There are 19 new cases of Covid-19 in the community - including a student in Northern Hauraki who had been isolating for the past 10 days.
Three of the 19 cases are unlinked. Of yesterday’s 45 cases, four remain unlinked.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there was a "high likelihood" travel in and out of Auckland will continue to be restricted, even if Auckland moves to Level 2 next week. She said "full consideration" was being given to moving Auckland down alert levels, but removing the Auckland boundary was not something being considered.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said because cases have been in large households, he expected another 30 or so cases to show up within the next few days.
He said 19 of the recent cases are linked to transitional and emergency housing residents.
Officials will be visiting 40 transitional and emergency housing sites in Auckland to test residents.
Ardern said it is possible to reach a vaccination rate of 90% of over-12s. For example, 92% of over-65s have had their first vaccine.
The Upper Hauraki student tested positive on day 12 testing. They attend Mangatangi school, which was involved in an outbreak a couple of weeks ago. 95 students and teachers from the school have returned negative day 12 tests.
One of today's new cases is a person who works at a managed isolation hotel in Auckland. The virus was picked up during routine testing. The worker is fully vaccinated.
There are now seven suburbs of interest in Auckland. Otara has been removed from the list; Henderson and Papakura have been added. People in suburbs of interest need to get tested, even if they have mild symptoms.
A free taxi service is also being provided for people who need transport to get to a vaccination station to get their first vaccine.
Here is the latest from the Ministry of Health:
| Cases | |
| Number of new community cases | 19 |
| Number of new cases identified at the border | Three new cases and three historical cases. |
| Location of new community cases * | Auckland (18); Waikato (1) |
| Location of community cases (total) | Auckland (including 4 cases in Upper Hauraki; all of whom are in the same household) 1,231 (975 of whom have recovered); Waikato 1; Wellington 17 (all of whom have recovered) |
| Number of community cases (total) | 1,249 (in the current community outbreak) |
| Cases infectious in the community | 20 (44%) of yesterday’s cases have exposure events |
| Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infectious | 25 (56%) of yesterday’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked | 14 of today’s 19 cases are linked. |
| Cases to be epidemiologically linked | Five of today’s 19 cases. Investigations are continuing to determine a link. |
| Cases epidemiologically linked (total) | 1,212 (in the current cluster) (37 unlinked from the past fortnight). |
| Number of sub-clusters | 15 epidemiologically linked subclusters. Of these, one is active, ten are contained and four are dormant. There are 12 epidemiologically unlinked subclusters. Of these, none are active, five are contained and seven are dormant. |
| Cases in hospital | 18 (total): North Shore (2) Middlemore (8); Auckland (8) |
| Cases in ICU or HDU | Four |
| Confirmed cases (total) | 3,917 since pandemic began. |
| Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total) * | 162 out of 2,099 since 1 Jan 2021 |
| Contacts | |
| Number of open contacts being managed (total): | 911 |
| Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements) | 88% |
| Percentage with at least one test result | 79% |
| Locations of interest | |
| Locations of interest (total) | 93 (as at 10am 30 September) |
| Tests | |
| Number of tests (total) | 3,378,464 |
| Number of tests processed (total last 24 hours) | 16,537 |
| Tests processed in Auckland (last 24 hours) | 8,537 |
| Tests rolling average (last 7 days) | 13,058 |
| Testing centres in Auckland | 21 |
| Wastewater | |
| Wastewater detections * | There are no new unexpected wastewater detections. Latest results of samples taken from Mount Maunganui and Tauranga have come back undetected. |
| COVID-19 vaccine update | |
| Vaccines administered to date (total) | 5,174,210; 1st doses: 3,281,176; 2nd doses: 1,893,034 |
| Vaccines administered yesterday (total) | 40,874 1st doses: 13,914; 2nd doses: 26,960 |
| Māori | 1st doses: 316,515; 2nd doses: 166,337 |
| Pacific Peoples | 1st doses: 204,267; 2nd doses: 116,274 |
| Vaccines administered to Auckland residents to date (total) | 1,881,361; 1st doses: 1,189,781 (83%); 2nd doses: 691,580 (48%) |
| Vaccines administered to Auckland residents yesterday (total) | 13,085; 1st doses: 3,924; 2nd doses: 9,161 |
| NZ COVID-19 tracer | |
| Registered users (total) | 3,262,168 |
| Poster scans (total) | 395,306,266 |
| Manual diary entries (total) | 17,278,198 |
| Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday | 2,429,079 |
97 Comments
It is acknowledged that there is transmission amongst the “gang” communities. That must then extend automatically to both the underworld and underclass at the very least. Nothing in those environments lends itself to either restricting transmission or widespread testing. The conclusion therefore is obvious, that zero is unachievable here, and Delta uncontainable to boot. This makes the government’s present strategy, of seeking “zero” as per Mr Hipkins this morning, redundant and they need to stop talking it up, because the more they do so, in the face of the actual reality, the more deceptive they become. The government cannot keep on adding week on to week of a policy that is achieving nothing, but causing simultaneously dire social and economic pressure. Simply painting themselves into a corner, waiting for the paint to dry, only it’s not.
