will be no ambulances available. When an ambulance is called for my friend’s baby that is born early at home, for my uncle’s chest pain, for my cousin’s car crash, for my grandmother’s fall, my child’s nut allergy or my neighbour’s child with asthma — they may be queued at the hospital ambulance bay and unable to attend.

When wards are full, patients wait in the ED and when the ED is full, they wait in the waiting room and the corridors.

This is in Auckland, where there are more ambulances, more ED beds and more ward beds than Whanganui, or Taupō, or Greymouth.

Everyone has their reasons for or against the vaccine. These are my reasons for the vaccine:

• Vaccination decreases the rate of infection and therefore decreases the number of people who become unwell with covid.
• The Pfizer vaccine provides around 95 percent protection from symptomatic viral infection after two doses, which means 95 people out of 100 exposed to the virus will not develop symptomatic covid. Face coverings and social distancing help to further decrease the risk of infection on exposure. As there is active community transmission, we are all exposed. 
• Those vaccinated individuals who do become infected have very mild symptoms and so are less likely to pass it on. Fully immunised individuals rarely become unwell enough to require hospital level care, so they rarely need to come to hospital. This then decreases the risk of infection for health care workers.
• Every infection in a health care worker has flow-on effects, it is at least 10 patients per shift per clinician that have to be cared for by someone else in the place I work.

As the cases in the community grow, and contact tracing struggles to keep up, more cases become infectious in the community. The capacity to follow-up patients with Healthline also becomes exceeded while GPs are taking on more care for covid patients in the community.

GP practices are already overloaded, and people with chronic disease may not be able to get timely care or may feel uncomfortable seeking care — becoming acutely unwell as a result, needing hospital care.

Except when they need it there may be no bed for them, and, no ambulance.

That is a health system overwhelmed.

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

About 2000 New Zealand district health board workers had not been vaccinated 15 hours before the deadline to lose their jobs.

From today no one can work in healthcare unless they have had at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine or are exempt from the government mandate.

Unite Union’s Gerard Hehir represents six Waikato Hospital orderlies who have decided to quit.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

They had a last minute meeting with the district health board (DHB) yesterday, one of a series over the past few weeks.

“People have been given the opportunity to think about it, respond, have some time, offered more information,” he said.

Even though they could not work from today, they would have one more meeting this week, a chance to change their minds before their contracts were terminated, he said.

Other DHBs also met with workers yesterday, with most offering the chance for last minute vaccinations.

Numbers unclear
It was still unclear how many people have made the same choice as the Waikato orderlies.

A spokesperson representing all district health boards said at 9am yesterday they estimated there were about 2 percent or 3 percent of their 80,000 staff nationally who were unvaccinated — between 1600 and 2400 people.

But it would be a few days before they knew the final number, she said.

That estimate did not count the tens of thousands of contractors who worked at hospitals, doing jobs like carpentry, food preparation or patient transport.

Counties Manukau DHB managers have been told they are responsible for checking every contractor who is coming on site to do work for their team.

The mandate went beyond DHBs to people working in the community – GPs, physiotherapists, psychologists, midwives, chiropractors and more.

The College of GPs medical director Dr Bryan Betty said it was also trying to get a gauge on how many of the country’s 5000 GPs were not vaccinated.

He knew of about 20, but also of nurses and receptionists who would lose their jobs.

Awaiting DHB figures
Nurse and midwife organisations were also waiting on DHB figures to find out how their professions were impacted.

Nurses Organisation Kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku said there was a small number out of the roughly 50,000 nurses working around the country.

She knew personally of six who were still holding out but also of some who had been reluctant then realised their jobs were more important and got vaccinated.

College of Midwives chief executive Alison Eddy said she worried about losing any midwife from the workforce, because it was already so stretched.

Hehir said the union was supporting its workers but it did back the mandate.

When it surveyed its DHB workers, for every vaccine hesitant response, there were many more from those who said they would be uncomfortable working with unvaccinated people.

“It is a real serious issue with people losing their jobs but it is also a very serious issue for people concerned about their health and the health of their families,” he said.

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

A Northland high school principal says she has been accused of being “complicit in mass genocide” by people opposed to getting vaccinated.

After today, anyone who works or volunteers in an education setting in New Zealand and who has not received at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine will be barred from school grounds.

Last week, thousands of people marched up the streets of Wellington to Parliament to protest for various covid-19-related reasons.

• READ MORE: 173 new covid community cases reported in NZ today
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

Some were angry at the covid-19 vaccination mandates, the lockdowns or the vaccine itself.

The protesters screamed abuse at police and media, demanding an end to covid-19 restrictions.

This level of anger is all too familiar for Whangārei Boys High School principal Karen Gilbert-Smith.

“I appreciate that what’s happening for a lot of people is really challenging, but the kind of things that have been happening from my end, and I know speaking to other colleagues, they’re experiencing similar things, is relentlessness that we’re doing something to others,” Gilbert-Smith said.

‘Worst message’
“I think the worst message that I got was that I was complicit in mass genocide by supporting the vaccination mandate,” she said.

“We get a lot of emails from parents: the vast majority of those are positive, but the ones that kind of take the wind out of your sails and that require the most thoughtful response are the ones that are really awful and vindictive.”

The abuse was coming from all angles and although it was a minority, their voices were loud, Gilbert-Smith said.

“I think it’s the ill-informed or misinformed anti-vaxxers that are really whipping up that hatred. That just feels really abhorrent to me that misinformation just gets so widely spread and is leading to that sense of lack of safety for people in their communities.”

But today the no jab, no job policy for education staff officially kicks in.

Teachers need to have received at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine if they want to continue to work with students in a face-to-face learning environment.

‘Where are we going to find those replacements?’
Gilbert-Smith preferred not to comment on their own staffing situation at Whangārei Boys High School, but did say she was nervous.

“As principals, many of us have had conversations about the impact in our own schools and certainly in Te Tai Tokerau, it’s likely to have a significant impact on staffing across our schools, so we’re not just talking about teachers,” she said.

“We’re talking about groundsmen, canteen staff, support staff, everyone. We can ill afford to have staffing shortages and in Tai Tokerau it’s difficult enough.”

She is concerned that it will impact on students.

“It’s hard enough to put well qualified, passionate, knowledgeable, smart teachers in front of students, which is what they deserve. And now we’re in a situation of being a little bit further behind than that.

“Where are we going to find those replacements? Particularly teachers. That is very worrying to me.”

She said the constant hate and abuse was wearing her down and was making it harder for her to do her job.

‘Creating reassurance’
“Principals are creating reassurance for everyone in their community, but also fielding all the negativity that comes. Anyone with aspirations of being a principal right now, they might be reconsidering at this point,” she said.

“We are obliged to uphold the law, and that’s what we’re doing as principals, and we’re doing the best that we can. We’re managing people’s expectations and we’re dealing with their upset and distress.

“And keeping the school running as we’re supposed to do on any other day of the week, or any other time of the year. It is a lot of work.”

Gilbert-Smith said she loved her job, but the current conversations had moved too far away from being about creating better outcomes for young people in Aotearoa.

“That’s a real shame because they are the ones that will suffer, those young people in our schools.”

The impact of the vaccine mandate on teacher supply will not be known until the vaccination deadline has passed and numbers are clear, according to the Ministry of Health.

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

Auckland mayor Phil Goff has hit out at anti-lockdown protesters who held up traffic on roads throughout the country today, describing their actions as “crass and stupid”.

Police are promising to follow up on any offences or breaches of the laws after the Freedoms and Rights Coalition protest group took to the roads, trying to create a gridlock in New Zealand’s largest city by driving slowly.

On Facebook today, Goff said he came across them as he was returning from a Pasifika vaccination event at Mt Smart Stadium where he saw “volunteers and medical staff working in the pouring rain to ensure people are protected”.

• READ MORE: Covid conspiracy culture in NZ
• 175 new community cases in NZ
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He said their vehicles spread across three lanes of the motorway, doing 50 km an hour and deliberately blocking people from going about their business.

Goff said they were spreading disinformation and lies about covid-19 and vaccinations.

“Crass and stupid but what else would you expect?” he asked.

Cases and vaccination rates
The Ministry of Health reported 175 new community cases of covid-19 – 26 fewer than yesterday’s total.

Of those 159 are in Auckland, two in Northland, eight in Waikato, one in Taupō and the five previously announced cases in Taranaki.

The two new Northland cases have clear links to known cases.

However, the ministry late today confirmed three more positive results for Taupō in addition to the case announced earlier.

Two are household contacts.

The third is a close contact. This person, who is now isolating in Taupō, travelled to Masterton last weekend, before becoming ill on Monday.

Two other household contacts of the case have tested negative.

Ninety three people are in hospital – all in Auckland and eight more than yesterday.

Nine patients are in intensive care or a high dependency unit.

The latest wastewater result for the Taranaki town of Stratford has not detected covid-19.

Close to 90 percent target
Just over 2000 first doses of the covid-19 vaccine are needed for the whole country to officially reach the 90 percent milestone.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Health show Auckland DHB is the first to surpass more than 95 percent of the eligible population to have their first dose.

Nationally, about 80 percent have had a second dose.

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

An iwi that pastor Brian Tamaki descends from are calling him out to say he is putting Māori communities at risk.

This follows mass protests across the country on Tuesday organised by a “freedom” group set up by Tamaki opposing vaccines and lockdown restrictions.

Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Hikairo located between Kāwhia and Te Awamutu were especially concerned with the number of young tamariki involved in the rallies.

• READ MORE: NZ anti-vax protests, firefighters given vaccine mandate – 125 new cases
• Covid-19: 185 new community cases in New Zealand
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

They said Tāmaki, who was one of their own, was asking Māori communities to undermine science, putting their people at risk.

They have now called on the Destiny Church leader to take a whānau-first approach.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health reported 185 new community cases of covid-19 today, including 25 in Waikato and eight in Northland.

Rūnanga chair Susan Turner said because Tamaki was a descendant of their rūnanga it was important to show leadership and encourage the right messaging and approach to combatting covid 19.

She said Tamaki needed to promote scientific advice among whānau, iwi and the wider community to protect each other against the virus.

‘Share the right messages’
“Brian as a member of Ngāti Hikairo, we wanted to encourage him to share the right messages and dispel the rhetoric that he and his followers are saying to our people.

“We want them to follow science and go with the right advice and for our people to be united in this fight against covid,” she said.

The inclusion of mixed messaging related to freedom and self-determination was particularly concerning.

It comes as the rūnanga battles to prevent an outbreak amongst Ngāti Hikairoa whānau.

