Tuesday's Covid-19 update: 21 new cases, all in Auckland; new vaccine deal close

Community Covid cases reported rise to 21 from 20 the day before; more Pfizer vaccine secured

7th Sep 21, 1:26pm by David Hargreaves

The Ministry of Health is reporting another 21 community Covid cases, all in Auckland. In addition there's a further case that has yet to be either identified as a community or border case.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed that a deal had been struck to get more Pfizer vaccine to keep up with the demand between now and when big shipments arrive in October. Ardern said as the deal - which involved more than one country - was still being finalised, she could not give any more detail yet.

Arden said currently there were 682,000 vaccine doses in the country.

The latest case numbers follow 20 new cases in each of the past three days.

This takes the total for this outbreak to 841, with 17 of these in Wellington and the rest Auckland.

Arden and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield gave the latest update.

Bloomfield said there were now 39 Covid cases in hospital, with six in ICU, four of which were requiring ventilation.

Bloomfield said of the 20 cases reported on Monday, just four had been infectious in the community.

The number of cases in the latest outbreak that were still regarded as 'unlinked' had now dropped to 24 from 33 on Monday.

Ardern said the negotiations to get extra vaccine supply had been "complex".

There were over 66,000 vaccinations on Monday.

This is the Ministry of Health's daily update:

Cases
Number of new community cases	21. There’s one additional case which is yet to be classified as either a community case or a border case. This is being investigated.
Number of new cases identified at the border	Zero
Location of new cases	Auckland
Location of community cases (total)	Auckland 824 (138 of whom have recovered); Wellington 17 (eight of whom have recovered)
Number of community cases (total)	841 (in current community outbreak). Note one of the previously reported cases has been reclassified as a duplicate.
Cases infectious in the community	Four (20%) of yesterday’s cases have exposure events – all of which predated the request to isolate.
Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infected	16 (76%) of yesterday’s cases
Cases epidemiologically linked	20 of today’s cases
Cases to be epidemiologically linked	One from today’s cases
Cases epidemiologically linked (total)	817 (in current cluster) (24 unlinked)
Number of sub-clusters	Eight epidemiologically linked subclusters. The two largest subclusters are the Mangere church group: 368; and Birkdale social network cluster: 76. There are nine epidemiologically unlinked subclusters.
Cases in hospital	39 (total): North Shore (7); Auckland (17) Middlemore (15);
Cases in ICU or HDU	6
Confirmed cases (total)	3,813 since pandemic began
Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total) **	130 out of 1,639 since 1 Jan 2021
Contacts
Number of contacts identified (total) *	37,971
Percentage who have received outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements)	87%
Percentage with at least one test result	91%
Locations of interest
Locations of interest (total)	114 (as at 10am 7 September)
Tests
Number of tests (total)	3,069,348
Number of tests total (last 24 hours)	7,255
Tests rolling average (last 7 days)	12,131
Tests in Auckland (last 24 hours)	5,852
Testing centres in Auckland	22
Wastewater
Wastewater detections	No unexpected detections in the past 24 hours.
COVID-19 vaccine update
Vaccines administered to date (total)	3,958,607; 1st doses: 2,611,510; 2nd doses: 1,347,097
Vaccines administered yesterday (total)	66,310; 1st doses: 44,641; 2nd doses: 21,669
Mâori	1st doses: 239,661; 2nd doses: 118,866
Pacific Peoples	1st doses: 154,196; 2nd doses: 81,272
NZ COVID-19 tracer
Registered users (total)	3,160,760
Poster scans (total)	340,588,751
Manual diary entries (total)	15,564,652
Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday	907,213

*This denominator may fluctuate due to additional contacts being identified and/or the Ministry excluding records, for instance duplicates, following further contact tracing investigations.

**A previously reported case, reported on 18 August, has now been deemed as historical.

There may be some delays in providing data in some instances. On these occasions, we will use data from the day before and clearly note this.

