New Zealand's current Covid-19 alert level settings will remain in place until 11:59pm Tuesday, September 21.
Cabinet has made an "in-principle" decision for Auckland to move from Level 4 to Level 3 thereafter.
No decision has been made around whether the rest of New Zealand will move down from 'Delta Level 2' next week.
The settings will be reviewed on Monday, September 20.
In summary, Auckland remains at Level 4 and the rest of New Zealand at Delta Level 2 until at least 11:59pm September 21.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that while there isn’t widespread transmission in Auckland, mystery cases are still popping up.
Of all the new cases detected in the past fortnight, 17 are unlinked. Only a small number of these are concerning to officials.
Nonetheless, Ardern said it was worrying there are still cases emerging via community or surveillance testing, rather than through contact tracing.
She said Level 4 is working.
The R value is consistently below 1, falling from 6 at the start of the outbreak in New Zealand. This means positive cases are passing the virus onto fewer than one other person, on average.
Ardern asked residents in Mt Eden, Massey, Mangere, Favona, Papatoetoe, Otara and Manurewa to be especially vigilant.
She said New Zealand - outside of Auckland - is being kept at Delta Level 2 to contain the possible spread of the virus should it leak out of Auckland.
Around 3000 essential workers are being permitted to travel in and out of Auckland every day.
The Ministry of Health reported 33 new Covid-19 cases in the community on Monday.
Of these, only one wasn't epidemiologically linked, meanwhile seven were part of the same household.
The total number of cases in this outbreak is 955.
No sign of new types of support being made available to businesses
Ardern wouldn’t be drawn on whether businesses can expect to receive more financial support above what’s already being provided.
Businesses throughout the country can from Friday file applications for a third round of the Wage Subsidy (paid in two-weekly lump sums), as well as another Resurgence Support Payment.
The Resurgence Support Payment was initially a one-off payment, but is now being made available every three weeks.
Businesses need to prove they’ve experienced falls in revenue to receive either payment.
Almost $1.8 billion in Wage Subsidies and $531 million in Resurgence Support Payments have been paid since the start of this outbreak.
Minister for Social Development and Employment Carmel Sepuloni acknowledged there were delays paying the Wage Subsidy for around 9% of the 427,000 approved applications.
“The applications taking longer are largely sole traders. The reason for this is mostly due to data in the application not matching with data held by Inland Revenue,” she said.
“It is really important that businesses make sure the details they provide Ministry of Social Development match the details held on their business by Inland Revenue. This small check will mean they receive support as quickly as possible…
“MSD is working with applicants and Inland Revenue on resolving these as quickly as possible. This includes calling an average of 7,000 applicants a day to check information and working with them to make the changes needed to get their application processed.
“Over 25,000 delayed applications for the initial wage subsidy have been processed over the past week.”
Eligible businesses can receive $600 a week for each full-time employee and $359 a week for each part-time employee via the Wage Subsidy.
Meanwhile they can receive $1,500 plus $400 per full-time employee, up to a maximum of 50 employees, via the Resurgence Support Payment.
134 Comments
DPM Robertson as reported earlier today in Herald. “He promised the government would to make sure it laid out a very clear plan for Aucklanders this afternoon.”Well there it is. Seven days worth of status quo, that’s a plan alright. Can’t argue with that. But some might have preferred more long than short plans, or even the alternative plan. For instance if Auckland’s present circumstances have not altered by next Tuesday week how can a reduction to level 3 then take place. And the same question for the week after and the week after. If that situation transpires, then the plan must be out of necessity to to stay in level 4 surely while it lasts . Why not front up and say it then. We are getting into propaganda territory here, and there is no lying that is more galling and grating, than lying by omission.
And that's because... https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57888429
It says children are at such low risk from the virus that vaccination would offer only "marginal gain".
Not that you would know it from the coronavirus hysterics in this country.
