Daily Archives: September 1, 2021

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says if the country had not moved into lockdown, daily case numbers could have been around 550.

Cabinet has confirmed all of New Zealand south of Auckland will move to level 3 from 11.59pm on Tuesday night. Ardern says this will be for at least a week, to be reviewed at Cabinet next week.

Northland will likely join the rest of the country at alert level three from 11:59pm on Thursday, Ardern says.

Cabinet has also confirmed Auckland will remain at alert level four until 14 September. Cabinet will consider next steps for the region on 13 September.

Ardern says level 4 "is making a difference".

"The job is not yet done and we do need to keep going."

For Auckland and Northland, Ardern says the cases in Warkworth were found late in the lockdown and were not equivalent to the cases in Wellington, where cases were monitored and did not appear to have spread.

"We just haven't had that level of time for the cases we're concerned about in Warkworth, and with possible contacts beyond. Once we have that same level of reassurance in Northland we feel safe to move alert levels.

She says the government is awaiting test results from wastewater in Northland, and tests from people who were at locations of interest. If they all came back clear Northland could move to alert level 3 at 11.59 pm on Thursday.

"Just an indication here if all those tests come back clear," she says.

Ardern says if New Zealand had not moved into alert level 4, estimates of the number of new cases today could have been about 550.

The red line on this graph represents what our case numbers would look like if we hadn't moved into lockdown, the prime minister says. Photo: Pool image / Robert Kitchin /Stuff

"The more we do to limit our contact, the faster we will exit these restrictions," Ardern says.

"Auckland is doing a huge service for all of us. And not just now, but throughout this pandemic. It's Auckland that has maintained our gateway to the world, that has done a lot of the heavy lifting in welcoming Kiwis home safely, that has worked hard to keep Kiwis safe when there has been an outbreak. Auckland has done it tough."

Ardern says the government is considering further restrictions under level 4 to prevent transmission occurring at the workplace. "It is a privilege to be open at level 4," she says.

Asked about supply of vaccines, Ardern says decisions will need to be made this week about whether New Zealand can continue to scale up vaccine delivery beyond what the government initially planned.

She says New Zealand has about 840,000 doses of the vaccine in the country, and has been receiving about 350,000 each week.

"Our planning has been for the programme to administer 350,000 doses per week. We have the supply and infrastructure to do this sustainably over a long period of time."

There has been an increase in demand, she says, and the government is working to reach that but falling short would merely mean falling back to the government's earlier plans.

"If we are unable to do this then the worst-case scenario is we pull back to our planned volumes ... contrary to the reporting, we are not running out of vaccine."

Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall has slammed Bay of Plenty District Health Board (DHB) after it asked Pacific people to show their passports at Covid-19 vaccination appointments.

The DHB apologised last night over the move, acknowledging it was not the DHB's policy, nor a requirement, and that it had affected trust and confidence with its Pacific communities.

Asked about the request for people to bring passports to vaccination appointments, Bloomfield says that everyone is eligible to be vaccinated whatever their immigration status.

He says it was an attempt to smooth the process, as having a form of identification in absence of a National Health Identification number can speed it up.

Ardern says health professionals go through a process to ensure people are being given their dose and can be given a second one, but "there are ways we can do that without any ID".

"We just want you to be vaccinated, so being physically here, is enough. Nothing more."

Ardern says the government is working on both maintaining people's bookings while also having a surge of vaccinations in Auckland.

The Covid-19 Vaccine Independent Safety Monitoring Board believes a woman's death may have been caused by myocarditis, a rare side effect of the Pfizer vaccine.

Bloomfield says he recognises this will be a worry for some people.

"I want to reassure people that the vaccine is a lot safer than being infected with Covid-19. This is a very rare side effect ... we collect very good information on any adverse effects and we're not seeing anything out of the ordinary with this vaccine compared with what the experience is in other countries.

"The safety profile of this vaccine is very very good."

Ardern notes the most common cause of myocarditis is a viral infection.

Experts have been welcoming signs that the lockdown has been curbing the spread of the Delta variant, and with new case numbers dropping to 53 today - down from a high of 83 new cases yesterday - the government will have some extra confidence in its decision to lower alert levels in wider New Zealand.