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85 Comments

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 1:47pm 1630979235

new cases flatlining. more vaccine supply in the offing. if vaccination continues at the current rate then the target of completion by the end of the year will obviously come forward, less than three months hence undoubtedly, which is not far away at all then. so should we not know by now what the above target actually is and what exactly will happen when it is met. New Zealanders have been markedly compliant and understanding to making lockdowns effective. Given that the majority of them were left unprotected by vaccination at the start of this Delta event, the government therefore owes them much gratitude for their application because anything other than that would have seen the government on the hook, at least at this point anyway. So this government now needs to let the good people of New Zealand know what happens next so that some can begin planning their lives as best as able the new normal will allow.

by Tigadee | 7th Sep 21, 1:48pm 1630979308

LOL Not sure how compliant Kiwis are - Was on a short drive yesterday and saw maybe a dozen people walking or running, and half of them were unmasked! Equal mix of pakeha, islanders and Maori amongst the unmasked...

by realterms | 7th Sep 21, 1:49pm 1630979391

Not required to wear a mask when running.

by Tigadee | 7th Sep 21, 1:54pm 1630979667

Oh, I see.

by fat pat | 7th Sep 21, 10:43pm 1631011411

In Germany you wear the mask while standing at a restaurant but not while sitting and talking. If you get up to go to the toilet then you put on your mask, and take it off when you return to your table at the packed restaurant. You see the virus knows when you're sitting down, and has agreed to a truce under those circumstances. They've just changed the rules so instead of fancy FFP2 masks we can wear the normal surgical masks with all the gaps. The virus has also agreed not to take the path of least resistance around the side of the mask. So you see the masks are not a psychological opperation & useless virtue signaling device, they actually do something - they stop that pesky virus.

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 1:52pm 1630979578

Well yes, but excuse my poetic license if you would, but at least a better effort than say Sydneysiders which if that behaviour had been conducted in NZ, Delta would be up, up and away by now.

by rastus1 | 7th Sep 21, 2:25pm 1630981514

lower testing numbers. One could say based on averages 20 is the new 40.

by HouseMouse | 7th Sep 21, 2:33pm 1630982037

I think we have been very compliant, generally.

Maybe the govt could give us some helicopter money to compensate.

by Brutus Iscariot | 7th Sep 21, 1:44pm 1630979098

We don't want more Pfizer. Yeah the effectiveness looks ok at first glance, but you need booster shots every 5 minutes to keep up the effectiveness. Look at Israel which is a Pfizer experiment writ large - people are now on their 4th shot. No one has any idea of the effects of such repeated and frequent vaccination from MRNA technology.

We would be much better served if the government could deliver on its other contracts (Jansen and Novavaxx) which are based on more proven approaches. I personally am not touching the Pfizer vaccine with a barge pole, but would happily look at the other ones on the menu.

What do you think the chances are that we look back in 20 years and it turns out the first vaccine developed was the best one? Pretty unlikely i would have thought.

by lowercase capitalist | 7th Sep 21, 1:48pm 1630979302

Is there some data showing that other vaccines effectiveness holds up better over time than the pfizer one? My understanding is that they all have this issue.

by tim52 | 7th Sep 21, 2:38pm 1630982293

I think the Moderna vaccine is meant to still be more effective. Some of these "second generation" vaccines are whole virus or at least the whole spike so minor mutations are much more likely to leave something the immune system can recognise. Unlike the RNA vaccines that just picked some of the parts of the spike.

The is data and studies that the recovered are much less likely to catch the virus than the vaccinated so in theory better vaccines are possible.

by Tigadee | 7th Sep 21, 1:51pm 1630979496

@Brutus But how often is the first of anything been the best? Novavax is very promising but it likely won't arrive in NZ till mid-2022. Even if Pfizer is effective only for 5-6 months, surely that's good enough until then?

by Yvil | 7th Sep 21, 2:33pm 1630982001

Brutus Iscariot "We don't want more Pfizer"