I reckon we'll get to a point we will be in a Level 3 limbo, and then if numbers decide to tick back up I reckon Level 4 with mass testing requirements. Where they'll maybe do a full on canvas of the whole region, hopefully they're on the sideline getting a tonne of those saliva tests ready so that more people will actually consider taking a test.
A public health order would do it,
A person commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months, a fine not exceeding $4,000, or both who in any way (directly or indirectly, by act or default)—
(...)
> fails or refuses to comply with, or delays complying with, a direction or requirement of a medical officer of health or any person authorised by a medical officer of health given in the exercise of powers or functions under section 70 or 71; or
We all want elimination. Sadly it’s not possible. It would need 100% honesty and compliance, I’m looking at you Ms Wiles and mystery Auckland couple (actually, no mystery if you know how to google), and an hermetically sealed border. Neither are achievable. Hence the almost panicky vaccination drive.
Not sure what alternative you want:
- Say nothing at all
- Make a promise and then break it, due to new compelling evidence showing it was the wrong decision
- Give guidance as to what to expect, but reserve the right to change it if new evidence is compelling
Any other options?
So you just didn't like the words she used, then?
What do you want her to say:
"It is our plan to drop to level 3 at 11:59pm in Auckland on Tuesday 21 September, assuming no new developments arise that make that risky"?
Like seriously, tell me what words you want her to use to convey this concept. Because what she said was not really "spin".
What is not said is more important than what is said. The rate of community cases is trending up again, not down. Even if that reversed it is not going to do so sufficiently within just seven days, to make the situation then markedly different from what it is today. So if level 4 is necessary now what will change to make it unnecessary in seven days time then? What’s the plan?
I got the opposite impression from the PM's justification - that although the numbers looked bad on the surface, actually they aren't too scary with all the details and context (which they aren't sharing).
I've been annoyed about the lack of detail in the data they're sharing for the last 2 weeks.
Aye, with you on that certainly myself! These are disquieting times, people are full of uncertainty and apprehension, have been so for a long time now and the absence of good substantive information, is simply an incubator for counterproductive and mischievous speculation that undermines the structure of our society.
They knew from the outset this was going to be a long lockdown. Some real talk would good, none of this just 1 more week bullsh*t when they know it's going to be weeks/months.
Be bold- still awaiting this from Robertson & co.
Have a solid plan - one that should have been implemented months ago so we didn't get into this mess.
Uncertainty is a killer, especially if you're running a small business. Let's not mention the pending illnesses, deaths & poverty that come from this.
Some real talk would good, none of this just 1 more week bullsh*t when they know it's going to be weeks/months.
They literally do not know that right now.
I agree that at some earlier points, they could and should have been more indicative of where things were likely to go. But they're doing exactly that now, and you're still complaining.
Not aligned with that. But nonetheless, what they have done is paint themselves into something of a corner by introducing a degree of expectation, ie level 3 next week. If the circumstances in play in Auckland at present are not substantively different for the better, in seven days time, how can they then justify a reduction to level 3. In other words they will need to explain why they offered the hope of that relaxation in the first place because in my view, given the trends to date, the chances of that improvement occurring in a seven day timeframe are wildly optimistic. Still, more than content to be proven wrong. Watch this space I guess.
Aussie dished out spending money for the citizens to boost the economy during Covid.
Actually I would not mind $1000 each to every Auckland resident for tolerating this 5 weeks lockdown. We citizens also need some pay out, right ? Come on, Grant, do the right thing.
Right. Message to Aucklanders and those outside. Get vaccinated and we shall see about loosening the restrictions. I remember reading what John Key said a few days back about vaccination lagging the plan. He said we need a shock for people to get vaccinated quickly before Christmas. Here, we have got the shock, let us get vaccinated and then roam about freely.
Are beaches closed in level 2 here? I didn't think so. We took our kids to a outdoor playground on the weekend, it was packed due to the fine weather, would've been over 100 people there (kids and parents). Few masks to be seen. It wasn't getting shut down as it's allowed in the level 2 rules.