Speaking about today's case numbers, Bloomfield says while it is 30 fewer cases than yesterday, it is just one data point. However, he says 52 percent of the 83 cases reported yesterday were household transmission, and 72 percent did not create any new exposure events.

"So of those cases reported yesterday ... only 28 percent are considered to have been infectious in the community, which may simply have been a visit to a supermarket ... or may be an essential worker.

He says 101 of the total cases are essential workers, just four of them who have been infectious in the workplace and seven who were infected in the workplace.

All of the new cases announced today were detected in Auckland.

Ardern says it's too soon to say if daily case numbers have peaked.

Bloomfield says there is no evidence of any different symptom pattern with Delta, and it is not known yet whether people in the New Zealand outbreak are experiencing milder symptoms if they have been vaccinated.

Ardern says she does not yet have a timeline for when the government will open up fresh MIQ spots.

"We have put a bit of a hold on that for now ... with an outbreak of over 500 people we are using the facilities for those individuals and that is the right thing to do."

She says the Crowne Plaza, which is also currently out of action, is one of the biggest facilities also.

"It only takes one ... it's actually about being vigilant regardless of the number you have coming in. What's clear though is our ability to expand that number is very limited. We just don't have the workforce to do it."

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Auckland remains in level 4 for 2 weeks, Northland likely to move to level 3 from midnight Thursday - RNZ

OPINION: September 1 marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Anzus Treaty in San Francisco. Planned celebrations in Washington and Canberra will likely go unnoticed in New Zealand. After all, the country has now been outside the tripartite alliance for more years than it was an active member. But the anniversary offers a chance to reflect on what really matters in New Zealand-United States relations.

First, it is important to recall why Anzus came into being. When signed, New Zealand and Australia were fighting alongside the US and others in Korea. With wartime memories still fresh, the Anzus Treaty eased Australasian apprehensions of both a possible resurgence of Japanese militarism and a looming communist threat. The pacts three signatories agreed to consult about how to respond collectively if their security was threatened in the wider Pacific region.

Considered the richest prize of New Zealand diplomacy by external affairs minister of Frederick Doidge, the new alliance was based on perceived mutual benefits. As the great postwar Pacific power, the US extended a security guarantee to two relatively small, largely Anglophone states on the edge of a politically unstable region. In return, they signed on to the more general American-led Cold War competition with the Soviet-led communist bloc, bolstered in 1949 by the Peoples Republic of China.

Sunday Star Times

Anti-nuclear protests in Waitemat Harbour as the submarine USS Phoenix arrives for a visit in 1983.

For more than three decades, New Zealand operated within the framework of that bargain. Today, the benefits are probably remembered less than the costs, such as how New Zealand was drawn reluctantly into the ill-fated Vietnam debacle by its two more powerful allies.

READ MORE:* Jacinda Ardern aligns NZ's foreign policy with US in 'Indo-Pacific' speech* Annette King says Australian citizenship cancellation has left NZ in difficult position'* PM: Military support for US 'on merit' if North Korea attacked* Editorial: NZ independence from US crucial in Trumpian era

Yet, what always mattered most was the spirit of Anzus, not the letter. Although disagreement over nuclear ship visits resulted in New Zealands suspension from the alliance in 1985, the negative repercussions of that break were largely limited to high-level political links and to military and intelligence co-operation. Trade with the US even grew thereafter. As US secretary of state George Shultz memorably phrased it, the two countries parted company but did so as friends.

That is not to deny relations were understandably frosty in the aftermath of the anti-nuclear dispute. However, as fellow liberal democracies, the two states have found ways of compartmentalising disagreement over the nuclear issue to rebuild strong co-operative relations in areas ranging from intelligence sharing through the Five Eyes arrangement to the Biden administrations recent support for the Christchurch Call.

Nigel Marple/Stuff

Prime Minister elect David Lange and United States Secretary of State George Schultz, in Wellington in 1984 ahead of New Zealands suspension from the Anzus alliance the following year.