YOU might not want more Pfizer but don't speak for all of us

by Brutus Iscariot | 7th Sep 21, 4:15pm 1630988113

There's enough doses for Pfizer for you and whoever wants it. But there's no other option for people who want to make an informed choice.

by Solve_it | 7th Sep 21, 4:35pm 1630989329

I've done my research and Pfizer would be my informed choice of all the options available. Which is convenient. Agree it's a shame there aren't other options for different people but your comment comes across like people who choose Pfizer are doing so because they don't know any better or simply have no other choice, which is not the case.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 7th Sep 21, 6:23pm 1630995821

... I missed the 1 p.m. sermon from the Pulpit of Struth ; but have garnered the impression that multiple deals are being done with undisclosed countries to provide an uncertain number of Pfizer doses at some time in the future at an indeterminate cost ... .

Well ... we'll all sleep better tonight knowing that , won't we , boys & girls ....

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 7:00pm 1630998059

Now, now smooth brow GBH.Sleep easy, nice dreams. Sixpence under the pillow and the tooth fairy will attend to all your nocturnal needs. Slumber on. On that note of forthcoming kindness, you can even do without the nightly Horlicks one might think.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 8th Sep 21, 9:22am 1631049732

... wish I could afford a nightly Horlicks .... but , its Level 2 , so I guess the ladies of the night will be frequenting Manchester Street again .. ... yay ...

by sharetrader | 7th Sep 21, 1:45pm 1630979133

good to see salvia testing and rapid antigen testing now being rolled out, a lot of companies will be able to use this tool to keep workplaces going in the future

by realterms | 7th Sep 21, 1:48pm 1630979319

The saliva test is a PCR test still. Just a bit more comfortable to take, but same turnaround time. The rapid antigen tests are, sadly, still rubbish.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 8th Sep 21, 9:26am 1631049993

... our own Victoria University reported back in June that saliva testing was 98.7 % accurate .... good enough for me , for us to roll it out ... can someone wake up the government & Saint Ashley ?

by Nifty1 | 7th Sep 21, 1:56pm 1630979771

Anyone see Auckland getting out of lockdown anytime soon? Vaccination rates are still so low... The govt really did blunder this one.

by donny11 | 7th Sep 21, 2:05pm 1630980357

Doubtful. With the random community cases popping up looks like there are some people not all that keen on MIQ prison.

Further compliance is waning, plenty of folks have put themselves on level 3.5.

I think we won't be out till October

by Carlos67 | 7th Sep 21, 2:22pm 1630981334

I predicted back in August that Auckland would be in Level 4 for the whole of September. Case numbers should really be down in single digits by now. Also I stated like a year ago they should have built a dedicated MIQ facility. You need a huge MIQ facility to try and contain Delta, no point putting more than one suspected case in a room with another because they then both end up with it. Still think this is almost impossible to stop, we simply don't have the infrastructure to cope with it. All the lockdown is doing is buying us time to try and get the whole of Auckland vaccinated. The Fear Factor is working out well in the vaccine uptake.

by cromulent | 7th Sep 21, 2:36pm 1630982209

I can see this going on through October at least with level 3 if not 4 still. Aucklanders compliance to level 4 is on the wane as there are noticeably more cars on the road than at the start of lockdown. Both my neighbours aren't taking it seriously - one neighbour's teenage son has had his mate round a few times and other neighbour went out for day trip somewhere on Sunday with the whole family.

by Nifty1 | 7th Sep 21, 3:54pm 1630986847

How many businesses deem themselves as essential now? It seems to me there's a hell of alot trading but 'contactless'. Certaintly not what it was like last lockdown.

by Lanthanide | 7th Sep 21, 7:32pm 1630999962

A big part of it is that the government has relaxed the rules a lot, trading in level 4 is now more like what level 3 was the first time.

First level 4, businesses could only sell items to other essential businesses.

Now, any business that can operate safely at level 4 can sell 'essential' items to the public.

by Nifty1 | 7th Sep 21, 8:14pm 1631002455

Sounds problematic, theres' been such a blurred line on what essential is.This relaxed approach is what's got us into this mess, it's a shame the govt will keep us in lockdown longer with another subpar effort.