But if we contain the current outbreak then we could go back to level 1, tighten up the border controls while get the vaccination levels up.
Would like to see a good surveillance random testing program, something like every week asking for people whose IRD or NHI ends in xx to get tested, and randomly selecting 10 to get $1000 cash.
I keep wondering what will happen in the scenario where the numbers keep bouncing along at 10 or 20 a day due to some people not following the rules or just "unlucky transmissions" while out legitimately. How long before something gives?
Fingers crossed the numbers will drop this week though.
Level 4 ending “in principle” next Tuesday only means it will occur if everything goes as they hope. The problem is there are obviously undetected cases in the community. Whether these all turn up by next Tuesday or not is irrelevant - they exist and they will keep turning up. The government will either have to face up to the fact that that they can never control the actions of every Aucklander or continue with Level 4.
“the start of the main part of the lockdowns” let’s hope not, for that I believe would motivate sufficient of NZ’s population to say enough is enough and I say that because enough of those people can see, and whether justifiably or even wisely or not, and desire the same social activities as such as the UK, Denmark,Norway, France, Spain. Does it not strike anyone as ironic that there has been a role reversal from 12 months ago. NZ now does not have football crowds here, but over there they do. Virginia Wade can go from the UK sit and watch tennis in NY without a mask. In the face of that, regardless of their journey to date how long do you think New Zealanders are going to sit stoically in lockdown without a murmur.
Yes, you're right Brock. Having a music festival while a pandemic is still raging is an excellent idea.
"In principle" means absolutely nothing to this government. Just like small businesses, inflated housing prices, and destroying the fabric of what makes NZ great.
They will find a way to spin it again if we are still hovering around 20-30 cases. "Level 4 another week". Just you watch.
To justify the announcement they're about to make. People STILL don't understand WHY things are being done. If they just made the announcement and stopped, many people would turn off, either physically or at least mentally, and not hear the justification.
The justification is extremely important for a leader, and getting broad public buy-in.
If you don't want to listen to it, then just go to one of the main news sites at 1:10pm and they'll have the decision along the top of the screen as breaking news.
Yip, and the right thing to do, re: comittment. Patience with lockdown does seem to be dwindling, and it's what all the experts said about a wave of continuing lockdowns, that they become less effective the longer they're in place. Humans are sometimes very predictable.
You belong to the school of "quoting absolute numbers in highly populated nations rather than using properly derived excess morbidity rates by age cohort", right? The lack of statistical rigour around this is appalling. Even using crude numbers from this particular Covid outbreak, 1 death of someone in their 90's with co-morbidities and close to a thousand cases so far. We don't know the age of those few in ICU but they were unvaccinated I understand. The numbers offshore tell us that death rates were no where near 1918-19 (~0.5% vs 3-4%) and heavily skewed towards the elderly and obese etc. Now, with the most vulnerable having more than enough opportunity to be vaccinated, the excess morbidity numbers will plummet again. It's all about relative death rates, as we all die.
The debate is whether we should continue elimination or not. A comparable country to NZ may have had about 10,000 deaths by now if we'd not gone with elimination, but had taken the strategies other countries had. And that's just COVID deaths - many others would have died due to lack of medical attention from hospitals being flooded with COVID patients.
Suggesting we continue our elimination approach so we avoid the thousands of deaths suffered by other countries is a sensible argument that can be debated.
Saying "look, no one in NZ is dying, therefore we don't need lockdowns!" is totally illogical and backwards thinking. It's not a sensible argument worthy of debate, or really any consideration at all.