they knew this two weeks ago and started changing their messaging then -- we were very very close to elimination at that point and now its just a pipe dream -- we will move to delta 2 now regardless of the wisdom -- purely and simply because they have lost control and are not prepared to go into the gang pads and lock people down -- so we all pay the price -- shame after the Pacifika community did such a great job and so many hard yards to give us a chance ! So its now about slowing down the pace of opening to the pace of vaccination in the hope that we will suck up a couple more months or restrictions and can be sold limited cases and deaths -- and then claim credit for a smooth transition --
There might be a tiny bit of reluctance to generate lists such as:
- Tinny house at 345 Slumlord Row
- Meth cook shop at Unit 27, Storage Container Farm
- Stolen assets warehouse at Hoistem Business Park
That's assuming all a them little black books get handed over......
Well, there it is: From the Stuff liveblog:
"Ardern says she wants to signal the high likelihood of the Auckland boundary remaining. Full consideration is being given to easing. Removing that regional boundary is not in consideration"
In other words, we will dick around with the alert settings to create a politically acceptable outcome. At what point will Auckland's vaxx rates exceed the rest of the country?
Follow-up question: Is the move to L2 with a hard boundary (functionally a L3) just a sop so the rest of the country can go to L1, as previously indications were this would not be possible with Auckland at L3? If so, is this alert level decision being made for the benefit of the rest of the country?
L2 with a with a hard boundary is much better than L3. You can still meet with friends outside your bubble for a barbecue as long as they also live in Auckland. You can go out for dinner. Events can take place up to 50/100 people, e.g. weddings, 21st parties. Gyms, churches, movies, etc. are all open with restrictions.
Reconciling all that extra activity and household mixing with the apparent need for a hard border doesn't really make sense though. Either the justification is there to continue at L3 or it isn't. Mixing and matching to create a politically acceptable move down alert levels will torch any buy-in Aucklanders who have been jabbed and followed L3 rules have left in them, especially if it is used as a backdoor way to get out of a promise they made to keep the rest of NZ at L2.
The infections are only in Auckland. If there was only cases in a suburb I really think they would L4/3 much more locally but cases are all over the Auckland Region. I disagree with the mix and match comment because vaccination rates are at 80% or there abouts which gives them wriggle room but the cases need to be geo-contained still. The communication / spin here is top notch. Case numbers yesterday and today have given the boundary news a relatively soft landing. Come Monday, the "hard work" and "vaccination success" will allow a maternalistic pat on the head and a lolly each (drop to L2 in Auckland and L1 elsewhere). The boundary will be old news. Happy holidays!
I suspect they know it's going to get away from them in Auckland and will move to a "flatten the curve" strategy at L2.
They'll want to get Auckland's curve flattened before it gets away in the rest of the country.
If they can keep the surges limited to one region at a time they will be able to use ICU capacity from the rest of the country.
