Auckland case numbers spike, National Party calls for end to lockdowns and Police and Navy investigate staff for crossing Auckland boundary without exemption.
Photo: RNZ / NZME / Pool
Auckland case numbers jump
At today's 1pm briefing, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield confirmed there were 45 new community cases of Covid-19- all in Auckland.
Of these cases, 33 were known to be household or contacts of existing cases. All have been isolating at home or in quarantine during their infectious period, Bloomfield said.
He said many of today's cases were linked, and in some sense "they were expected".
Hipkins said the 45 new cases was a "sobering number". But because they were known cases, alert level decisions were made on many other factors.
"I would encourage people not to read too much into it. We're still aiming to run this into the ground."
Bloomfield said quite a proportion of the cases were among groups of people who are in transitional or emergency housing.
"Teams are working very hard with a range of agencies to support those people."
Bloomfield said everyone in Auckland must stay within their bubbles and wear face masks.
He said the Ministry of Health was asking workers in construction, hospitality and retail, who were working in level 3, to get two tests at least five days apart over the next couple of weeks, whether they had symptoms or not.
"I would like to emphasise, this testing is voluntary," he said.
Hipkins said at midnight the requirement would come into force for all border workers and roles where they might come into contact with Covid-19 to be vaccinated.
As at this morning, 98 percent of active border workers have been vaccinated with at least one dose and 93 percent are fully vaccinated, he said.
"I do want to remind anyone who works at the border but has yet to be vaccinated that they now have 24 hours until midnight tomorrow night to get their first vaccination if they wish to continue to work at the border," Hipkins said.
Police and Navy staff investigated for breaching travel restrictions
A high-ranking police officer - an inspector - is being investigated for crossing the Auckland boundary without an exemption to attend a burial.
Auckland is currently at alert level 3 and restrictions relating to essential travel only remain in place.
In a statement via the media centre, a police spokesperson said the reported incident was very concerning.
RNZ has asked for further details.
The media centre has not answered questions about rank or age, which district was responsible for investigating, whether or not charges may be laid, or whether or not the inspector was allowed to travel beyond the border.
The police watchdog, the Independent Police Conduct Authority, has been notified.
In a separate incident, a junior navy sailor is also being investigated, after allegedly breaching Auckland's boundary to attend a close family member's funeral.
The defence force said the junior sailor, who is fully vaccinated, travelled out of the region last weekend without applying for a travel exemption from the Ministry of Health.
The sailor has been instructed to isolate at their rural Hawke's Bay property and get a Covid-19 test.
The Navy is investigating the incident and the surrounding circumstances.
Possibility of Covid-19 in Tauranga
People in Tauranga are being urged to get tested if they have symptoms of Covid-19 after the virus was detected in a wastewater sample collected last Thursday.
Yesterday, Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the result could point to a recovered case still shedding the virus, or an undetected acute case.
Further wastewater samples have been taken and results are expected tomorrow.
Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall told Morning Report a cautious approach was being taken and anyone in Bay of Plenty with symptoms should get a test.
"We're just eager that people in Tauranga who do have symptoms do get tested just in case that turns out to be a true positive result in the wastewater," she said.
"There's a possibility" Delta could be in the area, she said, but there has been false positives in wastewater in the past.
Several thousand people contribute to wastewater to a single sample so it's not wise to try to read the tea leaves on what level of PCR positivity there was, she said.
Asked if the truck driver who recently tested positive after travelling from Auckland border to Tauranga was an area of concern, Dr Verrall said there was a wide sweep of locations of interest following the case.
The locations of interest in the area were BP Tauriko in Tauranga on 11 September and Uppercrust Bakery in Mt Maunganui on 11 and 24 September.
Overseas vaccinations proving an issue for Ministry of Health
The Ministry of Health said it doesn't recognise vaccines a person has received overseas and confirmed they can not currently be added to a person's vaccination record, or verified for their authenticity.
RNZ understands there could be more than 1000 people in contact with the ministry to have their overseas inoculations recognised here.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said a system for verifying overseas vaccinations was being worked on urgently, ahead of a planned rollout of vaccine certificates next month.
Bloomfield said it was a multi-faceted issue.
He said the ministry was currently coming up with advice around which vaccines - AstraZeneca, Janssen or Moderna for example - it would recognise for future travel into the country.
But it is also working on how to verify and register people's overseas vaccinations.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said there would not be any adverse implications for people if the ministry was not ready with a verification system by the time certificates were introduced.
"I'm sure we can find a workaround," Ardern said.
"We have no intention of invalidating someone's legitimate vaccine if they've received it abroad so it's just a matter of making sure we've got a fix for it."
Bloomfield admits that verification of vaccines will be easier in some countries than others, but there will be no discrimination against people who got a vaccine in less developed nations.
National party unveil border re-opening plan
The National Party has called for New Zealand to first end lockdowns then reopen to the world based on two vaccination targets.
The party's plan, which it said has been thoroughly vetted by experts - who would not be named publicly - includes three "pillars".
The first pillar includes 10 actions for boosting New Zealand's response, the second is a 70-75 percent vaccination target for ending lockdowns and the third is an 85-90 percent target for reopening to the world.
The strategy aims for "vigorous suppression" of Covid-19, while accepting that elimination of the Delta variant and other strains like it may not be possible.
Announcing the plan this morning, National leader Judith Collins said the government's Covid-19 strategy had been largely successful, but it had taken its eye off the ball this year.
"The government has no real plan beyond a belated admission that vaccination is important. The prime minister says there is no vaccine target while ministers throw around numbers willy-nilly ... the prime minister also says her 'reconnection' ideas are still government policy while her Covid-19 minister says they are being reconsidered."
"Delta is here, it may not be possible to eliminate it, and it would almost inevitably arrive into the community again. Whatever happens, we need to reopen to the world and National's plan outlines how we can do that."
She said the government was being invited to just go ahead and use National's entire policy.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said he has not read National's plan for the pandemic in full yet.
"It's clear that the National Party want to throw open the borders, have hundreds of thousands of people coming in. Therefore, one can conclude that the biggest promise they're making at the moment is that they're willing for Kiwis to get Covid for Christmas.
"The reality here is that they haven't provided any modelling for the number of Covid-19 cases that they would be willing to tolerate or what they would do in certain scenarios because it would almost certainly result in significant numbers of cases in the community. They've given no indication of what they would do around managing that."
Self-isolation pilot
The government is looking for 150 participants for its self-isolation pilot across Auckland and Christchurch and expressions of interest open tomorrow morning.
Hipkins said both locations had international airports but also established MIQ systems and support networks that had been set up for regular international arrivals.
People would be monitored through smartphone technology and regular random phone calls to verify compliance would be made, Hipkins said.
They would also be charged $1000 to cover basic costs like transport and the other associated costs with the pilot, he said.
New MIQ facility
Cabinet has now formally signed off the funding for a new facility - the Elms hotel in Christchurch. Work was underway to get that stood up as quickly as possible, Hipkins said.
The Elms will add another 85 rooms to the MIQ network.