Ps. Seems like all your Covid calls have been wrong Lathanide...

by Lanthanide | 7th Sep 21, 8:54pm 1631004888

Lol

by Sluggy | 8th Sep 21, 8:12am 1631045526

How would you suggest these businesses survive - Im hoping for a large jar of kindness in the mail. My bank manager has said I can use the kindness to decrease my OD.

by Nifty1 | 8th Sep 21, 8:46am 1631047560

I suggest whilst we do lockdown we do it right and get it done quickly, not half arse it & drag it out. Its a little bit late for that though, expecting another extension to lockdown coming up for Auckland...

by Sluggy | 8th Sep 21, 11:45am 1631058342

Im at my work, alone, dropping off stuff to the courier, all completely contactless. I dont see any risk in this at all.

If half arsing involves saving jobs and businesses then Im all for it. Please dont retort with everyone is going to die, because it is very evident they arent.

by Brutus Iscariot | 7th Sep 21, 6:50pm 1630997440

I respect the fact that you didn't dob them in.

by RCD | 7th Sep 21, 2:06pm 1630980418

so we have 10 days supply of vaccines, with cobbled together orders arriving sometime in October, no date given, still in discussions.....

But hey over 75% of eligible (thats over 16 i think) NZ'ers have EITHER been vaccinated or booked for one, whoopee.... booked for a shot in 3 months time, ICU here i come.

This lockdown is not ending any time soon for Auckland

by Carlos67 | 7th Sep 21, 2:27pm 1630981679

Why would you think you will end up in ICU ? Taken on face value the total lockdown is an overreaction. So far one death from someone in her 90's with underlying health conditions. I suspect that many people are rating their chances against Covid without the vaccination as quite high. Its a personal calculation in which you weigh up all the risks.

by HouseMouse | 7th Sep 21, 2:58pm 1630983533

1 death covid-related out of 841 official cases. Who knows how many have caught the bug but haven't been confirmed. Let's just say 1000 people have been infected.

1 death out of 1000 = 0.1%

And this in a cohort with a relatively high risk profile.

It's hardly black death is it?

This should be the last lockdown.

As I have said before, tighten border and MIQ, and perhaps go to alert level 2.5 at most to mitigate outbreaks.

But no more level 3 or 4.

by Plutocracy | 7th Sep 21, 4:36pm 1630989419

What is the rate of ICU admission per 1000 people infected?

What is New Zealand's total ICU capacity and current occupancy?

by HouseMouse | 7th Sep 21, 4:50pm 1630990218

So they should have ramped up ICU capacity in the past 1.5 years

by KBKIWI | 7th Sep 21, 5:35pm 1630992924

They have ramped up ICU surge capacity significantly - but that can only be done temporarily as proper ICU care requires a lot more specialist ICU trained doctors and senior nurses - which are impossible to simply “ramp up” in 1.5 year. Trained doctors can’t simply be bought off the shelf.

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 5:55pm 1630994116

Ramped up significantly? Not even the government is saying that. Damn sure they would if they could though. Go and have a listen to the lame and evasive answer by Minister Hipkins in parliament to that of Dr Reti asking how much ICU capacity has increased since Covid arrived in NZ.

by HouseMouse | 7th Sep 21, 6:09pm 1630994965

I appreciate that, but perhaps if we had had a bit more fat in the system we could have adjusted better. Instead, the system is totally under resourced and overrun. That is on successive governments.

On a related note, how do we cope when Wellington has a massive earthquake, or Auckland has an eruption. Either event would have much greater implications for our hospitals than the Christchurch quake did.

Natural disasters, and pandemics, are exactly the reasons why you need some redundant capacity in the system.

But that's right, we only think about the short term and 'just in time' in little ole NZ...

by C_T_20 | 7th Sep 21, 6:54pm 1630997652

You are starting to ask the more important questions here, thanks!

by Lanthanide | 7th Sep 21, 7:22pm 1630999328

Don't vote for right wing governments if you want an adequately funded health system. All they know how to do is promise tax cuts, cut services and sell state assets.