Such has been this reconciliation that they are now nearly as close as if they were still in Anzus together. A bipartisan Senate resolution on August 9, honouring the 70th anniversary, praised Australia as an ally but was almost as fulsome in extolling New Zealands virtues as a long-standing partner of the US.

Such gestures are mutual recognition of how fundamentally like-minded our two countries are, even when disagreeing over major issues.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern strongly affirmed these shared values and interests at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Conference in mid-July. Confirming her Governments now preferred designation of our home region as the Indo-Pacific rather than the Asia-Pacific, Ardern highlighted the importance of an open, inclusive, free and rules-based regional order. That order, which has served New Zealand so well over recent decades, has been fostered in no small measure by the regional role of the US, especially in terms of international security but also politically and economically.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Roberto Rabel: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern strongly affirmed these shared values and interests [of the United States and New Zealand] at the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Conference in mid-July.

It has become conventional wisdom that, whatever nomenclature is used, the region today faces geo-political challenges echoing those that lay behind the original Anzus agreement. Many forecast an imminent choice for regional states between Beijing and Washington. Every nuance of statements by New Zealand leaders is scrutinised in this context, with some media commentaries interpreting Arderns July speech as another step in Washingtons direction.

This starkly binary framing is not helpful. Nor is the related idea of an impending clash between democracies and autocracies.

Supplied

Emeritus Professor Roberto Rabel: What always mattered most was the spirit of Anzus, not the letter.

Instead, the anniversary of this landmark agreement in New Zealand foreign policy signed at a time of more heated strategic competition in a then more troubled region offers an opportunity for creative thinking about relations with the US and Australia.

It should neither be an occasion for anachronistic longings about reviving a formal alliance forged in a different era nor for decrying that pact as some form of imperialist suppression of New Zealands independent foreign policy. Rather, this thinking must build on the reality that we live in a diverse region of both like-minded and unlike-minded states.

The aftermath of the Anzus dispute showed we can manage differences and build on common strengths, while retaining independence in foreign policy. It stands as a model for how to move forward.

Given the deep reservoir of shared values and interests, the three like-minded liberal democracies that saw value in working collectively in 1951 can surely find fresh ways to contribute together to the peace and prosperity of the dynamic region in which our destinies remain intertwined.

Emeritus Professor Roberto Rabel is a professorial fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies, Victoria University of Wellington.

Original post:

Anzus at 70: Still a model for peace and prosperity in our region - Stuff.co.nz

1 NEWS published this video item, entitled Jacinda Ardern says NZ not going to run out of Covid-19 vaccines below is their description.

The Prime Minister said there has been a reduction in locations of interest around the country since locking down.

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Jacinda Ardern says NZ 'not going to run out' of Covid-19 vaccines - The Global Herald - The Global Herald

If you just watch the press conferences, the team making the Covid-19 decisions can seem very small.

The Prime Minister. The Director-General of Health. Various other ministers and health officials on the off days.

In reality, while the biggest calls are often made by a very select group, there is a small army of people who are key to the national Covid-19 response, both in the Beehive and a few hundred metres down the road at the Ministry of Health.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern makes the calls, ultimately.

This one will hardly surprise you. Ardern is not simply the messenger of a response dreamt up elsewhere: She is generally the one with the final call on big decisions. Her Cabinet colleagues technically make these decisions collectively but generally what the prime minister says goes.

She also plays an important role communicating these decisions to the public. Even if journalists often tire of her long introductions to alert change decisions, they are probably the most-watched bits of television she ever gets, and are generally designed to make whatever change is announced seem inevitable based on the evidence.

Henry Cooke/Stuff

Raj Nahna with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Paris.

Nahna and Donald lead one of the four different offices that technically serve the prime minister the Prime Ministers Office PMO). This office differs from the much larger Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) in that it is nakedly political, while DPMC is full of career bureaucrats who stay on between regimes.

That doesnt mean the PMO is just focused on beating National or anything. It is more that it serves to fulfil the goals of this specific Labour Government, rather than governments in general. That can mean policy advice, comms advice and sometimes just co-ordination of the masses of information and people that could feed into decision-making by the prime minister.