Turner said it did not reflect a mātauranga Māori approach as tino rangatiratanga should be represented by a collective effort to protect whānau and those most vulnerable.

The current approach from Tamaki was promoting a colonial approach to preserving life and liberty, she said.

“The biggest concern that we’ve got is the fact that they’re giving our people the wrong information.

Tamaki message ‘opposing tikanga’
“Those sentiments simply oppose the whole concept of what we believe is our tikanga which is about protecting ourselves, protecting our whānau and the people that live in our community.

“It’s clear to us that this virus is going to spread, and we need to do all we can to protect our whānau, our rangatahi and our tamariki,” she said.

The rūnanga strongly supported vaccines and said Tamaki carried a Ngāti Hikairo name, and with that came obligations to use his platform to strengthen Māori communities by encouraging whānau to get vaccinated and comply with health restrictions.

A spokesperson for Tamaki rejected RNZ’s request for an interview but said they wished to speak to Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Hikairo face-to-face about the issues at hand.

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

Some Aucklanders enjoying new freedoms today said there had been stress and anxiety in the community during New Zealand’s longest lockdown.

The country’s largest city moved to level 3 step 2 and shops can open — but swimming pools, cinemas and theatres remain closed.

Coincidentally, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visited Auckland for the first time in 12 weeks touring a factory and visiting a Pacific vaccination drive.

• LISTEN: RNZ Checkpoint – Education Minister details return to schools (duration 8′:53″)
• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

She faced criticism for not meeting with other businesses such as hospitality or hairdressers.

Ardern said she would be returning to Auckland to see how the people were dealing with the delta outbreak.

This morning she spoke with Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive Brett O’Riley and toured an engineering factory, before visiting a Pacific youth vaccination event in Māngere. It is her first trip to the city since lockdown was imposed in August.

In the stand-up, Ardern said the reason she was delayed in visiting Auckland was limitations in Parliament.

“As soon as those measures lifted, I found the first available time to come home,” she said.

“Tāmaki Makaurau is my home and today’s been really important for me to reconnect with those I’ve been keeping in contact with at a distance — business representatives, health providers — but also to have a chance to talk to Aucklanders about their experience.”

Schools to reopen
Covid-19 Response and Education Minister Chris Hipkins said the benefits of reopening primary schools and kura in Auckland and Waikato on November 17 far outweighed any risks.

Children in Year 4 and up will need to wear a mask, the number on-site will be limited, and groups of children will have to distance themselves from one another.

Schools and kura will decide what works best for them, but most pupils in Years 1 to 8 will probably return part-time, while Years 9 and 10 go back full-time.

The opposition National Party wants all schools to reopen immediately, and said paying schools up to $400 per student and regularly testing children would help them make up for lost class time.

The party this morning released its “Back on Track” plan to help school students catch up on their curriculum.

The numbers

• 147 new community cases of covid-19: 131 in Auckland, 14 in Waikato, and two in Northland. And 63 cases from today remain unliked.
• The suburbs of interest in Auckland are Ranui, Sunnyvale, Kelston, Birkdale, Manurewa and Māngere.
• 81 people with Covid-19 in hospital, including 11 in ICU or HDU. Of those, 40 cases are either unvaccinated or not eligible, 25 are partially vaccinated, 10 are fully vaccinated, and the vaccination status of six is unknown.
• 4813 community cases in the current outbreak.

A man in his 60s who had covid-19 and was isolating at a home in Glen Eden in Auckland has died — the third such death.

The cause of his death will be determined by the coroner, including whether it may have been covid-related.

Two people isolating at home with covid-19 died last week.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said allowing covid-19 patients to isolate at home was generally working well but the deaths were being reviewed.

AstraZeneca vaccine becomes an option
The AstraZeneca vaccine will be made available later this month for a small number of people aged 18 and over who cannot have the Pfizer shots for medical reasons.

Dr Bloomfield said people who were required to be vaccinated under the public health order, but who preferred AstraZeneca to Pfizer, could also opt for it.

He said only a few hundred people aged 18 and over would be eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccine from late November.

However, several hours later, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told Newstalk ZB AstraZeneca would actually be available to anyone who has a conversation with their doctor.

New Zealand’s Parliament was on high security today as thousands marched through the capital Wellington for an anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination protest.

Thousands of people gathered at Civic Square for an anti-lockdown and anti vaccination protest this morning.

The group intended to march to Parliament for what they are describing as a “freedom protest”.

• READ MORE: RNZ News live blog
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

Significant disruptions to the bus services in the capital were expected as buses detoured away from the central business distruct (CBD) to avoid the protest.

Protester ‘bites’ police officer
Meanwhile in Auckland, a police officer was bitten by a protester at the northern boundary as a group blocked traffic for more than an hour.

About 50 protesters arrived from the northern side of the boundary on State Highway 1 at Te Hana.

Traffic in both directions was brought to a halt by the group and some of their vehicles.

Police said they attempted to engage with the group and a number of vehicles were towed in order to clear the roadway.

Officers physically intervened to move protesters off the road and in the process one was bitten by an “as yet unidentified protester”, police said.

“Actions like this are totally avoidable and poses unnecessary risk to our staff who are simply trying do their part in preventing the spread of covid-19,” Waitematā District Commander Superintendent Naila Hassan said in a statement.

Protesters have dispersed and police will keep monitoring the site.

Protest ‘interferes with vaccination efforts’
Te Rūnanga ō Ngāti Whātua uri and chief operating officer Antony Thompson said trucks carrying food and medical supplies were being held up unnecessarily, “creating major risks to our communities and whānau of the North”.

He said thoughtless moves like this put whānau in danger and urged members of these groups to think about the impact they were having on those they believed they were trying to protect.

Thompson said protesters were using this as an opportunity to “grandstand their issue”.

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

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today that the New Zealand cabinet agreed to loosen restrictions for Auckland and upper Northland this week, while 190 new cases were reported and the deaths of two people who had covid-19 are under investigation.

Ardern said at the 4pm post-cabinet press conference that last week’s in principle decision to move Auckland to alert level 3, step 2, had been confirmed by cabinet.

Auckland will move to the new step from 11.59pm tomorrow, which means retail businesses and public facilities like libraries, museums and zoos can reopen.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

Outdoor gathering limits increase to 25 people and the two-household restriction is removed.

“While we’re getting those rates higher still, we are easing into our reopening,” she said.

Ardern said that it’s hoped Auckland will reach 90 percent double-vaccination rates by the end of November, when the city will then change to the new traffic light framework.

A further 190 new community cases were reported in New Zealand today, with 182 in Auckland, seven in Waikato and one in Northland.

81 covid people now in hospital
There is now an increase to 81 people in hospital with covid-19.

Two deaths were reported today of people who were positive for covid-19, but their causes of death will be determined by the coroner.

One person in their late 60s died in Auckland City Hospital on Saturday. The patient was admitted to hospital on October 23 for a trauma incident and tested positive for covid-19 on admission, the Ministry of Health said.

Another death was reported in a managed isolation facility this morning. In a statement the ministry said the returnee arrived on November 3 and tested positive during a routine day three test.

The cause of that person’s death will be determined by the coroner, including whether it may have been covid-19 related.

Vaccination rates were key in determining if Auckland could relax restrictions, Ardern said.

All three of Auckland’s district health boards (DHBs) had hit the 90 percent milestone for first doses of vaccinations late yesterday.

89% of NZers had first dose
To date, 89 percent of New Zealanders have had their first dose and 78 percent are fully vaccinated.

There were 14,280 vaccine doses administered yesterday, including 3272 first doses and 11,008 second doses.

Medsafe has also approved a booster dose of Pfizer vaccines for people aged over 18, at least six months after the second dose. The next step is for the technical advisory group to inform ministers about this, Ardern said.

She said there was a “strong expectation” that Auckland would move to the new “traffic light” system after a November 29 cabinet meeting.

“Moving to the new framework at that time will mean certainty for Auckland. It will mean all businesses can be open and operate, it will mean we will manage covid safely, but differently,” she said.

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson told RNZ Checkpoint the push will now be on to meet that second dose target.

“We know that people now understand the importance of getting the second dose, we’re going to be working doubly hard to make sure that everybody over the next three weeks … comes forward.”

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

An Auckland councillor says he is astounded by the lack of cultural awareness shown by the authorities towards Māori and Pacific communities this far into the pandemic.

Manukau ward councillor Fa’anana Efeso Collins said covid-19 has become a Māori and Pacific outbreak, and South Auckland in particular is bearing the brunt.

He said calls over the past year for Māori and Pacific representatives to be at the decision-making table had been largely ignored.

• READ MORE: Auckland DHBs hit 90% first vaccinations
• Covid-19 update: 113 new community cases in New Zealand today
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Collins said those designing the response seem to have little knowledge of the communities, and it was showing.

“[We should have] people who are on the ground who understand our communities — right from the very beginning our request was that they be around the table that makes the decisions.

“And so these decisions are so far detached and disconnected from the realities on the ground.”

Fa’anana said the fact the government’s process for dealing with people in self-isolation was not practical was a glaring example.

Two patients died at home
This week two patients with covid-19 died while isolating at home.

On Friday a man in his fifties died in a Mount Eden apartment block after discharging himself from hospital on Wednesday.

And a 40-year-old man died while self-isolating in Manukau on Wednesday.

The cause of death has not been determined in either case, but the Health Ministry said the deaths were being considered as part of a wider systemic review it was carrying out with Auckland district health boards (DHBs).

Fa’anana said authorities were warned self-isolation would not work, and that for many families in South Auckland, it’s next to impossible.

“You know, the Ministry of Health says everyone gets sent an email. I think it’s time to get real — none of us read emails.

“And so I think that’s the level of lack of intelligence that perhaps we’re seeing from the Ministry of Health because they’re not on the ground, they don’t understand our communities.”

Battling the Health Ministry
“Fa’anana said health reforms cannot come soon enough.

Fa’anana’s criticisms come as Whānau Ora is battling the Health Ministry in court to try get access to personal data on unvaccinated Māori released to them.

The organisation wants to use the data for directing campaigns to increase vaccination rates among Māori.

The ministry has agreed to provide some of the data sought. It agreed to supply individual’s vaccination status for previous clients of Whānau Ora services, and anonymous vaccination status data to street level, to show unvaccinated areas in communities.

While the ministry has so far refused to hand over the full personalised data, after a High Court ruling this week it agreed to work with Whānau Ora to identify places where “outreach to Māori is most needed”, and to identify what data sharing was needed in those cases.