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 8:39pm 1631003963

Lange’s government ushered in the sale of state assets and the corporatisation of government departments into SOEs. Health has not been adequately handled by any government as far as I can recall. Even Helen Clark and Michael Cullen were health ministers at one time and pretty ineffective about it too. In my opinion the best health minister on offer of late has been Annette King and that was because she had the pragmatism and intelligence to listen to the clinicians at least equal to the bureaucrats. The national government that preceded this one certainly was one of the poorer performers in this portfolio but they were not unique. Quite a few of those that comment here accuse you of being a Labour party plant. Have tended to give you the benefit of the doubt but really your above comment is intemperate and finally nails your colours to the mast. Suggest also avoid the slips into first person plural when you get agitated about defending your governments actions.

by sharetrader | 7th Sep 21, 8:56pm 1631004965

both the major parties have over seen the down grading of our health system with policy after policy, from high population growth and not growing the health sector to keep up, training people to head off overseas because there is no pathways for them here instead importing people to fill the gaps. , the bureaucracy in our hospitals is the biggest growth department they have had over the last twenty years

by CrispyKahawai | 7th Sep 21, 6:05pm 1630994744

It takes longer than that to train the staff needed for an effective ICU. That has always been the issue.

by Brutus Iscariot | 7th Sep 21, 3:59pm 1630987148

That was shockingly cringe. Eulogies and write ups over a single death, condolences from the PM. How many have died from other causes since the outbreak started?

A 90+ year old dying is never a "tragedy", it's called a good innings. In fact the state of extreme old age is the ultimate "underlying health condition"!

by dumbthoughts | 7th Sep 21, 4:28pm 1630988903

"One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic" (apparently not) Joseph Stalin ... but seems to fit the bill here.

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 6:37pm 1630996649

Good old Joe. Well before Adolf, he had he worked out that while terror was a weapon, death was a solution.

by HouseMouse | 7th Sep 21, 4:52pm 1630990351

I wonder how many deaths lockdowns have contributed to? Might be surprising how many.

by the Joneses | 7th Sep 21, 5:35pm 1630992944

Well to try answer that question I looked up the death rate for NZ from the official stats. For the year July to June the death rates are: 2018-2019 33768, 2019-2020 33975, 2020-2021 33483. I would put those fluctuations in the vicinity of regular year on year noise.

Incidentally the official suicide rate dropped from the 2018-2019 to the 2019-2020 period which covered the first lockdown from 13.93 to 13.01 per 100k people. We haven't got the numbers for the latest period yet.

by Lanthanide | 7th Sep 21, 7:19pm 1630999197

People who try to use the results of lockdown as evidence for why we don't need lockdown really aren't the brightest.

by Albert2020 | 7th Sep 21, 10:25pm 1631010340

But yet they still continue to do it and never learn from their glaring mistake

by Solve_it | 7th Sep 21, 2:16pm 1630980985

Minor correction David, the 66,000 vaccinations were on Sunday.

by Yvil | 7th Sep 21, 2:26pm 1630981599

It's great we're securing more vaccines but I have a question: What does it cost to administer 1 shot? I know, we the people don't pay for it, but there's still a cost associated with producing the vaccine, selling it to NZ, shipping it to NZ setting up vaccination centres and paying the people administering the shots. It's something that I have never heard discussed.

What is the total cost (to the government) of one administered vaccine?

by realterms | 7th Sep 21, 2:33pm 1630982011

Cost of vaccination is peanuts compared to lockdown.

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 2:41pm 1630982506

And on that point alone. Why did NZ not then pay to stay in the front of the queue, where we were first advised we were placed?

by nktokyo | 7th Sep 21, 2:49pm 1630982981

Thousands of deaths a day elsewhere bumped us down the queue.

by Lanthanide | 7th Sep 21, 7:23pm 1630999413

Because that was never an option.