Nahna has been in the role since May 2019 but has a much longer history with the Labour Party, as well as experience working for Chapman Tripp and the Obama campaign in 2008.

Donald was pinched by the prime minister from a role at the Green Party, where she had a long career. Prior to her current role she was the prime ministers chief policy adviser. She is daughter of the late Rod Donald.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Jacinda Ardern with her chief press secretary, Andrew Campbell.

Campbell has held the role for several years now after being poached from the Green Party. He likes to say Ardern just writes her speeches herself but he is undoubtedly a key figure in shaping Covid-19 communications, as well as managing relationships with the press gallery (Us!).

As chief press secretary Campbell is ultimately responsible for all the messaging that goes out from Ardern to the media, from one-line responses to questions, to full press packs detailing complicated news, to organising the 1pm press conferences. He and his team also have some level of oversight over all the press secretaries for various ministers, and he has general visibility over the extremely wide swath of the Governments communications, even if he technically is not responsible for something that say, the Ministry of Health puts out.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins, right.

Hipkins is the Minister for the Covid-19 Response, meaning he has political control of all the day-to-day Covid-19 stuff not big enough to cross Arderns desk, from managed isolation to smaller vaccine decisions to testing.

Hipkins has worked with Ardern for close to two decades as they both were staffers in the Helen Clark Government. His office also has a team of advisers and press secretaries who do a lot of the day-to-day interfacing with the sprawling health service, in particular advisers Alex Marett and Morehu Rei. Hipkins inherited Rei when he took over the role from David Clark and brought Marett with him. Hipkins has two press secretaries but much of the Covid-19 press is handled by Richard Trow, who has worked in various communications roles since leaving The Dominion Post in the early 2000s.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall.

Verrall was elected to Parliament in 2020 and rocketed straight to Cabinet. She is now a crucial voice around the table on Covid-19 matters.

Prior to Parliament, Verrall was an infectious diseases doctor and a (Labour-aligned) member of the Capital and Coast DHB. Early on in the pandemic she was a key public voice, criticising the Governments contact tracing capacity in an audit completed for the Ministry of Health.

Abigail Dougherty

Dame Juliet Gerrard is the PMs chief science adviser.

Science-based policy advice is hard. Lots of scientific questions are not all that settled. And things that can make perfect sense scientifically might make absolutely no sense politically.

Worse, some of the top people advising the prime minister on science-based issues will have competing interests. Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has an interest in making the public health service look good for example. This does not mean anything he says would be wrong, per se, but it means having another voice in the room can be useful which is why the prime minister has an independent chief science adviser.

Gerrard began in this role in 2018 and is often in the Beehive. Her background is in protein biochemistry but as a professor at the University of Auckland she also possesses a skill not always present in scientists a clear ability to explain complex topics well. The Ministry of Health have their own chief science adviser who performs a similar role Ian Town.

KEVIN STENT

Dr Ashley Bloomfield on his way to Parliament, about 800 metres away from the Ministry of Health.

While the virus may have made Bloomfield one of the most recognisable names in the country, he has actually been the head of the nations health system since 2018.

He is the head of the Ministry of Health, which is itself not a particularly large organisation. However, the ministry has general oversight over the 20 district health boards that run all our hospitals and other public healthcare.

This makes him the face of the healthcare system, particularly at those 1pm pressers. Bloomfield was always better at this kind of public accountability than his predecessor, Chai Chuah, but has become better and better at the public-facing part of the role as the pandemic has continued.

One of his key roles is providing advice to the prime minister and Cabinet on various health decisions, taking into account both his own expertise and what he knows the health system can actually deliver. This does not mean his advice is always followed: Early on in the pandemic Bloomfield pushed for all travel into New Zealand to be halted including for returning citizens.

Bloomfield started his career as a public health clinician, after qualifying in medicine at the University of Auckland in 1990. He has a particular professional interest in non-communicable disease prevention things like diabetes and other chronic conditions and he spent 2011 at the World Health Organisation in Geneva working on this topic.