South Auckland health workers going door-to-door
Manurewa-Papakura ward councillor Daniel Newman said the ministry’s vaccination campaign had fallen short and left too many people vulnerable to the virus.

He said the government’s failure to set vaccine targets for Māori was already having consequences, and that is showing in hospitalisation statistics.

In his ward, frontline healthcare workers have resorted to door-to-door visits in an effort to reach vulnerable and vaccine-hesitant residents.

However, that could potentially expose them to people who are infectious with the virus and are isolating at home, he said.

He called on the government to protect healthworkers by letting them know where people are isolating at home with covid-19.

“It’s really important that we stay safe, because not only do we need to protect our own health, but we can’t become conduits for covid-19 ourself.

“The important thing for us is that we have enough scale that we have the ability to get to enough people as soon as possible.”

He said the door-to-door approach was necessary: “We’re in a race against covid-19 which is seeding in those streets, we need to get people protected before they become unwell.”

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

Church minister Suiva’aia Te’o says proactive communication, compassion and clear information have led to a fully vaccinated congregation.

Like most churches operating under level three and four rules, the Sāmoan Methodist Māngere Central church livestreams services on Facebook and holds Bible studies and prayer meetings over Zoom.

To keep the young people engaged they run Kahoot! quizzes and online talent shows.

• READ MORE: More Local Democracy Reporting stories on Asia Pacific Report
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But when lockdown rules lift, the congregation will be able to confidently worship in person — because all 120 of them are already double-vaccinated.

The church’s Reverend Suiva’aia Te’o says no edict or mandate was imposed by her or anyone else. Rather, she made sure everyone was given clear and relevant information, and then members of the congregation got the vaccinations of their own volition.

“One Sunday I gave a brief talk about why they should take it. My thinking was if everybody understands why, then they can make a decision for themselves,” she says.

Te’o was motivated to promote the vaccine after attending a talk organised by Pacific health provider South Seas for church ministers in South Auckland. She says the crux of her message to the congregation was to do it for the “love of family”.

‘We breathe the same air’
“We all live in the same world and we breathe the same air,” she says. “The delta variant can spread so easily, and so I reminded them it was about the safety of their families, the safety of the community and the safety of the church.”

She also recruited the support of her church’s youth group leaders, including Māngere College student Gardinea Lemoa.

“We have youth meetings every Friday and so I’ve just been encouraging them to get vaccinated and to get their friends and family vaccinated as well,” says Lemoa.

“We’ve also been making up memes so they could post things on their social media accounts.”

Te’o is well aware that some Christian leaders are calling the covid-19 vaccine the “mark of the beast” and a sign of the end times, but she’s got no time for such attempts to stoke fear.

“I know they say that’s what they believe, but I don’t agree. I think it’s just an excuse and they need to get vaccinated.

“We have got this remedy, and I’m convinced it has been developed with God-given wisdom and knowledge by professionals so we can be safe.”

86% of eligible Pacific population
Before this weekend 86 percent of the eligible Pacific population have had their first dose, compared to 89 percent of Europeans and close to 100 percent of the Asian population.

Around 50,000 Counties Manukau District Health Board residents still need to get their second dose in order to reach the 90 percent double-vaccinated threshold. It’s a marker the Auckland and Waitematā DHB populations need about 15,000 and 40,000 doses respectively to reach.

Given the lower vaccination rates for Pacific peoples, associate professor of public health at the University of Auckland Dr Collin Tukuitonga says it is still a source of frustration that the Ministry of Health decided on a centralised approach at the start of the vaccine rollout and didn’t lean more on churches to support the immunisation programme.

“It is encouraging to see so many community-led initiatives happening now. But these should have been resourced from the beginning,” he says.

“Instead, the first big mass vaccination event was held at [higher learning institution] Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT). It was great that they got 16,000 people vaccinated then, but it actually made things worse in some ways, because they barely vaccinated any Māori or Pacific people.”

He says when local organisations like churches are empowered to take the lead, mistrust and misinformation become less of a hurdle to overcome.

“Now we have Pacific providers taking ownership we are finally seeing a lot more acceptance and uptake of the vaccine.”

Quickly got on board
Te’o says though her congregation quickly got on board with the vaccination rollout, many have still found lockdown challenging.

“I thought with this lockdown it would be quiet for us, but it’s not – there’s more and more Zoom meetings and more work. It’s been a hard time, the world is changing a lot for so many of us and there’s a lot of uncertainty.

“We’ve been providing food parcels for some families and some have needed small monetary grants to help with paying the power or other bills.”

But one thing she is confident about, given all her congregation is vaccinated, is that when they do get back to in-person services they’ll all have that extra layer of protection.

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 partner.

A record 206 new community cases of covid-19 were reported in New Zealand today, as the total number of vaccinations in this country topped 7 million.

There was no media conference today. In a statement, the Ministry of Health said there were 200 cases in Auckland, four in Waikato and two in Northland.

The ministry said 159 were yet to be linked to earlier cases, with 623 unlinked cases in the past 14 days.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

The two new cases in Northland — which are both close contacts of earlier cases — bring the total number of cases in the region to 17. Two of the four new cases in Waikato have been linked to earlier cases.

The ministry said the 206 community cases numbers reported today were “a reminder of the infectiousness of covid-19, and particularly the delta variant, and the importance of vaccination as the number one protection against the virus”.

There are now 73 people in hospital with the coronavirus, including seven in intensive care. The average age of the people in hospital is 51.

There was also one new case reported at the border today.

There were 163 new community cases reported in New Zealand yesterday, up from 139 on Thursday. There was also a second death of a person with covid-19 isolating at home reported yesterday.

There have now been 4240 cases in the current community outbreak and 6981 since the pandemic began.

Seven million doses given
The ministry said 7,007,962 doses had been given – 3,744,702 first doses and 3,263,260 second doses.

“This is an important milestone as we push towards our target of getting 90 percent of eligible people in each DHB fully vaccinated.”

The Auckland DHB only needs 15,284 more people to get their second shot to reach the 90 percent target.

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

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern did not turn up to a planned New Zealand media event at a vaccination clinic in Whanganui today where a group of anti-vaccination protesters gathered.

Ardern was visiting a vaccination bus in the city and changed the time of the stand-up to just after 1.20pm at a new venue.

Around 200 anti-vaccination protesters made their presence felt at the mobile clinic on Victoria Avenue.

• READ MORE: PM Jacinda Ardern moves covid media conference after conspiracy heckling
• Other NZ covid reports

But this did not put off a few people from getting their shots or turning up hoping to catch a glimpse of Ardern.

In the stand-up, Ardern said she was not taking the protest personally and was not surprised by it.

Whanganui’s vaccination rates are below the national vaccination average.

In other developments today:

• The Ministry of Health announced 100 new community covid-19 cases — 97 in Auckland and three in Waikato.
• The government has purchased another 4.7 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for use in New Zealand over the next year, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins revealed while giving the latest details on the pandemic with Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

Second day in row
This was the second day in a row that an Ardern covid media briefing had been disrupted by protest over covid vaccination. Yesterday, heckling in Northland by an American pharmacist claiming to be a journalist forced the prime minister to change venues in the middle of the press conference.

“We are at a stage in the vaccine roll-out where we are trying to reach into communities that may hold firm views,” Ardern said today.

“But we need to have those conversations and, just talking to some of our health practitioners, their goal is to talk to everyone wherever they can to have those conversations about why it’s so important that people are vaccinated.”

On teachers who may be about to lose their jobs due to the government vaccination mandate, Ardern said: “We have not taken lightly the decision for some areas to require vaccination. It’s taken a lot of discussion and careful thought and we have focused in on those groups that we consider high risk.”

On whether mandates have destroyed social cohesion and forced some into corners, Ardern said although it may have had that effect with some, for others it had forced a conversation and made people ask questions.

“We had the experience of having already rolled this out for our border workers and what we noticed was by putting a date it did cause those who had questions to go and seek advice, talk to trusted health professionals and then make a decision.”

On her statement at the beginning of the pandemic that vaccinations would never be forced on anyone, yet mandates seemed to contradict that, Ardern said it was always her view that the government would not force all New Zealanders to be vaccinated and that view had not changed. They would not.

‘Duty of care to the vulnerable’
“This is about certain workforces and work places, where we’ve applied assessment on whether or not we have a duty of care to look after those most vulnerable.”

“We’ve guarded against requiring vaccines where we need to ensure that people are always, no matter what, they are able to access health services, food, government support.

“We have been very clear, we will not require nor will we ever require vaccine certificates to access food, government benefits, access services that people need to live.”

Vaccination efforts across the country are in fully swing as district health boards work towards 90 percent full vaccination rates.

Only five district health boards have hit the milestone for first jabs: Capital and Coast, Auckland, Waitematā, Canterbury, and, just yesterday, Southern DHB.

Counties Manukau District Health Board is on the home stretch to meeting the 90 percent first dose milestone, only 3951 injections away.

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

A person with covid-19 self isolating in New Zealand has been found dead.

The person was found dead in Auckland by a family member visiting them today.

They had tested positive for covid-19 on October 24 and had been isolating at home in Manukau with public health oversight.

• READ MORE: NZ anti-vaxxers foil PM Ardern’s planned clinic media briefing
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

Manurewa-Papakura Ward councillor Daniel Newman has called the death a tragic example of the toll that the pandemic is having on South Auckland.

The Ministry of Health said that currently the cause of death was unknown and it may have been covid-19 or some other cause.

The death will be referred to the Coroner, it said.

New Zealand has recorded 28 covid-19 deaths since the pandemic began. If covid is confirmed as the cause of this death, it would bring the total to 29.

Almost 700 self-isolating at home
Nearly 700 people are self isolating at home in Auckland, with the total number of active cases in the region now more than 1900.

There were 97 new community cases in Auckland today, and the city is now dealing with 1904 active cases.

Three more cases in Waikato took the total to 100.

The ministry said public health officials were now supporting 692 cases to safely isolate at home.

See how the day’s covid-19 news unfolded with RNZ’s blog.

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

New Zealand’s cabinet has decided to ease restrictions for some, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says cases may peak this month at 200 a day, and Tonga will enter a snap lockdown at midnight.

Restrictions are set to ease slightly in both Waikato and Tāmaki Makaurau, albeit at different times.

Prime Minister Ardern announced at today’s post-cabinet briefing that Waikato would move down to alert level 3 step 2 from midnight Tuesday.

• READ MORE: 162 new community cases in New Zealand today
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

In Auckland, fewer than 5000 first doses remain before reaching 90 percent single-dose vaccination, and for Auckland as a whole 80 percent has had two doses.