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 7:51pm 1631001096

Inside knowledge then? Please explain.

by 8014 | 7th Sep 21, 2:47pm 1630982863

Vaccination and lockdown are not mutually exclusive. But agree with the sentiment.

by realterms | 7th Sep 21, 3:27pm 1630985263

No. But higher vaccination rates will at least mean *less* lockdown, and very clearly worth it on a $ basis.

by 8014 | 7th Sep 21, 4:21pm 1630988478

I would like to be optimistic about this scenario, but it is yet to be proven on a long time scale and in the face of a constantly mutating virus

by sharetrader | 7th Sep 21, 8:39pm 1631003966

we get to watch NSW to see if having enough people vaccinated will not over whelm their health system , she has said she will open from October the 10th so not long to wait to see what happens

by Solve_it | 8th Sep 21, 6:59am 1631041168

And things are already going so well over there... Insanity

by lowercase capitalist | 7th Sep 21, 2:58pm 1630983531

You make it sound like it's a choice between one or the other. Israel and some other countries seem to be having lockdowns or other restrictions despite having high vaccination rates.

I suspect that even with high vaccination rates some form of lockdown will be needed in the non elimination countries from time to time if the alternative is to have the health system be over run.

by lowercase capitalist | 7th Sep 21, 2:53pm 1630983229

https://www.oxfam.org.nz/news-media/media-releases/vaccine-monopolies-m…

Pfizer/ BioNTech are charging their lowest reported price of USD$6.75 (NZD$9.70) to the African Union but this is still nearly 6 times more than the estimated potential production cost of this vaccine. One dose of the vaccine costs the same as Uganda spends per citizen on health in a whole year.

The highest reported price paid for Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines was paid by Israel at USD$28 (NZD$40.26) a dose – nearly 24 times the potential production cost. Some reports suggest they paid even more.

Unclear how much we pay but presumably somewhere between NZD10-NZD40 per dose.

Lets say NZD25, multiply that by 2 for both shots so NZD50 per person.

So, ballpark NZD250M to buy enough vaccine for 5M people. I don't know enough about the other costs to make any educated guess but my reckons would be at least double.

by Final Account | 7th Sep 21, 3:38pm 1630985899

You get half a hospital for that, and that 1/2 hospital would be enough to serve maybe 100 covid patients. So $2.5M per person to treat covid with new hospitals.

by realterms | 7th Sep 21, 3:49pm 1630986560

Building a hospital without staffing it isn't much use.

by CWBW | 7th Sep 21, 3:39pm 1630985997

"It's better to die bravely than to live a coward."

The number of business destroyed by these sporadic lock-downs are causing real financial damages to people's lives- even generational businesses aren't spared. This is all because of a anemic vaccination roll out, failure to secure vaccines whilst touting the country is 'in the front of vaccine supply' queue.

We should stop hiding in a hole.

The only people who wants a prolonged shut down are probably doctors and nurses where their occupation is recession proof and opening up means working overtime.

Failure in public administration should not be hidden behind country-wide lock-down; success in viral replication control does not rectify failures in vaccination.

by Albert2020 | 7th Sep 21, 5:22pm 1630992144

Jesus could you be more ignorant?! How about you jump in help our struggling doctors and nurses at the Covid bedside if you think it’s such an over reaction

by Lanthanide | 7th Sep 21, 7:30pm 1630999818

Yeah, its really unfortunate the medical miracle of these vaccines that every country in the world wanted were in short supply.

Not sure why you think NZ, which had eliminated the virus, was more deserving than other countries.

Also unemployment is around 4% and the economy is going gang busters - good growth in any time, but exceptional compared to the rest of the world.

by Foxglove. | 7th Sep 21, 8:00pm 1631001624

Not exactly. By your own words yesterday elimination was never achieved in MIQ. Therefore as you went on to say covid could be lurking issuing forth from MIQ in Christchurch for example, at present at any time. Elimination was only ever as good as border security would allow and once that was breached obviously covid was no longer eliminated. That is the status in NZ today isn’t it.

by Sluggy | 8th Sep 21, 8:44am 1631047456

The business side of your comment is absolutely true. The fallout from the current shambles will be huge, no doubt about it.