Not actually a bad strategy. If Auckland takes the hit this side of Christmas & the rest of NZ in 2022, we will be in much better position to provide adaquate healthcare for those who require it. They may also want to close off the South Island if Covid spills into the rest of the North Island. So they can deal with the North prior to the South.
So Jacinda says that even in a move to level 2, border controls around Auckland will stay in place? OK, now she's lost the plot, they're just making this up as they go along. I feel a Dunkirk moment coming on. The top performer in Covid resilience currently, Ireland, has put the onus on the unvaccinated to be locked down, and freed the responsible - In NZ they have done the opposite.
This is the strange irony. Ireland was severely stricken, and a mortality rate one of the worst. NZ was well protected by the government and did not suffer those dire circumstances indeed. But why did that fact mean that NZ could not redeploy and recover as Ireland and other nations have subsequently done? If anything NZ, from this superior initial position, was better equipped to achieve this sooner and faster than anybody else. What stopped it!?
Ireland has indeed improved case incidence and mortality rates. It could be a bit premature to claim it's superior to NZ however. With a similar population Ireland is averaging 1200 new cases a day at the moment, and in the latest week 40 covid deaths (they report weekly on deaths). While things could change dramatically, Ireland is having (daily) the equivalent of NZ's entire current Delta Variant outbreak..... and deaths in the past week exceeding NZs total for the past eighteen months.
Just referring to Bloomberg’s present rating of best Covid resilience/ recovery which has Ireland tops and NZ about 37th. Probably fairly close to a complete rating reversal respectively, Minister in the Irish government summed it up something like - there’s more to life than death.
I would say 40 deaths a week is about the limit of what is "acceptable". 2000 a year, or about 7x the road toll. Many of those Covid deaths are really just old age (Covid on the certificate instead of heart attack) while a lot of the road toll are young people with their whole lives ahead of them.
And we should do it soon.
The vax seems only maximally efficient for 12 months. We should get vaccinated and open up whilst we have higher levels of immunity. The longer we hold off opening now the greater we risk we subject vulnerable older populations, who were the earliest vaccination recipients.
Yes good point.
I think what they will find, that irrespective of the level of vaccination or not after a certain %, that once Covid goes through a country, there will be a certain minimum number of people get really sick or die, with many of the remaining unvaccinated have caught Covid and survived and have natural immunity.
That is, we will look more like Ireland in stats, although Ireland did get infections and more deaths early on before the vaccination rate could ramp up.
If we had been on our game, given the advantage of our isolation, lower density, etc. then we should have been at our highest vaccination rate by now, and then open up and take what may.
We should have has our highest vaccination rates achieved before we went into this winter, greater increased our ICU beds, and educated people on reducing comorbidity factors.
But what we have still is lower total vaccination, very low natural immunity, and a new variant, plus we are in the virus-catching season (late winter/early spring). And very low ICU capability.
That’s how I see it too. NZ could easily be where Ireland, Norway etc are now, but without the same sad history of mortality. It’s like the government thought they had won the match at halftime because they were then ahead on points, and gave the second half no thought at all.NZ had all the ability for a running start on that, but never got out of the blocks until far too late.
"NZ could easily be where Ireland, Norway are now" and today's report from Ireland says "Today, 1,453 Covid cases were confirmed across Ireland with 300 people in hospital with the virus of which 60 were in ICU. There has been a total of 5,249 deaths related to Covid-19 notified in Ireland which includes 40 deaths newly notified in the past week (since last Wednesday)." from an Irish newspaper, 29 September. Norway is averaging about 600 cases daily.
And why ignore Norway whilst at it. 10 deaths, 23 serious cases. They can live with that. So could I even given my senior years and underlying respiratory problems.Have had my two jabs, now it’s up to me and my body. That’s all I can expect. That’s life not death.That’s what China has dished out. That’s the reality.
Down here in Christchurch we'll be fine. We ask the government to keep helping Auckland.
Again, we'll be fine down here - we'll even happily go to level 1. Just keep focusing the/your government 'help' on Auckland.