We've had a 1000 cases and 1 death, so far in this outbreak. I am not talking about what could have happened in 2020 when the virus was new and we had no vaccines (but even then, the death statistics on a per population basis in places such as India or Sweden, do not support a devastating pandemic and lockdown like responses). So if everyone got it and assuming the same level of vaccination and other age/co-morbitity factors of those 1000 cases, it would translate to 5000 deaths (i.e. 0.1% mortality). That might seem high in an absolute sense but these are more than likely to be very old and already sick people. So how many of these people would die in the near future anyway, noting that we have about 35,000 deaths from all causes a year? It's all very disconcerting at a personal level if one of your loved one dies but die we all must, its all about timing. And of course we making huge compromises as a society to avoid covid deaths (yet not any other deaths it seems). It's all very well claiming the high ground in "what is the value of a life?" but we make those decisions every day in terms of where dollars are spent in health, on road safety, mental health etc (some of which are going to increase as issues because of the response to Covid). There has to be a point where the politicians and health officials acknowledge that death can occur because of covid and that we are damaging the young in favour of protecting the old and frail from a particular virus.
If you recall when we went into lockdowns last year, Ardern was very much on the ultra conservative when it comes to loosening the restrictions. We had days, if not weeks, of zero, until we went from level 4 to 3.
Now this time round, with the outbreak not contained (as seen in the unlinked cases), and with the daily average of around 20 in recent days, she is toying with the idea of level 3.
Reading between the lines, the govt is out of ideas, and getting a good dose of reality.
Elimination is dead.
Doesn’t make any sense does it. If by some divine miracle the government succeeded in temporarily ridding the country of covid1984 then we’d have to become more isolationist than North Korea in order to maintain it. Success = failure. The governments talk of opening the country is mutually exclusive to their current actions. Meanwhile 1.5 billion dollars per week is being wasted to contain a virus which is less dangerous than the flu for most people, and that's partucularly true in the summer months.
We had days, if not weeks, of zero, until we went from level 4 to 3.
Yeah, because the government was making it up as they went along, and knew they didn't have as good test coverage as they would really like, so didn't really believe the 0 case results they were getting each day, but were counting on movement restrictions to dampen down any ongoing transmission.
In hindsight it seems we were really quite lucky.
Let's be real, compliance is going down & case numbers are going to go up. Anybody else know of, or heard of someone not following the rules, extending their bubble, trading etc? It's becoming more common and everyone seems to be able justify their actions.
In summary, we're wasting our time now. There needs to be a plan B. It's probably too late though, plan B - vaccination? The rollout was failed and far too slow. What else is the governments plan...
Just a hypothetical question to expand on the question of civil disobedience. If Mr Delta should get in amongst all those various patched fond of bikes and other members, including but not limited to deportees from Australia, who exactly is going to muster them up, corral them in quarantine and keep them happily under lock and key?
Tell you what after that lady in Hamilton last year was fame shamed and named by the government if this clown is allowed to hide behind the skirts of being a relative of a public servant then that just proves not only the unaccountability and arrogance of our civil service but also the utter corruption of their moral standards.
Then you haven't been looking, they are out there
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-delta-outbreak-how-many…
The PM is now living on hope. She knows the government hasn’t delivered on getting NZers vaccinated early. She knows NZ is second-last in the OECD. She knows that if NZ was 85% vaccinated and not 35% vaccinated the economic pain being suffered by NZers would be so much lower.
She knows NZ has a large anti-vax movement & NZ will be lucky to to be 85% vaccinated by Mar 22. She knows money hasn’t been spent on developing surge capacity for icu nurses or expanding MIQ capability.
She knows MIQ & Auckland hospitals are already at capacity & there are increasing delays for standard operations. She knows it is not a great look that Kiwis cannot book MIQ & get back to NZ for Xmas.
She knows that if Delta gets any bigger the health system will start to collapse.
She knows she is now living on hope. Her hope is that Delta will get eliminated & if it doesn’t she will have no option but to keep Auckland locked down until NZ is 85% vaccinated. March 2022?
She knows continued lockdowns until Mar 22 are not economically sustainable at $1 billion per week.
She knows that Delta has an incubation period of up to 14 days and you can pass on the virus without being symptomatic. She knows it will be pure luck if this virus can be stopped because not all people are compliant with staying at home. She knows that this virus will need at least 2 more 14 day cycles of lockdown & compliance with staying at home but doesn’t want to tell NZ that.