There is a real disconnect between wage/salary earners where most are unaffected, and trying to finance a business through this, with little to no help from the government. Compared to the first lockdown, govt seem relatively disinterested in keeping the economy running. It is one big blustery PR exercise.

They do seem very interested in propping up house prices though.

by HouseMouse | 7th Sep 21, 3:46pm 1630986413

I have never seen a satisfactory answer to this question:

Why weren't large purpose built MIQ and additional hospital facilities built as an urgent measure late last year / early this year?

by realterms | 7th Sep 21, 3:50pm 1630986603

Didn't think they could build them in time to be useful.

by HouseMouse | 7th Sep 21, 3:59pm 1630987152

With willpower and resource it could have been easily achieved. The buildings needn't have been beautiful buildings. Efficient, well insulated boxes would be fine.

The buildings could have been repurposed for other things in the future.

I thought we were treating covid like a war?

by Carlos67 | 7th Sep 21, 6:18pm 1630995490

Exactly and who said that this would be the last Pandemic ? Hell this one will not be finished for years. There are already 3 or 4 other mutations that have only just got going. We are one mutation away from the end of the world as you know it. Covid-19 may be a picnic in the park in 12 months time. Throwing sick people in hotels is not a long term plan.

by Lanthanide | 7th Sep 21, 7:29pm 1630999772

Literally the only reply your comment deserves is "easier said than done".

by sharetrader | 7th Sep 21, 10:06pm 1631009212

There has been plans to build a new hospital next to the super clinic for years, they own a massive piece of land . But no money has ever been allocated So now is the time to build a hospital/miq facility.

lucky nick smith didn’t grab the land for housing

by C_T_20 | 7th Sep 21, 7:02pm 1630998143

If you were working in the construction industry, you would know that even if you had the crack team of architects, a blank cheque from the government, and the 3 most capable main contractors working together to milk the government (your and my tax dollars), you would be waiting AT LEAST 4-5 years... if you are having having a bit of luck to boot :)

by Carlos67 | 8th Sep 21, 5:51am 1631037106

So whats your point ? Basically in 4 to 5 years we will look back and say, gee we should have started the new MIQ/Hospital facility 4 or 5 years ago, gee its to late now it will not be open for another 5 years so lets continue to do nothing, how about we just waste billions in lockdowns that could have built 4 or 5 hospitals in the meantime.

by Nifty1 | 8th Sep 21, 6:46am 1631040407

This is how NZ operates, no progress because we're so short sighted.

by C_T_20 | 8th Sep 21, 12:57pm 1631062625

I happen to agree with you! I just pointed out to the OP that these ridiculous expectations of building a major technically involved project like a hospital, and putting in place staff for it in addition to existing staff takes time no matter how much will power we possess...

by sharetrader | 8th Sep 21, 9:06am 1631048792

some good news coming out of a study showing those that are vaccinated then ctch covid come out the other side much better off

After both a prior COVID-19 infection and two doses of Pfizer or Moderna's vaccine, some people's immune systems develop an incredible ability to respond to the virus.

Researchers call this 'superhuman immunity' or 'hybrid immunity' - these patients' immune systems can produce a lot of antibodies able to respond to different variants, as documented in multiple studies in recent months.

In one study, patients with this 'hybrid immunity' demonstrated the ability to respond to current variants of concern, non-human coronaviruses, and potentially even new variants that don't yet exist

After both a prior COVID-19 infection and two doses of Pfizer or Moderna's vaccine, some people's immune systems develop an incredible ability to respond to the virus.

In one study, patients with this 'hybrid immunity' demonstrated the ability to respond to current variants of concern, non-human coronaviruses, and potentially even new variants that don't yet exist

Some people have 'superhuman' ability to fight off COVID-19 after infection and vaccination | Daily Mail Online