“And that’s incredible,” said Ardern, praising Aucklanders for their progress.

“Case numbers, while growing, remain within some of our expectations as modelled and the public health assessment of the impact of changes like opening up retail include that this activity is generally not responsible for marked increases of new cases.”

Meanwhile, cabinet has decided in principle to move Tāmaki Makaurau to alert level 3 step 2 next Tuesday at 11.59pm.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said potentially slightly easing restrictions in Auckland was a pragmatic move.

Hipkins told RNZ Checkpoint tonight the in-principle decision was based on public health advice.

Covid-19 modeller Professor Michael Plank earlier warned that relaxing restrictions in Auckland and parts of Waikato would accelerate case numbers.

The numbers

• There were 162 new community cases reported today
• Of the new cases 156 are in Auckland, five in Waikato and one in Northland
• There are 53 people in hospital
• More than 3.1 million New Zealanders are now fully vaccinated
• More than 20,000 vaccines were administered yesterday

Covid-19 cases may peak this month at 200 a day according to modelling that takes vaccination rates into account, Ardern said.

The government modelling suggested there could be 1400 covid-19 cases reported a week by the end of the month.

This would result in 150 new hospitalisations a week, with 11 of those patients requiring intensive care.

The modelling was based on a median scenario with a transmission rate of between 1.2 and 1.3.

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said ICUs would not be overwhelmed with those numbers.

Tonga goes into lockdown
Two days ago the kingdom of Tonga recorded its first case of covid-19, now at midnight the main island Tongatapu will go into lockdown.

The lockdown will stay in place until next Sunday.

The positive case arrived in Nuku’alofa on a repatriation flight from Christchurch and while he is asymptomatic, he is being cared for alone in a special quarantine facility in Mu’a.

Tonga’s Ministry of Health Chief Executive Dr Siale Akau’ola said the remaining 214 passengers were in MIQ at the Tanoa Hotel while about 80 frontline workers who met the flight are also in MIQ at the Kupesi Hotel.

“In terms of gatherings this is the most significant part of the lockdown. No schools, all schools are closed, no church gathering, no kava club, no entertainment or any kind of gathering,” RNZ Pacific’s correspondent in Tonga, Kalafi Moala, said.

Safety fears as supplement sales soar
Sales of natural health supplements have risen since covid-19 arrived in New Zealand, but some products can have adverse effects such as anaphylaxis or death.

Supplements, however, are largely unregulated in New Zealand, with the Ministry of Health saying the pandemic has delayed new legislation.

Ten years of Medsafe data shows two people died from complementary and alternative medicine, or CAM, and that 30 percent of suspected reactions are life-threatening or cause disability.

About eighty percent of New Zealanders have taken natural health supplements, and Nielsen data shows sales in supermarkets alone rose by nearly 14 percent in the past two years, reflecting worldwide trends.

Two positive community cases fled the Jet Park Managed Quarantine Facility yesterday, in a second breach of MIQ security at the weekend.

Police said one of the people has been found and returned to MIQ. He was found during a vehicle stop in west Auckland.

The whereabouts of a woman who also skipped MIQ on Saturday is known to police but public health officials said she did not need to return.

Police said a decision around any charges would be made soon.

Meanwhile, police said a 36-year-old man had been arrested and charged with Failing to Comply with Order (Covid-19) in relation to attending a gathering at the Auckland Domain and subsequent march through Newmarket on Saturday.

Ronapreve covid-19 treatment
A covid-19 treatment the government is purchasing can help reduce the number of people dying from the virus, says an expert from the University of Otago.

Pharmac revealed yesterday it is set to subsidise Ronapreve, also known as Regeneron or REGEN-COV, which is used for people in danger of becoming severely unwell.

It is expected to be in the country by Christmas.

University of Otago infectious diseases professor Kurt Krause told RNZ Morning Report it was a highly effective way of dealing with early infection and in preventing infection.

Medsafe is also considering molnupiravir for the treatment of covid-19.

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

New Zealand has reported eight new covid-19 cases, including seven residents, at an Auckland care home, adding to one announced yesterday.

This was part of a jump to a record total of 160 new community cases reported today — 151 in Auckland, seven in Waikato and one each in Northland and Canterbury.

Following further testing at Edmonton Meadows care home in Henderson, the seven residents and one staff member have been confirmed as having the virus, bringing the total number of cases at the home to nine, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

• READ MORE: 160 new community cases in NZ today
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

The ministry said it was important to point out the home had high levels of vaccination among residents, and all staff are fully vaccinated.

All staff and residents have now been tested and will also receive day five and day 12 testing.

Auckland Regional Public Health staff are supporting the residents and staff at the privately owned facility.

At this stage, only one positive staff member has been required to stand down.

Investigation seeking source
An investigation has begun to try and find out the source of the infection.

The retirement village has been operating under alert level 3 guidelines for visitors, meaning people have only been able to visit the village on compassionate grounds.

Meanwhile, the focus today in Auckland remains on testing in areas identified as having higher positivity rates, where the risk of unidentified cases is higher.

Public health staff are asking people in the suburbs of Redvale, Rosedale, New Lynn, Wiri, Drury, Henderson and Manurewa with symptoms to get tested — no matter how mild their symptoms may be.

The advice is the same even if people are vaccinated.

There are 16 community testing centres available for testing across Auckland today. Up-to-date information on testing locations in Auckland, visit here.

There was no media briefing today. In a statement, the ministry said 95 of today’s cases were still to be linked and there had been 358 unlinked cases in the past 14 days.

There are 47 people in hospital, up from 37 yesterday. Two are in intensive care.

There are also two new cases at the border.

There were 125 new covid-19 cases in the community reported yesterday afternoon.

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

New Zealand has reported 125 new covid-19 cases in the community today — including two new cases in Christchurch, the Ministry of Health says.

There was no covid-19 media conference for lockdown updates today.

In a statement, the ministry said the two Christchurch cases were expected and linked community cases, both from a single household linked to the cases identified earlier this week.

• READ MORE: Other covid-19 lockdown reports

The ministry said 13 close contacts of the four Canterbury cases were isolating and will undergo further testing.

There was also one new case in Northland and four in Waikato, with the remaining 118 in Auckland.

Three of the Waikato cases are still to be linked, but the Northland case was not unexpected, as they were a household member of a case and were already isolating.

Fifty-one of the new cases are still to be linked. There have been 289 unlinked cases in the past 14 days.

Three new border cases
There were also three new cases and one historical case identified at the border.

There are 39 people in hospital with the coronavirus, including four in intensive care.

The ministry said the rise in case numbers was a reminder of the infectiousness of covid-19.

“With over 30,000 tests processed nationwide yesterday, these results aren’t unexpected,” it said.

There were 44,779 doses of the covid-19 vaccine given yesterday, including 12,780 first doses and 31,999 second doses.

One of the four new cases reported in the Waikato today has been linked to existing cases. Three of the new cases were in the Te Awamutu/Kihikihi area and one in Ōtorohanga.

There were 89 new community cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand yesterday, after the revelation of the first two cases in Christchurch.

The number of community cases linked to the current outbreak has risen to more than 3000, with 3046 cases in this outbreak — more than half of the 5764 in total since the pandemic began.

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

The New Zealand government revealed changes to MIQ (managed isolation and quarantine) today, with stays halving from 14 to seven days, followed by isolation at home for three days.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield gave today’s update on the government’s response to the Delta outbreak.

There were 89 new community cases of covid-19 reported in New Zealand today — including two in Christchurch.

Watch it here

Today’s media briefing. Video: RNZ

Under the new MIQ regime, which will begin from November 14, arrivals must be fully vaccinated and will be tested on days 0, 3 and 6 and undertake a rapid antigen test before leaving MIQ, before a day-9 test at home.

He said this would free up about 1500 rooms a month in MIQ. Some of this would be taken up by community cases but some would go into the booking system for travellers from overseas.

Pacific border travel
The second step will be to reopen the border to low-risk travellers from Samoa, Tonga and Tokelau without isolation.

This one-way quarantine-free travel will begin from November 8.

The third step will allow more people to isolate at home, available to increasing numbers of travellers in the first quarter of 2022.

He said changes at the border will be linked to the traffic light system.

“The faster New Zealanders get fully vaccinated so that we can move to the traffic light system, the faster we’ll be able to open the border.”

He said New Zealanders will also understand that the government does not want to accelerate the spread of covid-19 around the country by lowering restrictions before we reach very high levels of vaccination.

Kiwis first priority
Hipkins said the first priority for allowing people into New Zealand was Kiwis and people who already had visas, followed by other groups like international students.

“Tourists are more of a challenge … what you will see though in the first part of next year will be quite different from the way we’ve been managing it over the past 18 months.”

Hipkins said stopping covid-19 at the border had been a priority and New Zealand’s ability to do so had led to levels of freedom over the past year and a half which were the envy of many other nations.

“As a country we owe a massive vote of thanks to our front-line MIQ and border workers,” he said.

Hipkins said in the meantime, the message to all New Zealanders was very simple – get vaccinated.

83 cases in Auckland
The Ministry of Health said 83 of the new community covid-19 cases were in Auckland and four are in Waikato.

Two were already reported in Christchurch yesterday, but the Hipkins said this afternoon that Cabinet had decided to keep the region at alert level 2.

Dr Bloomfield said there was one case in an MIQ worker, with work being done to identify if this was a community case.

Fifty of today’s cases remain unlinked. There are 293 unlinked cases from the past 14 days.

There are also seven cases in managed isolation

There are 37 people in hospital, with five in intensive care.

The four new community cases in Waikato today include three in Hamilton and one in Ôtorohanga, and are all contacts of existing cases.

Just three cases in the Waikato have not been epidemiologically linked to the outbreak, although they have been geneologically linked.

Yesterday there were 74 new community cases of covid-19 — 68 in Auckland and six in Waikato.

There have now been 2921 cases in the current delta outbreak.

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

Ngāti Whātua kaitiaki remain in bolstered numbers at the border between Tāmaki Makaurau and Te Tai Tokerau to stop protesters getting through.

Together with Navy and police staff at Te Hana, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Whātua has turned around about 50 people from anti-vax and anti-lockdown groups throughout this morning.

Chief operating officer Antony Thompson (Ngāti Whātua) told RNZ protesters had come from both sides of the border to meet up, but none got through.

• READ MORE: 74 new community covid cases reported in NZ today
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“About 20 to 25 who got started protesting … after probably about 10 minutes they were moved on.”