Before moving to the ministry, he was Hutt Valley District Health Board chief executive between 2015 and 2018. Prior to that, he held a number of senior leadership roles within the Ministry of Health.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Dr Caroline McElnay is the main person the Ministry of Health puts up instead of Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

McElnay is a more unassuming face of the response, showing up on the days Bloomfield doesnt, but is an important public servant. As the director of public health she has a particular focus on big society-wide interventions (like lockdowns or fluoride) rather than the pointy end of surgeries and emergency rooms. This makes her well-suited for Covid-19, where the aim of the game is to keep people out of hospital.

Originally from Ireland, she has decades worth of experience in public health. She studied medicine at Queens University in Belfast and public health at Manchester University before emigrating to New Zealand and settling in Hawkes Bay, according to The Irish Times which profiled her last year.

Gibbs is directing the Covid-19 vaccine programme across the country. She comes from Auckland DHB where she has worked for six years and before that Britains sprawling National Health Service. Also key to the vaccine programme is operations manager Astrid Koornneef who managed contact tracing prior to this, and has a long career in both the Ministry of Health and various DHBs.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Bridget White, right, appearing before a select committee in her role for the GCSB.

Also at the Ministry of Health is White, who is the acting head of Covid-19 health response. She is a deputy chief executive, so one level down from Bloomfield, and far less visible but much more involved in the day-to-day. White has a long career in the public sector more broadly, most recently at one of the Governments spy agencies.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Head of MIQ Megan Main on her way into the Beehive theatrette with Chris Hipkins.

Main is a deputy chief executive at the sprawling Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), which is responsible for the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system a role the agency took on more because of operational capacity than any real remit.

This is a thankless task. On one side you have thousands of people wanting MIQs booking system to work better, to allow people from all over the world to come here for work or family. On the other hand the current outbreak, and several other leakages, look to have come from some kind of MIQ-leakage. Main has a long career in the public sector, including in Victorias health service.

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Covid-19 NZ: Who is who in the Government's Covid-19 response team - Stuff.co.nz

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced Parliament will sit in-person this week, despite her own misgivings about safety.

Ardern had the option to instruct Speaker Trevor Mallard to suspend the House again this week, as she did last week because of the current Covid-19 outbreak.

But Ardern said she was not keen to do this for a second week without the support of other parties in Parliament.

National and ACT rejected a proposal for a virtual Parliament on Friday, arguing democracy needed to be in-person to work.

READ MORE:* Covid-19 NZ: National and ACT reject plan for virtual Parliament and Question Time* Covid 19: Why was Jacinda Ardern able to suspend Parliament and what happens next?* Covid-19: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern opts to suspend Parliament sittings for a week

The proposal, prepared by the Speakers office after consultation with other parties and obtained by Stuff, would have allowed MPs to attend the House from anywhere via videolink.

They included a virtual Question Time, with longer questions and answers than normal in-person Parliament.

Labour could technically run Parliament in any way it sees fit, but generally decisions about the House are made on a near-consensus basis by the Business Committee meaning Labour and National have to agree.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she would have preferred a virtual Parliament.

Ardern said she was disappointed that option had been rejected by the Opposition.

We were absolutely willing to make ourselves available for the scrutiny that yes we need to provide, Ardern said.

We're asking the public to do things differently, and I think that Parliament needs to do things differently too. You will have seen the proposal - I think it met the needs of accountability and scrutiny but in an online platform that means we dont put staff at risk and those involved in the convening of Parliament.

However, she was not willing to once-again ask the Speaker to suspend the House without agreement from other parties.

So I will participate, despite the fact that I totally disagree with the position they have taken.

Leader of the House Chris Hipkins said on Friday no Labour MPs not already in Wellington would travel to attend the House.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Michael Woodhouse says democracy is a tactile thing.

Nationals new shadow leader of the house Michael Woodhouse said if the Prime Minister was so worried about Parliament not being safe she could once again use her unilateral power to suspend it.

The idea that they are being forced to sit is quite incorrect. Nobody is forcing them to do anything, Woodhouse said. They cant say it is not safe and then not use the tools available to them.