She knows she is living on hope & she knows there is a realistic chance that this virus will not be eliminated this time. If it doesn’t NZ will suffer more than other countries because our vaccination rates & icu nursing capacity are worse than most other countries in the OECD.
She knows that all her political capital will be gone if the virus is not eliminated in this current outbreak.
My thoughts exactly. Delta, if the death rate is an indicator, seems milder than the original strain (one death from 1000 cases in a largely unvaccinated population. Many people will not be sick enough to care, others will be terrified of quarantine. I would be surprised if we host 70% of qualifying people. Huge anti-vax sentiment in some ‘churches’. The Tamikis, who have huge influence in South Auckland, are strongly opposed to vaccinations.
The deaths in the first case were mostly concentrated in elderly rest homes, which have not been places of infection in this outbreak, because we're properly prepared and those places aren't allowing any visitors. All staff need to be double-vaxxed and most occupants will be as well.
Last time there were still rest homes that were allowing visitors right up until we went into level 4 lockdown.
It's not that delta is less deadly, it's that we're more prepared.
As an Auckland refugee I welcome this announcement about a future announcement that might preempt a future change.
The real guarantee I want is no more lockdowns and a cessation of managed border isolation. This is enough now, we have to move on from this strategy that is diverging from facing the global reality about Covid-19. I want a full reopening.
Once you give up on elimination you realize you can’t go back right? You better hope you or any of your family don’t get sick if restrictions are completely lifted because your outcome will be dire if the Heath system crashes under the weight of covid hospitalization
To sum up 2021 so far:
A vaccination rollout that was to slow, badly administered and inflexible to keep pace with demand as public attitudes to vaccination changed. This has resulted in peoples' health being put at greater risk for much longer than it might have been, caused greater case numbers, much more serious infections, hospitalisations and potential death.
The consequent lockdowns have cost billions of tax payer dollars. Wrecked businesses. Stopped numerous cancer and other essential operations. Etc,etc
When will this government apologise to the team of 5 million for failing on both the health and the economic front?
for auckland to get out of this they need pop up testing at locations of interest , ie supermarkets in south auckland, they also need essential workplace testing, i get temp checked every day but that is all
and they need to roll out fast testing at workplaces , they may not be perfect but if done daily they become more accurate
Rapid Antibody COVID-19 Tests Found to be Effective Tools (contagionlive.com)
As far as I know there's been no cases or places of interest in Pukekohe, Waiuku, Tuakau, Onewhero, Pokeno or Port Waikato (apart from one in Pukekohe right at the beginning). If the wastewater is clear move the border to Drury. One of the disadvantages of not having a local mayor to advocate for the community.
There's realisation around the world that elimination just isn't working. That's why so many countries are now relaxing lockdowns and working harder on vaccination. There's also realisation that vaccination doesn't mean 100% immunity, but that any vaccinated who do get infected at least do not suffer as much or as long as un-vaccinated. Chances of death are also much much lower if you were vaccinated...
And natural immunity is looking like it's the best bet - which means whether you're vaccinated or not, it'd benefit you more if you've been naturally infected with resulting longer lasting antibodies. Covid's not going anywhere, folks - might as well get used to it. Which means you'll (vaccinated or un-vaccinated) probably end up getting it sooner or later - be it in 10 hours' time or in 10 years... It'd just be less severe if you were vaccinated so it's not a bad idea to get vaccinated, unless you're so supremely confident you'll weather its effects whilst un-vaccinated.
And TBH, NZ is a pimple of the world's butt, so for priorities in information, advice, guidance and support, I don't think we rank very high on anybody's lists, e.g. WHO. So basically the NZ govt - under any party - would mostly be starting from scratch and learning as it goes. And since we're so small, we don't have a lot of the resources and knowledge we should to tackle something like this (even second time round), so people and infrastructure are sorely stretched to the limit.
So it really doesn't matter who's in charge, they will appear as if they don't know any better but then neither would any of us, if we're truly honest here...
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