Fell feel to even forget the South Island exists, please accept this generous offer.
lol shoddy repairs, many "anchor projects" still not started, 400km of leaking pipes, a broken down cathedral littering the Square.. hardly anything to write home about.. escalating house prices, chlorine in our once pristine tap water..
..heck we booted the likes of Wagner and Brownlee out. Lianne Dalziel is the next to go, she's not even bothering to stand next year because she knows she wont win.
I guess the Earthquakes caused certain development red tape to be lifted, yet by all accounts the CCC consenting processes are still expensive and tedious. Heritage NZ continues to hang in here like ticks on a cat.
I want the best for my fellow Kiwis. Labour are a bunch of grifters - ain't nobody need help from a bunch of grifters.
83% of eligible Aucklanders have had their first shot. This is good.
By mid October the vast majority of genuinely willing will be getting their second vaccination. I predict hard boundaries will be much more difficult to defend politically after this point in time. And the rest of NZ will subsequently get affected, but the overall vaccination rate is lagging behind Auckland's (75% first dose).
The rest of NZ continues to have some unresolved apathy due to lack of lockdowns and cases.
This is where pre warning about possible outcomes of probable scenarios could be helpful. Like we may open the borders mid October, so get your A into G rest of NZ if you want to get vaccinated, you may be missing your chance very soon.
Yup and Northland is currently sitting at only 66% of the eligible population with a first dose.
It will spread through our very health vulnerable and disadvantaged population like wildfire if 1 in 3 people walking down the road are unvaccinated.
Not to mention our woefully underequipped health services / ED.
Concerning to say the least.
I wish I knew the answer. In Whangarei they are offering a drive through clinic which is very accessible, but I think as soon as you get out of the main areas the population is too low and disparate to support such easy solutions.
Northland is characterised by severe poverty in very remote locations. There is definitely an antivax & anti-government sentiment in some of the more obscure locations (which is generally why they moved there, to get away from the reach of authority). Which do tend to be where the "disadvantaged rural maori" to broadly stereotype, reside. But these are just my musings. I worry about Northland, education is also low in these communities, so all it takes is one dick reading some bull* online to convince a range of people that the vaccination has a microchip in it and it's very difficult for anyone who represents the establishment to convince them otherwise.
29.8.21
Coronavirus digest: Singapore is now the most-vaccinated country | News | DW | 29.08.2021
Hooray!
24.9.21
Singapore tightens COVID-19 curbs after seeing record infections | Reuters
It be those unvaccinated idiots obviously
quick ... more boosters
Once it gets out it will be indefinite somewhere between level 2 to 3. Singapore has a "limit social gatherings to two people and make working from home a default".
Vaccinating and opening up is not as successful as National and ACT make it out to be (but some can travel if you can afford the extra $1200 (200 * 3 each way) in covid tests per person).
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/staff-in-nursing-home-soldiering…
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/parenting-education/like-a-merry…
Just a little reminder that there IS info out there regardless what some would like you all to believe. Thanks to some tireless people who are in the positions to collate and provide points to get decent information, here is one excerpt below from https://www.covidplanb.co.nz
I can only recommend to actually read through the Pfizer study, read the number of comments there and then try to comprehend why politicians here still try to push vaccination at all costs…?
The best evidence of overall effect on death comes from the latest update of the Pfizer trial which shows slightly more overall deaths (15/21,926) occurred in the vaccinated group than in controls (14/21,921). This is important, since the outcome doesn’t just count successes (reduced covid ‘cases’), but also includes the possibility of vaccine harm, evaluating the effect of the vaccine on overall survival. This means the best evidence thus far indicates a 7% increase in risk of death, comparing the vaccinated to the unvaccinated. Yes, the numbers are small, and these results are compatible with a wide range of vaccine effects, but it seems strange that this important information is relegated to the study appendices and is absent from the summary. Most of us are more interested in our overall longevity, rather than being solely focused on avoiding covid-19. The Prime Minister’s claim (52’:27”) that the vaccine is “saving lives” is sounding hollow, from the best possible epidemiological evidence: Pfizer’s own trial.