National could not support the virtual Parliament idea as it did not believe it would be an adequate replacement to the House. Democracy is a tactile thing, it needs to be a physical presence, Woodhouse said.

He said five National MPs would travel to Wellington and permanently relocate their bubbles there. Only one leader Judith Collins would be travelling from Auckland. Their staff would remain at home.

We genuinely believe that Parliament can sit safely, Woodhouse said.

He argued that if the Prime Minister could hold 1pm press conferences with news media the House should be able to sit.

Mallard said he was disappointed that he had not been able to persuade the Opposition to try the virtual Parliament, which would have allowed for longer questions to ministers.

I very much regret that my powers of persuasion are so poor that I have to date been unable to convince opposition parties that the vastly increased opportunity to question Ministers including up to five minutes of questioning or rebuttal per primary question and the sitting of subject committees with about 80 per cent of the time going to opposition members, as happened last week following an agreement at the Business Committee provides them with a much better opportunity to hold the Government to account than four daily questions in the house.

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Covid-19 NZ: Parliament to sit this week after National and ACT reject virtual option - Stuff.co.nz

1 NEWS published this video item, entitled LIVE: Covid-19 alert level update with Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield below is their description.

Live from 4pm: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is addressing New Zealand with the latest on NZs Covid-19 alert level.

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LIVE: Covid-19 alert level update with Jacinda Ardern, Ashley Bloomfield - The Global Herald - The Global Herald

According to New Zealand health officials, a woman died after she was administered the Pfizer-BioNTechcoronavirus vaccine.

The country's health ministry said an independent COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring board had concluded that the womans death was due to myocarditis which is a rare side effect of the Pfizer vaccine.

The health ministry said: "This is the first case in New Zealand where a death in the days following vaccination has been linked to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine."

Watch:

The age of the woman wasn't released by the health ministry.

The health ministry however added that the cause of death has not yet been determined while asserting that, "the benefits of vaccination with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine continue to greatly outweigh the risk of both COVID-19 infection and vaccine side effects, including myocarditis."

The board however added that there were other medical issues occurring at the same time that may have influenced the outcome after the woman took the vaccine.

Pfizer is the only vaccine which has been approved by health officials for public rollout in the country. The authorities have given provisional approval to Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines.

New Zealand has been battling the virus with the Delta variant spreadingrapidly in the country. On Monday the country reported 53 new coronavirus cases taking the total number of cases in the current outbreak to 562.

The government had announced a nationwide lockdown earlier this month after a virus case was detected in Auckland which has emerged as the epicentre of the virus.

On Sunday the country had reported 83 locally transmitted cases as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern indicated that tougher measures would be announced on Monday.

(With inputs from Agencies)

View original post here:

New Zealand reports first death linked to Pfizer vaccine - WION

Public health experts and COVID-19 modelers are urging the New Zealand government to tighten its lockdown settings to avoid losing hard-won gains in the fight against the Delta variant.

On Wednesday, health officials reported 75 cases in New Zealand, up from 49 on Tuesday and 53 on Monday, but still below a peak of 83 on Sunday.

Prior to announcing the figure, Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield predicted that cases would continue to fall but some "bouncing around" would be likely, as occurred during New Zealand's last outbreak.

Of the new cases, 74 are from Auckland and one, likely to be a historical case, is from Wellington.

The new cases take the overall outbreak to 687.

Hospitalisations remain stead at 32, with eight in intensive care units and three requiring ventilating.

Dr Bloomfield told television station Three "it does look like we hit the peak a few days ago" when cases reached 83 on Sunday.

"People shouldn't worry if it does go up again. The key thing is we're on our way down," he said.

Experts share Dr Bloomfield's optimism - but caution against weak spots among New Zealand's current settings.

Nick Wilson, a professor of public health at the University of Otago, called recent drops "encouraging", noting the lower proportion of transmission in the community.

However, he notes with concern recent reports of three infections at an Auckland chicken-processing factory.

"The Delta variant is very infectious and so you could have a problem with an essential worker, causing infection in a workplace, so we could still have a super spreading event," he told AAP.

"We've seen very big outbreaks in meat processing plants in the US with atmospheric conditions in these factories and people being in close proximity."