His team respected the right to protest but it was the wrong place and wrong time, with a growing covid-19 cluster in the Far North, he said.

“The majority of them [protesters] have dispersed, or gone home. And there’s maybe a handful of, I guess ‘hold outs’, that are hoping that more cars turn up and they can go through together.”

The rūnanga would much rather be vaccinating whānau than having to protect them from rule-breakers, Thompson said.

“Recently our whaea Dame Naida Glavish quoted ‘this hoo-ha, this hōhā’ and it really is.”

‘Incredibly disappointed’
Police said they were “incredibly disappointed” by those rallying.

In a statement this afternoon, police said more officers had been deployed to monitor “hīkoi” activity.

“Police have additional staff deployed, including our Iwi Liaison Officers, to both monitor the hīkoi travelling north as well as additional staff in Waitangi,” the statement said.

“Our focus is to ensure the current restrictions set out in the Health Order are adhered to by those involved as well as working to support our Iwi partners in Northland.

“We are working closely with our partners, including leadership of Te Tii Marae, who have indicated that the protesters are not welcome this year due to the risk posed by the delta strain of covid-19.”

Another group of protesters attempted to make it through Auckland’s southern border late on Tuesday evening, and some remained there today, blocking State Highway 1.

The chair of Te Rūnanga-Ā-Iwi-O-Ngāpuhi Wane Wharerau (Ngāpuhi, Te Māhurehure, Uri Kaiwhare, Ngāitawake ki te Waoku / Ngāitawake ki te Tūawhenua / Ngāitawake ki te Tairāwhiti, Ngāti Hine-Mutu) also put out a statement this morning.

The protesters were “particularly dangerous” attempting to get to Waitangi, he said.

Recognising ‘real Māori freedom fighters’
“It is disappointing that organisers are using He Whakaputanga, or the Declaration of Independence, as a means to bring attention to their cause.

“Ngāpuhi recognise and honour the real Māori freedom fighters whose lifelong activism and personal sacrifice meant something and moved our people forward; freedom fighters such as Eva Rickard, Dame Whina Cooper, Titewhai Harawira, Dr Matire Harwood, Rima Edwards, Matiu Rata, Sir James Henare, and Dame Cindy Kiro just to name a few.

“Almost every Ngāpuhi urupā has evidence of the thousands of whānau, some in unmarked graves,” he said, referring to those who died in the 1918 flu pandemic.

“Now, little more than 100 years after that pandemic, Te Tai Tokerau is at the point of a similar threat, but this time we have a vaccine at our disposal.

“We have not fought this virus for 20 months and tolerated the harsh restrictions around tangihanga, gathering at marae and visiting whānau, to abandon this plan now.”

New Zealand reported 74 new community cases of covid-19 today — the lowest tally for several days. There were 68 in Auckland and six in Waikato.

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

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today announced vaccination will be mandated in any workplace that requires a certificate of vaccination for entry.

Last week the government announced details of its Covid-19 Protection Framework last week, involving the roll-out of a “traffic-light” system once all district health boards (DHBs) hit 90 percent full vaccination rates.

Ardern told media the government wanted everyone to move towards the new system announced and urged vaccination rates to increase.

• READ MORE: 79 new community covid cases in NZ – 75 in Auckland
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

She said this was the “best way to give certainty to business and to our communities”.

“We need to ensure vaccination rates lift. So please don’t wait until cases come to your town or your city, get vaccinated now,” she added.

Under the new traffic light system, hospitality, hair dresses and gyms can operate at all levels if they ask customers for vaccine certificates.

The government had already mandated vaccinations for people working at the border, and in the health and education sectors.

“If customers must be vaccinated, then so too, must the workers,” she said.

“The timing of this coming into force will depend on when we move to the Covid-19 Protection Framework.”

Watch the media briefing

Today’s media conference. Video: RNZ News

Ardern said the requirement would ensure staff and customers were treated equally, and it would play a “big part in helping to minimise the spread of the virus in the highest risk venues by reducing the potential for covid to enter the business”.

The prime minister rejected suggestions the new requirement constituted government overreach and said the move had a public health basis, which balanced the rights of workers with the rights of business clients.

Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Michael Wood said the current orders in place covered 15 percent of the workforce.

“Our estimate is that those workplaces covered by covid vaccine certificates are potentially around about 25 percent of the workforce,” he said.

“So, that would bring it to about 40 percent in total, noting that other workplaces would still have access to the simplified risk management framework.”

‘Ban unvaccinated people from domestic flights’
Leading epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said banning unvaccinated people from taking flights would help stem the spread of covid-19

Dr Baker said allowing unvaccinated people on a plane increased the risk of infection.

He told RNZ the ban needed to happen on domestic flights now to protect travellers.

Dr Baker said it was recognised groups of people should not congregate indoors unless they were vaccinated.

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

New Zealand has reported 79 new community cases of covid-19 today.

Of the new cases, 75 are in Auckland and four are in Waikato. Forty six of these cases are linked, including 24 household contacts, and 33 remain unlinked.

There is also one new case at the border.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports
  

There was no 1pm conference today, and the Ministry of Health released information in a statement. There will be a 4pm press conference today.

There are 37 people in hospital – eight in North Shore, 17 in Auckland and 12 in Middlemore.

In the last 24 hours, 14,430 tests have been processed.

There were 109 cases announced yesterday, with 103 of those in Auckland.

The total number of community cases in the current outbreak is 2759.

There are 5462 confirmed cases in total since the pandemic began.

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

New Zealand reported 109 community cases of covid-19 today.

Of the new cases 103 are in Auckland, four are in Waikato and there are two new cases in Northland.

As at 10am, 47 of these cases were linked and 62 remain unlinked, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

There are 35 people in hospital– down from 50 yesterday.

Of those in hospital, seven are in North Shore, 13 in Middlemore, 14 in Auckland, and one in Waikato.

In the last 24 hours, 24,343 tests have been processed.

Eighty community cases of covid-19 were reported in New Zealand yesterday – 77 in Auckland, two in Waikato and one in Northland.

There were also five cases reported in managed isolation.

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

Eighty community cases of covid-19 were reported in New Zealand today – 77 in Auckland, two in Waikato and one in Northland.

There were also five cases reported in managed isolation.

There was no media conference today. In a statement, the Health Ministry said 46 of today’s cases were unlinked.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

There are now 287 unlinked cases from the past 14 days.

There are 50 people in hospital, including four people in intensive care. The ministry said the average age of those in hospital is 44.

Yesterday the Ministry of Health reported 104 community cases of covid-19 — the second highest number in the current delta variant outbreak.

The two new cases in Waikato — one in Te Awamutu and one in Hamilton — remain unlinked, along with five other cases in the region.

Waikato region testing
The ministry said the Waikato District Health Board (DHB) was continuing to carry out testing throughout the region to help determine any undetected community spread of covid-19.

“We are urging anyone in Waikato — in particular, people in Te Awamutu — to get tested if they have any symptoms that could be covid-19.”

One of yesterday’s cases was in Blenheim. The person tested positive after arriving on a flight from Rotorua via Wellington.

This is the first community case of covid-19 in the South Island in a year.

The ministry said today that the covid-19 positive case in Blenheim was unvaccinated, but that two household contacts had returned negative results.

The ministry is still asking residents in Marlborough, Nelson and Tasman with symptoms — no matter how mild — to get tested, even if they are vaccinated.

The new Northland case reported today is linked to the four cases already confirmed in the region.

“This individual was tested as a close contact of the previous cases confirmed yesterday.”

Triple figures for three days
Until today the number of community covid-19 cases reported has been in triple figures for three days running, with 129 cases reported on Friday and 102 cases on Thursday.

There have now been 2572 cases in the current outbreak, and 5278 since the pandemic began.

There were 42,482 vaccinations given yesterday — 11,777 first doses and 30,705 second doses.

“It remains our number one protection against covid-19,” said the ministry.

“The Pfizer vaccine is safe, will help stop you getting seriously ill, and could save your life.”

The next media conference will be held on Tuesday.

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

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says his biggest concern is that the spread of the delta variant of covid-19 in New Zealand is an “outbreak of the unvaccinated”.

The country’s largest city Auckland has now been living with tough restrictions for two months.

Asked why the city is still experiencing so many cases (57 today – plus three in Waikato) Professor Baker said “lockdown fatigue” was undoubtedly a factor.

• READ MORE: Northland to move to level 2; Auckland to stay in level 3 step 1 for two weeks – PM
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports
• LISTEN: Top epidemiologist concerned at ‘outbreak of the unvaccinated’ (Duration 6′ :27″)

It appears we are a nation of selfish malcontents for whom enough is never enough.

That is one of the conclusions I’ve been forced to draw after seven weeks of covid lockdown in Auckland. And, because my isolation has been broken only by a few medical appointments that are valid reasons for leaving my security-guarded community, I gain my impressions through our media and a diet containing a surfeit of opinion, some of it in the guise of news.

I am confronted daily by examples of peevish bleating, whining, and complaining. I hear demands for certainty where there can be none.

• READ MORE: Two thirds of New Zealanders favour border ‘safety first’, says Herald poll
• In spite of relentless media negativity, NZ’s covid story is largely successful
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports
• Other Gavin Ellis commentaries

I hear commentators crying out for an end to level 4 then level 3 lockdown. They range from predictable nay-saying radio hosts like Mike Hosking, Heather du Plessis-Allan and Kerre McIvor to the unscientific Sir John Key, whose syndicated comments were the product of some yet-to-be-revealed stratagem by the former prime minister.

I see New Zealanders demanding that their right to return to this country be met NOW when it is obvious that the number of intending returnees far exceeds the country’s capacity to safely manage them.

I read of business demanding the ability to trade, and parents demanding to take their children to far-flung spots for the school holidays, when doing so risks undoing the constraint that has been put on the spread of the delta variant.

I am told the government is incompetent or that it has gone too hard, and that the police haven’t gone hard enough on gangs and followers of Brian Tamaki.

Nation of whingers?
What else could I conclude but that we are a nation of whingers?

But I have also concluded that some of our news media are exhibiting signs of split personality: While devoting an extraordinary amount of time and space to the malcontents, they are also pursuing positive campaigns to get the eligible population vaccinated.

They also – thank goodness – show a willingness to accommodate the views of members of the medical and scientific community, whose opinions we so desperately need to hear.

The two positions are not, of course, mutually exclusive. Media have a duty to report dissent as well as the positives. However, while front page lead stories supporting efforts to contain the delta variant have far outweighed those that argue against them, I have a sense that this Winter Of Our Discontent emphasis is compromising the vax campaign by legitimising self-entitlement.