And a couple of questions raised in the comments section of link above to the Pfizer report…
If this sort of stuff is being questioned still in those reports, and data obvioysly still very short of being clearly showing any real benefit overall, how can anyone sane not question the entire rationale of vaccines being pushed?
I also got the impression that the 6-month adverse events are missing in table S3, even though it says "Six Month Safety ..." in the title. This is highly irritating. Additionally, it is questionable to put the efficiacy tables in the main text, but the adverse events only in the supplement that does not even seem to be linked in the main text. Additionally I like to point out that the wording in table S3 is really confusing and not explained. What is "Any event"? What is the difference between "Severe" within "Any event" and "Severe" within "Any serious adverse event"? This, again, is really irritating, unless I'm missing something. Authors of this paper, please provide 6-months adverse event data, and please comment on the other points raised!
As far as I understood: "Reactogenicity events among participants not in the reactogenicity subset are reported as "Adverse events""
The reactogenicity subset is the "up to 1 month after 2-dose" group. So I've looked at this this way: "Any event" part of the table are all events while "Any serious adverse event" part is those after 1 month from 2-dose.
I can be wrong, I agree this is stated very unclearly. I'm not sure also whether 30 severe covidians are somehow found in the severe events or not (if yes, that makes the vaccinate results even worse, and I think there is a big chance that "Any event" actually contains those 30 severe covid cases).
September 10, 2021:
Aboriginal elders and teenagers are leading the push to get more people in Queensland’s Indigenous communities vaccinated.
Cherbourg elder Uncle Bevan Costello this week received his second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.
“I feel more confident now that I’m fully vaccinated that if I come into contact with COVID I should be OK because I’m a diabetic,” Uncle Bevan said.
Queensland's Indigenous communities push back against vaccine hesitancy | ABC News - YouTube
September 16, 2021: Shockwaves felt through South Burnett following sudden death of ‘much loved’ Cherbourg elder Uncle Bevan Costello
Cherbourg elder Uncle Bevan Costello is being remembered as proud Wakka Wakka man and a passionate advocate for his community, following his sudden death,
Uncle Bevan is believed to have suffered a heart attack on Wednesday morning, sending shockwaves through the community and beyond.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-16/vale-uncle-bevan-costello/100466064
Move on, nothing to see here.
What is also most surprising is that not more people read this kind of info linked below and go hmmm… perhaps there is an alternative and valid view out there we could follow? But that of course would assume some common sense left somewhere in this world! Read this and weep at the global spread of madness, not just here in good old NZ.
https://www.covidplanb.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021-09-17-Open…
Common sense is not that common. What makes me laugh the most is how people think that people dying with Covid actually died of Covid...Once our 39 year old PM accepts.that only about 30,000 people have actually died in the USA of Covid, and that the VAERS data indicates 240,000 dead from the innoculant (6,000 x 41 as per Jessica Rose) the madness may recede...
Oh, pssst, don’t tell solve_it, apparently, she mentioned in another thread somewhere that she is expecting. Also very worried about her health and being exposed to Covid by irresponsible ‘unvaccinated’ people! The ability of some people to ignore the risks of the injections is quite astounding. And at least readers of this website here can’t say later, “we were not warned”!
Not necessarily. It's for no small reason it normally takes 5 to 10 years for a new medicine to pass all checks and double-checks to go mainstream.
It's one thing giving it to the elderly who are more vulnerable if they don't get it, and won't be around long enough to show any long-term side effects.
But to give it to children and especially pregnant women, without it going through say a 7-year test to see if any of the test subjects' pregnant offspring had any side effects, is a bit of a crapshoot for anyone getting it now.
I'm glad none of my immediate family are in that category.
For starters, tests generally have up to 20,000 test subjects and they are statistically cross-matched.
But you seemed to have missed the point. You can't do the like of an aged acceleration test as they do on machines and materials, ie you need to do the time, to record the time to get feedback.