He recommends an upgrading of workplace mask-wearing rules.

On the weekend, Ms Ardern also foreshadowed a tightening of workplace restrictions, but on Wednesday COVID-19 Minister Chris Hipkins said the government was happy with its current settings.

"We review information every day ... we haven't made further decisions on that yet," he said.

Dr Wilson cautioned against complacency.

"The government has been very slow on masks and it hasn't still hasn't mandated at the alert level four for masks in factories and office workers who are essential workers. That is one of its biggest mistakes, unfortunately," he said.

Among Dr Wilson's other suggestions are prioritising vaccination of essential workers and reducing worker numbers at businesses allowed to operated.

Respected COVID-19 modeler Shaun Hendy, a physics professor at the University of Auckland said he was pleased to finally see a downwards trend in this outbreak, predicting "ups and downs" in case numbers this week.

Dr Hendy agreed workplaces could be New Zealand's achilles heel.

"Workplaces remain a risk. It's where people are routinely in close contact and it poses the most risk. Compliance at level four could still be an issue," he told AAP.

Also on Wednesday, Ms Ardern's government reduced restrictions for many New Zealanders.

After a fortnight at level four lockdown, Jacinda Ardern's government lowered all places south of Auckland to level three, allowing most Kiwis the luxury of takeaway food.

Health officials also confirmed another bumper day of vaccinations, with 84,971 doses administered - around 1.6 per cent of the population.

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Cases bounce back up in New Zealand - PerthNow

There had been a steady rise in cases since lockdown. This caused particular angst on Saturday as the numbers were expected to peak by then. But Sunday came along and 83 cases were announced, pretty much the same as the day before. Keith Lynch looks at what is going on.

We are in a strict lockdown and the reason is simple: it is all about pushing down the R number of Covid-19. This is the average number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to.

If this number is above 1, the virus is spreading, if it is below 1 the virus is dying out. On Sunday, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said models suggested the R number might now be about 0.8.

READ MORE:* Covid-19 NZ: Explaining why level 2 could be the new normal in the age of Delta* Covid-19: Daily case numbers are increasing quickly. This simple mathematical concept gives us reason for optimism* Explaining the variable that has a Covid-19 modeller most worried

Michael Plank, a professor at the school of mathematics and statistics at the University of Canterbury, and principal investigator at Te Pnaha Matatini, told Stuff last week he believed the R number for Delta was about 6 or more. For some context, the first Covid-19 variant to emerge had an R value of about 3.

There is something else about the R number that is worth going back to. It defines whether the virus is growing exponentially or not. On Wednesday, Bloomfield struck an optimistic note, stating Covid-19 case numbers were not increasing exponentially.

It is important to note that there are degrees of exponential growth. As my colleague Charlie Mitchell points out, if the R number is above 1, the spread is exponential.

Say there are 10 cases of Covid-19 and the R number is 1.2. Now get out your calculator and multiply 10 by 1.2. You will get 12. Now multiply 12 by 1.2. Keep multiplying the result by 1.2 and after enough cycles you will see more dramatic increases. This is technically still exponential growth.

Nowhere near as dramatic however as when there are 10 cases of Covid-19 and the R number is 6. Multiply 10 by six. Multiply 60 by six and continue. After a few cycles, you will see staggering numbers.

There are two groups of people that will define the outcome of this outbreak.

The R number in these two groupings is, and was, very clearly different.

The good news (and that term is very relative here) is that 70 of Saturdays 82 cases were linked to the largest cluster. And it appears most cases are now within the households of infected people.

If cases remain almost all within Group 1, that would be great. It would mean the lockdown is working keeping the rest of us walled off. It would lead to case numbers plateauing off over time, simply because there would not be anyone else within Group 1 to pass the virus on to.

On Saturday night, Plank posted on social media pointing out: there is a downward trend in the per cent change in average daily cases. This could suggest the R number within Group 1 could well be falling.

This trend continued on Sunday. But it is important to add a caveat, as Plank did: you should not read too much into one or two days.

Mark Mitchell

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand is not running out of vaccines.