In my lockdown musings I have, however, reached one further conclusion that both saddens and frustrates me. It is the realisation that many of those who need to get the message to get vaccinated are beyond the reach of news media.

These are people who do not read newspapers, watch television news programmes, listen to radio news bulletins or access the online services that each provides. They have no idea what a “1pm stand-up” means.

They do not engage with news on any other basis than word-of-mouth or social media and the results are fragmented, selective, and often-as-not wrong. In other words, the commendable media campaigns to raise vaccination levels never reach them.

Getting to the marginalised
Ways need to be found to get to this marginalised part of our community. Perhaps the answer is for the media to go on the road. A media roadshow visiting suburbs with which they seldom positively identify might have benefits beyond helping us to get closer to that magic 90 per cent vaccination target.

I was about to say I had reached another conclusion but that’s too strong a word for it. I have a suspicion that the Winter Of Our Discontent is not a reflection of widespread public opinion. I am led to that suspicion by two polls.

The first was a Spinoff poll in August that showed 72 percent supported the move to Level 4, and the second was a Talbot Mills survey that showed strong support for keeping our border closed until 90 percent of the eligible population is vaccinated.

These suggest to me a greater level of resilience (and common sense) than negative media stories might indicate. It’s also manifested in the (admittedly limited) interactions I have with people these days.

That also might be reflected in a letter I read in The New Zealand Herald last week. It was in response to a story about a man who feared he would not be allowed to witness his wife giving birth to triplets in Auckland if he returned to Rotorua to work.

M.A. Hume of Mt Roskill, who admitted to being “old enough to remember the Second World War”, recalled a friend whose husband died at El Alamein without ever seeing his daughter and others who had not seen their families for four years and had no certainty of returning to them. “In those days,” the letter writer said, “huge sacrifices were commonplace.”

I would like to think that, today, most of us can muster that same sense of self-sacrifice and resolve. Given the announcements last weekend of rising cases in Auckland and a spread to the Waikato, we’ll need it.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a blog called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

• Read the full Gavin Ellis article here:

https://knightlyviews.com/2021/10/05/media-lessons-from-a-pandemic/

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the New Zealand government still has “broad control” of the covid-19 delta outbreak in Auckland.

Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield rep0rted at today’s latest government briefing that there were 19 community cases
— far less than half the previous day.

However, while yesterday’s total of 45 new community cases in Auckland was the highest it had been in some weeks, just four remained unlinked, Dr Bloomfield said.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

On Tuesday, new covid community cases had dropped to just eight.

Ardern said there was broad control of the outbreak, and “control is key”.

“We simply do not have enough people vaccinated in Auckland or in New Zealand to tolerate a widespread outbreak but maintaining control is not a given,” she said.

“We still need the restrictions that we’re using, I know they’re incredibly hard and they will ease but for now they’re doing a job for us that’s why we need people to keep following them.”

Two new sub-clusters
Dr Bloomfield said there were now two new sub-clusters in the city.

“One of which they’re calling the Southeast Auckland household cluster – there are five households in that one – and then there’s one just identified, the West Auckland cluster.

“It’s those two sub-clusters that are really giving rise to the new cases at the moment.

“So of the other ones that were active only none of those have actually had new cases in the last few days.”

Watch the update here:

Today’s New Zealand government covid media briefing. Video: RNZ News

Ardern said it was highly likely the boundary around the Auckland region would remain, even if restrictions were eased. The government was giving full consideration to easing restrictions, but removing the regional boundary was not under consideration.

Cabinet is set to review the country’s alert level settings on Monday.

“We are giving full consideration to easing [alert level restrictions], but there’s a number of ways we can consider that. What is not in consideration is removing that regional boundary at this time.”

83 percent of eligible Aucklanders get first dose
Ardern said only 3 percent of cases in this outbreak were fully vaccinated, with 83 percent of eligible Aucklanders now having received the first dose of the vaccine.

About 80 percent of the eligible population nationwide had either had its first dose or had booked in for the first dose.

Nationally, 92 percent of over 65s have had their first covid vaccine and nearly 90 percent have either had or are booked in to have this second.

“It is possible to hit 90 [percent] and we need everyone to put that effort in,” Ardern said.

“We can be world-leading in getting our population vaccinated.”

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

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield today gave a briefing on the vaccine rollout and current cases which showed a sharp jump over the past few days.

Dr Bloomfield confirmed there were 45 new community cases of covid-19 today – all in Auckland.

Of these cases, 33 were known to be household or contacts of existing cases. All had been isolating at home or in quarantine during their infectious period, Dr Bloomfield said.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports
  

He said many of today’s cases were linked, and in some sense “they were expected”.

Hipkins said the 45 new cases were a “sobering number”. But because they were known cases, alert level decisions were made on many other factors.

“I would encourage people not to read too much into it. We’re still aiming to run this into the ground,” he said.

Dr Bloomfield said quite a proportion of the cases were among groups of people who were in transitional or emergency housing.

“Teams are working very hard with a range of agencies to support those people.”

He said everyone in Auckland must stay within their bubbles and wear face masks.

Watch the update

RNZ News video of the media briefing.

Dr Bloomfield said the Ministry of Health was asking workers in construction, hospitality and retail, who were working in level 3, to get two tests at least five days apart over the next couple of weeks, whether they had symptoms or not.

“I would like to emphasise, this testing is voluntary,” he said.

Hipkins said that at midnight the requirement would come into force for all border workers and roles where they might come into contact with covid-19 to be vaccinated.

As at this morning, 98 percent of active border workers had been vaccinated with at least one dose and 93 percent were fully vaccinated, he said.

That included 95 percent of port workers.

“I do want to remind anyone who works at the border but has yet to be vaccinated that they now have 24 hours until midnight tomorrow night to get their first vaccination if they wish to continue to work at the border,” Hipkins said.

Vaccine rollout update
Dr Bloomfield said 80 percent of the eligible population in Canterbury had now had its first dose of the vaccine. He said that by Christmas most Cantabarians would be fully vaccinated.

“Keep up the good work Canterbury,” Dr Bloomfield said.

Yesterday, 44,000 doses of the covid-19 vaccine were administered.

Nationally, 78 percent of the eligible population – 12 years and over – had had their first dose of the vaccine, Hipkins said.

Nearly half of the eligible population was now fully vaccinated.

Hipkins said 55 percent of Māori had had their first dose, 29 percent their second.

Among Pasifika, 71 percent had had their first dose, 40 percent their second.

‘Covid for Christmas’
Hipkins said he had not read National’s plan to reopen New Zealand in full yet.

“It’s clear that the National Party want to throw open the borders, have hundreds of thousands of people coming in. Therefore, one can conclude that the biggest promise they’re making at the moment is that they’re willing for Kiwis to get covid for Christmas.

“The reality here is that they haven’t provided any modelling for the number of Covid-19 cases that they would be willing to tolerate or what they would do in certain scenarios because it would almost certainly result in significant numbers of cases in the community.

“They’ve given no indication of what they would do around managing that.”

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

New Zealand has 16 community cases of covid-19 today, according to the Ministry of Health.

In a statement, the ministry said 13 of today’s 16 cases had been epidemiologically linked to previous cases.

There have been 10 unlinked cases in the past fortnight.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

There was also one historical community case not associated with the current outbreak and another historical case at the border.

The ministry said the community case deemed to be historical was not associated with the current outbreak in Auckland as this case initially came through the border and has been previously reported and spent 14 days in managed isolation, during which time they routinely tested negative.

“They have subsequently tested positive, but this has been deemed historical and is no longer infectious.”

There are 13 people in hospital with covid-19, with four in intensive care.

The ministry said 903 of Auckland’s 1129 cases in this outbreak had now recovered.

Residents of Kāinga Ora apartments in Parnell have been tested after they were added as a covid location of interest in Auckland.

The Ministry of Health added the apartments today, along with a supermarket in Flat Bush.

A person infected with covid-19 visited on three consecutive days – over last weekend and Monday.

Kāinga Ora’s area manager Andrew Walker said they had worked with Auckland Regional Public Health and the City Mission, which has mobile testing capacity, to make it quick and easy for residents to be tested yesterday.

Walker said masks were also delivered to residents and communal areas given an extra deep clean, over and above the special cleaning in alert level 3 and 4.

Yesterday there were nine new community cases of covid-19 reported in New Zealand, the first time in weeks the number of cases had dropped to single figures.

There has now been a total of 1146 cases in the current community outbreak, and there have been 3806 cases in this country since the pandemic began.

A Waitematā District Health Board spokesperson today said that a patient at Auckland’s Waitākere Hospital had tested positive for covid-19 after presenting at the emergency department yesterday, but that the overall exposure risk is considered low.

The ministry said today fewer than 10 patients were affected.

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

On August 17, a 58-year-old man from Auckland became symptomatic and tested positive for covid-19. It was New Zealand’s first community case of the coronavirus in almost six months.

Within hours, the nation of five million moved into alert level four, part of its “go hard, go early” approach. All travel outside of people’s homes was forbidden, except to fetch supplies, visit pharmacies or exercise.

The country largely ground to a halt.

• READ MORE: If NZ’s covid elimination strategy is abandoned now ‘more Māori and Pasifika people will die’
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“We have seen the dire consequences of taking too long to act in other countries, not least our neighbours,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, while announcing the cabinet’s decision to impose a lockdown that evening.

Within a few days, one case had grown to 21 cases. After a week, to 148 cases. By August 31, the cluster contained 612 cases.

Snap lockdown
One month after imposing the snap lockdown, New Zealand has bent the curve and may be able to eliminate an outbreak of the potent delta variant of COVID-19 – though it is no sure thing.

As of September 20, some 1051 people in Auckland and 17 people in the capital city, Wellington, have been infected with the virus, of whom 694 have recovered.

Contact tracers have methodically identified tens of thousands of contacts – and hundreds of locations of interest – part of an updated track-and-trace system repurposed to cast a much wider net around the far more transmissible delta variant.

The outbreak, now spread across 20 subclusters, 10 of which have been epidemiologically linked, presents the most serious challenge to elimination that New Zealand has faced so far. With its fragmented public health system under intense strain from decades of under-funding, any unchecked spread of the delta variant would see hospitals rapidly overwhelmed.

But New Zealanders rallied behind the restrictions, sticking to their “bubbles”, masking up and watching patiently as cases peaked, then began to decline – though the outbreak’s tail is proving persistent.