The only thing you are correct on is the 'hard to know really.' As I said, it's a crapshoot on long-term side effects.
Pregnant women have compromised immune systems. So pick your poison. My in-laws are all antivaxxers so they weren't going to do jack to reduce my exposure risk. So someone has to be the responsible person in the room, coincidentally the person with the most to lose with the accompanying innocent.
The reality is we live in a world full of toxins and exposure events. Life is imperfect, my current 2 year old is in rude health and tough as cookies, if the next one can't handle a tiny amount of vaccination fluid then she's got worse things coming to her after she's born anyway. We live in a house covered with lead paint etc.
The awesome thing is all my antivaxxers are all semi current recreational drug users. So they're happy to pump completely unknown toxic substances into themselves on the semi regular but won't take a tiny injection of tested medical grade vaccination. They also count an immunocompromised and a 65+ in their numbers. The logic and any attempt at a balanced risk assessment is just non existent.
One of the reasons pregnant women have a natural suppressed immune system is because the fetus is seen as a foreign body and the body's natural defense system will try to reject it. You have to be careful giving anything that might boost that part of the immune system and attack the fetus.
Your argument becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you could have said exactly the same thing about your unborn 'if they can't handle a tiny amount of vaccination fluid then she's got worse things coming to her after she's born anyway' if this was thalidomide.
And this was shown within a very short time to be the wrong approach.
But all the best.
Your comment doesn't make sense.
If you're worried about the long term effects from injecting 0.3mL of a solution that contains a small amount of active ingredient, I would suggest you've got bigger things to worry about on a daily basis.
Millions of babies have been born to covid vaccinated mothers and they're all fine. Go peddle your fear mongering bull* elsewhere.
One of the main reasons medications are put through a years long process is they're usually something had regularly, often once a day or more, so they're actually in your system for a long time.
A vaccine is done twice, and is gone from the body in a matter of days, leaving only the body's immune response. Meaning the chance of long term effects is next to nothing.
Are you concerned about the long term effects of Covid itself? Where's the longitudinal studies on that? And how about the known short term effects?
The vaccine is clearly by far the least bad option.
They tried for 7 years to get a SARS vaccine through trials without success.
And it does not even raise a yellow flag with most people that they managed to bring the Covid vaccine to market so quickly, or that what they promised it would do even in the mid-term has turned out to not be true.
And yes the vaccine is clearly the least bad option because they have not suggested any other options, even to reduce comorbidities to lessen the effect of catching Covid.
But we are where we are. We have choices, more limited than they should be, It's all about risk profiles, and none of them are risk-free.
How did we end up like this?
We for over a year lived normally without really any restrictions, while the rest of the word burned. But now the rest of the world is back slowly living restriction free.
We are living in a city prison confined to our homes with an uncertain future. However im guessing the rest of the world will re enter lockdown by Xmas. Even totally vaxxed.
Remember 66% of NZ are in level 2 and probably have similar restrictions to the rest of the world without the deaths. I'd say there is still a 50% or so chance Auckland could also eliminate. If not, Auckland is probably only a few weeks away from the vaccination rate of those countries that are opening up.
Jacinda and Labour delayed vaccine roll out thereby sacrificing NZ's economy and sanity for her woke credentials.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/jacinda-ardern-defends-slow…
To double jab 90% of New Zealanders would hardly have dented the vaccine supply globally, especially if NZ had as well, opted for one or two of the other vaccines available. When you read Kate MacNamara’s column in the Herald last 10 Sep, it clarifies the bungling and ineptitude at play and explains the mealy mouthed obfuscation of the PM that we have on display in the above tvnz item. And then bear in mind, right at that time, the government was fully aware that a new strain (since called Delta) was getting towards 150,000 new cases daily, only 10 hours flight away in India, and despite that the fact of border was about to be exposed to the suspect security level of that of Australia. That meant that the smug little world of “no cases” self satisfaction could be blown out of MIQ , at the border, in a moment and that is exactly what happened and found New Zealanders to be woefully short of the protection vaccination should have provided.
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