Some believe the case numbers in Group 1 may have already peaked, essentially knocking its R number under 1. This may be because of a lag in reporting of positive test results, particularly in those who caught the disease just before lockdown.

It would be very bad if the R number was above 1 in Group 2.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there had been transmission of Covid-19 among staff in four essential workplaces. This is clearly worrying and something to keep a close eye on.

If the virus is spreading, or starts spreading, among essential workers or those not adhering to the lockdown, then we have a real problem. It means the lockdown moat protecting the rest of the population has been breached.

(Obviously the more people in Group 1 that catch the virus, the more chance there is of a leak into Group 2.)

This is why University of Auckland Professor Shaun Hendy, another Covid-19 modeller, suggested that if this is the case the Government may need to take another look at what businesses are allowed to open at level 4 if the case numbers continue to rise. It is why Ardern suggested on Sunday that her Government may need to tighten level 4 up even further.

If the daily case numbers continue to shoot up this week, it may be that basically all of Group 1 has been infected and the virus has leaked into Group 2. If they plateau, that is a positive.

A few important things to finish: we should not read too much into one days numbers Saturdays or Sundays. We will learn a lot more in the next seven days.

Original post:

Covid-19 NZ: Explaining what is going on with the daily case numbers - Stuff.co.nz

BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope says its on the government if businesses are confused about whether they should be operating at level 4.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said 25 people had exposure events outside their household and four workplaces had transmission of Covid-19 within staff.

These are generally essential worksites and tend not to be customer facing sites, she said.

Weve asked for further analysis as to the nature of these workplaces so we can assess whether our level 4 rules on who is operating is being adhered to and whether our public health protocols for those businesses that are operating are fit for purpose."

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She said, if the Government needed to tighten restrictions further, it would.

What we want to do is make sure were being dynamic. That if we're getting information that shows us we have workplaces are operating that we believe are outside what they should be at level 4 we need to respond to that.

At this stage Ive had nothing to suggest its anything other than essential food services, packaging services, logistics.

Screengrab

Workers have spread Covid-19 between them at four sites, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

Its not a matter of business as usual, if youre operating, businesses have rules. We want to cast our eyes over that with a delta lens.

Do we need to change that up to a certain degree, ask businesses to do more outside the factory floor?

Weve got four sites at the moment where we know theres been transmission between workers. If we get evidence we need to tighten things up we will. Some will just be the protocols adapting to delta. Some of it may be us saying we think there are too many businesses operating outside of already the rules that are there.

Ardern said businesses should only be providing services that allow people to continue to look after themselves in their homes, or continue their work in their homes.

We want to make sure people arent operating around the fringes of that in a way we wouldnt expect.

There have been reports of workers surprised to be called in to work when they did not think they were providing essential services.

Hope said if businesses were operating when they were not essential, that was due to a lack of clarity in the rules.

Theyve had 18 months to get this right. Its on the government to make sure its providing much, much clearer advice around what youre able to do and what youre not able to under level 4. The obligation is on them to communicate much more clearly.

He said the rules had changed slightly due to the delta variant.

But its arrival in the community was not a surprise and the Government should have clarified the rules beforehand, not once the country had gone into level 4, he said.

It really lacks clarity.

Hansells Masterton executive chairman Alan Stewart says any further restrictions on operations would be "impossible."

"There is no reason why an essential business cannot operate safely provided they observe the rules. Hansells has safely operated under previous lockdown and is doing so again this time.

"The food supply chain would be interrupted if supplies did not go to supermarkets and companies such as ours need to continue producing not only to supply supermarkets while in lockdown but also when we come out as there would be huge out of stocks after business comes back to normal."

EMA chief executive Brett ORiley said if it was clear what was required in terms of PPE and social distancing there should not be a reason for businesses not to open.

That are a lot of businesses that are closed in level 4 that could be safer than some that are allowed to open.

He said his organisation was working through the rules with the Government to determine how the rules would work when businesses in level 3 needed support and supplies from businesses in Auckland that were meant to be closed under level 4.

The rest is here:

Essential business confusion 'on the Government' - Stuff.co.nz