If the country does eliminate this outbreak, it would once again validate the “go hard, go early” approach that officials have taken over the past 18 months.

With Auckland moving yesterday to the more permissive alert level three, case numbers over the coming weeks will be closely watched for any sign of uncontained spread.

Entitlement and denunciation
Yet, as with previous outbreaks, the clamour from critics of the government started almost immediately, a chorus of whinge.

Business special interests laundered their messaging through an uncritical media – “certainty” they chanted, while pressuring for a move down alert levels.

“We also know that in lockdown Treasury has forecast it to cost the country NZ$1.45 billion per week – and that’s just the economic impact,” Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce chief executive Leeann Watson told broadcaster Newstalk ZB.

Incredibly, less than a week into lockdown, Export New Zealand executive director Catherine Beard complained to Stuff, the country’s most popular news website, that the business environment was getting “tough” for exporters, while lobbying for more managed isolation spots for business travellers – or self-isolation.

“Some of these are multimillion-dollar deals, so the situation is very stressful,” she said.

Some in the hospitality sector complained about limits on gatherings and threatened to withhold tax, while demanding “targeted” assistance from the government.

“Now it’s 100 percent [Ministry of] Health running the show,” said Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Julie White, according to Stuff. “No one is advising them commercially.”

Most New Zealanders would, presumably, prefer that the Health Ministry – as opposed to hospitality interest groups – responds to the threat presented by a lethal, airborne pathogen.

‘Glacial’ pace criticised
The “glacial” pace of the country’s vaccine rollout was also riffed off in headline after headline.

Perhaps, as the political opposition and reporters contend, the rollout has been “sluggish”.

Perhaps the government could have instructed the medical regulator Medsafe to conduct a less rigorous assessment of the Pfizer vaccine, under emergency protocols.

“Another [possibility] is,” Craig McCulloch, Radio New Zealand’s deputy political editor speculated, “that the government’s negotiators came late to the party, did a poor job and got a raw deal.”

Or perhaps soaring global demand amid the pandemic, Pfizer’s finite ability to supply vaccines to a vast suite of countries and New Zealand’s limited purchasing power and largely covid-free status explains the “delay”.

Certainly, the World Health Organisation has described vaccine hoarding by wealthy nations as approaching a “catastrophic moral failure”.

When Pfizer became able to deliver large shipments midway through July, New Zealand saw a dramatic scale-up in the vaccination programme, as officials had promised for months.

Rollout a success story
If anything, the nation’s rollout — a massive logistical undertaking — has largely been a success story, conducted in an environment of incredible uncertainty and reliant upon an already stretched workforce.

It has additionally played a key role in supporting vaccination efforts in the Cook Islands.

As of September 20, some 4,711,410 doses of the vaccine have been administered, tracking close to supply, with 1,618,673 people now fully vaccinated.

Amid the rising racket, the entitlement and denunciation, even commentators from abroad got in on the act.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson — agitating anti-lockdown sentiment — suggested that New Zealand provided a model for how his viewers would be subjugated by Joe Biden’s administration.

“How far can they go? […] A single covid case in New Zealand, not a death from covid, but a case of covid has shut down the entire country.”

Writing in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, one commentator called the outbreak “poetic justice” and claimed a “once-welcoming nation is turning into an isolated dystopia, where liberties are taken away in a heartbeat and outsiders are shunned”.

While these criticisms are couched in the language of defending civil liberties, they reduce to variants of the “learn to live with covid” argument.

Or put another way: “The cure cannot be worse than the disease”.

The economy must reign supreme, after all.

Sound familiar?

‘Needles in my eyes’
New Zealand’s elimination strategy relies on public buy-in. Recent polling shows that some 84 percent of the public supports the latest lockdown.

As with previous outbreaks, Ardern has used clear, empathetic language to reassure and unify an often politically divided nation. These briefings are held in Parliament’s theatrette and usually feature the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

For many in New Zealand, the daily press briefings provide a detailed window into how authorities manage outbreaks and have been the most visible key to the elimination strategy’s success.

“To all Aucklanders, you have done an amazing job so far protecting yourselves, your family and your community,” Ardern said on September 13, while announcing that Auckland would stay in alert level four for another week. “We owe you a huge debt of gratitude … but the cases are telling us we have additional work to do.”

Voters rewarded Ardern’s Labour Party for this kind of humane approach and its exceptional management of the viral threat in the national elections last October, granting it an outright majority.

The political opposition judges these briefings a political threat, and routinely denigrates them as Ardern speaking from “The Podium of Truth”.

With the return of daily briefings on August 17, right-wing broadcasters and some journalists began to deride the briefings, at exactly the moment when trust in the authorities needed to be reinforced.

Undermining public perceptions
There is a difference between “holding power to account” and deliberately attempting, for purely partisan political reasons, to undermine public perceptions that the covid-19 response is being well managed.

“I tried, I really did, but I wanted to stick needles in my eyes by about four minutes in,” said Newstalk ZB’s Kate Hawkesby, the day after the return of the 1pm press conferences. “I’d forgotten how soul-destroying it is to be spoken to like a three-year-old.”

On the same station, Hawkesby’s husband, Mike Hosking, overdubbed turkey “gobbles” and truck horn sound effects onto an interview recorded with Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall.

Newstalk ZB’s political editor, Barry Soper, in a report about an Auckland man whose kidney surgery was postponed due to staffing shortages, loaded his story’s preamble with phrases like “their altar” and “practise what they preach”.

He also issued a remarkable dog-whistle to New Zealand’s far-right, the kind of people who believe Ardern – a fairly mild political centrist – is turning the country into a “communist dictatorship”.

“If you have ever wondered what it must have been like to live in a totalitarian state, then perhaps wonder no more.”

This nonsense went on and on.

Moaning media
Some press gallery reporters began to complain about the length of Ardern’s introductions, while Jason Walls, a political reporter with Newstalk ZB, took to Twitter to moan about Dr Bloomfield saying “finally” two times.

This speaks to how the media has fundamentally misunderstood what the briefings are: public service announcements.

They are for the public. Reporters are invited as a check and, as such, should resist the urge to demand a say in how these announcements are structured.

Even The New York Times managed to launder messaging that targeted the briefings, quoting former National Party staffer and political commentator Ben Thomas – who appears fixated on denigrating Dr Bloomfield.

“He [Dr Bloomfield] has … a cult-like following,” said Thomas. “The country has a huge kind of parasocial devotion to him, which is very new to New Zealand.”

Apparently, Thomas has not heard of Michael Joseph Savage, who founded New Zealand’s welfare state in the 1930s and whose framed photo hung in homes throughout the country for decades.

Regardless, all of this is a fairly obvious partisan political effort, driven by both ideology and market dynamics.

Many reporters and commentators at New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), which owns The New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB, seem unable to accept that their preferred political tribe is no longer in power.

More critically, in an age where the news media increasingly attempts to attract subscribers by catering to their social and political values, NZME appears to be ring-fencing centre-to-far-right eyeballs.

It is, essentially, becoming New Zealand’s Fox News.

A brave new world
The sense in New Zealand is that this may be the last of the nation’s sledgehammer-style lockdowns, though one hopes officials do not retire lockdowns altogether.

The goal is to get as many people as possible vaccinated, assess the impact of opening up, and then tentatively start easing some border restrictions, if possible.

No doubt, certain industries – tourism, hospitality, horticulture, media – will continue to apply relentless pressure.

Yet, when the nation reconnects more fully to the networks of global trade and travel, the super-highways of hyper-globalisation that have spread disease and death around the world, when the inevitable outbreaks come, there will be a toll.

Glen Johnson is an independent New Zealand journalist who worked as a foreign correspondent for 11 years, predominantly out of the Middle East and North Africa. His work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Seattle Times, Vice, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Reuters, Le Monde Diplomatique, Balkan Insight, Al Jazeera and The New Zealand Herald, among others. His article was first published by Al Jazeera English and is republished with the permission of the author.

Auckland’s move to alert level 3 has also triggered speculation about whether the national covid-19 elimination strategy has failed or is even being abandoned. While the New Zealand government denies it, others clearly believe it is at least a possibility.

The uncertainty is troubling. If elimination fails or is abandoned, it would suggest we have not learnt the lessons of history, particularly when it comes to our more vulnerable populations.

In 1918, the mortality rate among Māori from the influenza pandemic was eight times that of Europeans. The avoidable introduction of influenza to Samoa from Aotearoa resulted in the deaths of about 22 percent of the population.

• READ MORE: New Zealand government takes a calculated risk to relax Auckland’s lockdown while new cases continue to appear
• The real challenge to covid-19 vaccination rates isn’t hesitancy — it’s equal access for Māori and Pacific people
  
• Research shows Māori are more likely to die from covid-19 than other New Zealanders
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

Similar observations were seen in subsequent influenza outbreaks in Aotearoa in 1957 and 2009 for both Māori and Pasifika people. These trends are well known and documented.

And yet, despite concerns we could see the same thing happen again, there have been repeated claims that an elimination strategy cannot succeed. Some business owners, politicians and media commentators have called for a change in approach that would see Aotearoa “learn to live with the virus”.

This is premature and likely to expose vulnerable members of our communities to the disease. Abandoning the elimination strategy while vaccine coverage rates remain low among the most vulnerable people would be reckless and irresponsible.

In short, more Māori and Pasifika people would die.

Far better will be to stick to the original plan that has served the country well, lift vaccination coverage rates with more urgency, and revise the strategy when vaccination rates among Māori and Pasifika people are as high as possible — no less than 90 percent.

Least worst options
After 18 months of dealing with the pandemic, it’s important to remember that Aotearoa’s response has been based on sound science and strong political leadership. The elimination strategy has proved effective at home and been admired internationally.

Of course, it has come with a price. In particular, the restrictions have had a major impact on small businesses and personal incomes, student life and learning, and well-being in general.

Many families have needed additional food parcels and social support, and there are reports of an increasing incidence of family harm.

The latest delta outbreak has also seen the longest level 4 lockdown in Auckland, with at least two further weeks at level 3, and there is no doubt many people are struggling to cope with the restrictions. The “long tail” of infections will test everyone further.

There is no easy way to protect the most vulnerable people from the life-threatening risk of covid-19, and the likely impact on the public health system if it were to get out of control. The alternative, however, is worse.

We know Māori and Pasifika people are most at risk of infection from covid-19, of being hospitalised and of dying from the disease.

Various studies have confirmed this, but we also must acknowledge why — entrenched socioeconomic disadvantage, overcrowded housing and higher prevalence of underlying health conditions.

More than 50 percent of all new cases in the current outbreak are among Pasifika people and the number of new cases among Māori is increasing. If and when the pandemic is over, the implications of these socioeconomic factors must be part of any review of the pandemic strategy.

Lowest vaccination rates, highest risk
Furthermore, the national vaccination rollout has again shown up the chronic entrenched inequities in the health system. While the rollout is finally gaining momentum, with more and better options offered by and for Māori and Pasifika people, their comparative vaccination rates have lagged significantly.

Community leaders and health professionals have long called for Māori and Pasifika vaccination to be prioritised. But the official rhetoric has not been matched by the reality, as evidenced by our most at-risk communities still having the lowest vaccination coverage rates in the country.

Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā (the National Māori Pandemic Group) and the Pasifika Medical Association have repeatedly called for their communities to be empowered and resourced to own, lead and deliver vaccination rollouts in ways that work for their communities.

Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā have also said Auckland should have remained at level 4, with the border extended to include the areas of concern in the Waikato.

As has been pointed out by those closest to those communities, however, their advice has consistently not been heeded. The resulting delays only risk increasing the need for the kinds of lockdowns and restrictions everyone must endure until vaccination rates are higher.

There is a reason we do not hear many voices in Māori and Pasifika communities asking for an end to elimination. Left unchecked, covid-19 disproportionately affects minority communities and the most vulnerable.

“Living with the virus” effectively means some people dying with it. We know who many of them would be.

Dr Collin Tukuitonga is associate dean Pacific and associate professor of public health, University of Auckland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Alert level 3 is being called a roll of the dice that could either eliminate delta or send the country back into level 4.

From tomorrow, Auckland will make the move after five weeks at alert level 4.

Covid-19 modeller – and Aucklander – professor Shaun Hendy said the greater freedoms allowed at level 3 were a risk.

• READ MORE: Auckland could reach 90 percent first dose vaccination milestone in two weeks – Ardern
• Other NZ covid lockdown reports

“Part of me is … thinking about takeaways but I am also concerned about what we will see over the next couple of weeks. I think now we have moved to level 3, the next two weeks are crucial,” Dr Hendy said.

Modelling the latest situation had been tricky because of the small number of cases left and the unknown quantity of how delta behaved in New Zealand, he said.

In one scenario contact tracers could beat the outbreak in a couple of weeks

But in another, case numbers could steadily rise — like in Victoria and New South Wales — and Auckland would have to go back to alert level 4.

Dragging on for weeks
That could then lead to an outbreak which dragged on for weeks – or months, Dr Hendy said.

Te Ropu Whakakaupapa Uruta, the National Māori Pandemic Group, called for alert level 4 to stay in place.

Co-leader Dr Sue Crengle said they were disappointed in yesterday’s decision.

They worried that a big outbreak was brewing — and also looked to New South Wales where cases had been low for weeks then started to go up and down, she said.

“And then they lost control and we’re really fearful that in six or seven weeks we may see that,” she said.

Professor Crengle hoped her group would be proven wrong but worried that the stakes were too high — especially for more vulnerable, and less vaccinated, Māori populations.

Most experts agreed the move to alert level 3 was a risk.

Success depends on keeping to rules
Its success was partly dependent on how well Aucklanders stuck to the rules.

Epidemiologist Dr Rod Jackson said most had done a great job so far and any rule breakers at alert level 3 were probably the same people who would break them at level 4.

He backed the move to alert level 3

That was because the source of most infections was known and there has been little transition outside of homes, he said.

Alert level 3 was still very restrictive but struck a balance by allowing more businesses to open and a few more freedoms.

“It’s good for our psyche and good for the economy but still designed to stamp out covid,” he said.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Aucklanders had done the hard work at alert level 4 when there was uncertainty about the outbreak but now health authorities had a much greater understanding of the situation.

The virus could again be eliminated under alert level 3, she said.

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

A testing centre is being set up at a marae in New Zealand’s Waikato settlement of Kaiaua today after three community cases of covid-19 were confirmed in the region.

They are household members of a man with the virus who is in remand at Mount Eden prison in Auckland.

The Ministry of Health said two of the cases went to Mangatangi School and one had symptoms while there.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports
• RNZ covid live updates

The National Māori Pandemic Group says the new cases mean Cabinet must keep Auckland at level 4 and include Waikato, and wants the upper North Island in level 3 as a precaution.

Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki says drive-in swabbing will be done at Wharekawa Marae in Whakatīwai.

The government is due to announce any possible alert level changes this afternoon and it is unclear how the development in Waikato will affect its decision.

‘Irresponsible,’ says mayor
Waikato District Mayor Allan Sanson said the prisoner should never have been bailed outside Auckland to the area where cases of covid-19 have now been discovered.

The prisoner spent more than a week there on electronically-monitored bail.

The infections were discovered after the man returned to prison in Auckland and tested positive for the virus.

Sanson told RNZ Morning Report it was “totally irresponsible” to send a prisoner on bail outside the lockdown boundary and into the small community.

“There needs to be questions asked as to why it actually happened,” he said.

“I would have thought if you were bailing somebody you would have bailed them into Auckland, and not out of the Auckland area.

“They don’t let anyone else out of Auckland into a level 2 area without them having tests now, so what’s the difference with this? This person’s been in the community for well over a week.”

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

As Auckland waits to hear if it will move down an alert level this week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has assured New Zealand the level four lockdown is having an impact, even with a small rise in case numbers in the past two days.

Ardern and Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay gave today’s covid-19 update from the Beehive.

There were 24 new cases reported in New Zealand today.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

Yesterday the Ministry of Health reported 20 new community cases of the virus, all in Auckland. The figure was a spike after several days of lower numbers, with 11 cases reported on Friday and 13 on Thursday.

The government is set to announce on Monday whether the country’s alert levels will be changed.

Dr McElnay said the ministry would be preparing advice ahead of the decision.

“We’re still cautiously optimistic that the vast bulk of this outbreak is under control, we’re just dealing with a long tail.”

Still a risk
Ardern said level 4 was working and the whole country could see this, but as long as there is a level 3 or 4 situation in Auckland, there is risk.

“Delta’s tail is long and it is hard.

“The one thing I would say to Aucklanders: your work has paid off, as you’ve heard from our public health advisors, they consider that we do not have large scale community transmission in Auckland, and that has been because of level 4 and the work that people have done,” she said.

“So level 4 has played an incredibly important role of getting that outbreak under control. Yes, we still have cases popping up, there’s still work for us to do. But we absolutely factor in how Aucklanders are coping with some of the restrictions we’ve had to date, but also the best way for us to get back to normal as quickly as we can.”

Ardern said that despite larger case numbers, they continued to be dominated by household contacts.

“We have had unlinked cases over the course of this week, but many have been subsequently linked over the days that followed.

“That does still however present some challenges for us — while it means that we can join the dots, those dots do still produce more cases with more household contacts. It means that the tail produced by delta is long, and it is tough, and people will have seen that in our case numbers.

“But it doesn’t change what we need to do, and that continues to stay at home and get vaccinated.”

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

Auckland will stay in covid-19 alert level 4 for another week until 11.59pm next Tuesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

Cabinet has made an in principle decision that Tāmaki Makaurau will then move to alert level 3.

The rest of New Zealand will remain in alert level 2 until Tuesday next week.

• READ MORE: Other NZ covid lockdown reports

Alert level settings will be reviewed next Monday.

Ardern said Cabinet had made an indicative decision about Auckland, but had not made one about the rest of New Zealand moving to alert level 1.

While there was nothing to indicate there was covid-19 outside of Auckland, lower restrictions in the rest of the country would mean a far greater risk of spread if it did escape, she said.

Having the rest of the country at alert level 2 gave a greater chance of stamping the virus out if it did get out of Auckland, she said.

Auckland has been at alert level 4 since midnight on August 17 after an outbreak of the delta variant of covid-19.

Cabinet had seen evidence and advice that alert level 4 was working, saying it had consistently reduced the R value below 1, and it is now about 0.6, Ardern said.

Watch the media conference

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield brief the news media. Video: RNZ News

“On that basis and on the advice of the Director-General of Health, Auckland will remain at alert level 4 until 11.59pm next Tuesday, the 21st of September.”

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the “lockdown is working” and it is only a small number of cases that the ministry is focused on.

“The testing is at a good level … so our view and our advice is that another week in lockdown in alert level 4 in Auckland gives us our best chance to really finish the job off here.

“Our view is we are doing everything right. It is paying off and we need to see this through and there is good reason to want to eliminate the virus again,” Dr Bloomfield said.

“It does allow us to enjoy a full range of activities and for the economy to really crank back up again.”

He said the focus for the next week was finding cases.

Cases and testing
Ardern said today there were 33 new community cases to report, but only one of them was currently unlinked.

“Likewise of the cases reported yesterday, just one remains unlinked to the wider outbreak at this point,” she said.

Ardern said that in some cases where an epidemiological link had not been able to be built, the genome sequencing was still able to tell authorities how the case fitted into the outbreak.

They expect to have more information about the one as-yet unlinked case reported today.

Ardern said one reason for the bigger numbers over the weekend was high rates of transmission within households.

Dr Bloomfield mentioned yesterday, about 16 percent of very close contacts become cases.

“That in and of itself will generate about another 50 cases in the coming days and we’re starting to see some of those come through.”

The number of unlinked cases went up and down every day, Dr Bloomfield said.

At 9am there were 17 unlinked cases but only a small number of those the ministry was really worried about.

Ardern said surveillance testing of healthcare workers and essential workers had also not identified any transmission.

“It’s also clear there is not widespread transmission of the virus in Auckland.”

Vaccinations
Ardern said the government wanted as many Aucklanders as possible to have had their first dose of the covid-19 vaccine by the end of the week. She said people booked for October should consider going online again and seeing if more bookings had opened up.

Another option was going to a drive-through vaccination clinic, with no need for booking.

Ardern said she stood by her previous statements that the government did not want to continue to use lockdowns, but the country needed to make sure that enough New Zealanders had been vaccinated.

“That’s why New Zealanders are empowered too. They have the chance to move away from lockdowns as much as we do, by being vaccinated.”

Message to Aucklanders
“To all Aucklanders, you’ve done an amazing job so far protecting yourselves, your family and your community,” Ardern said.

“We owe you a huge debt of gratitude … but the cases are telling us we have additional work to do.”

She said that four weeks into lockdown, it might be tempting to relax their bubble, but she asked everyone to treat every day as seriously as they did from day one.

People should have an assigned person who went to the supermarket, Ardern said.

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