The Prime Minister confirms deal with Spain for more Pfizer vaccine, nurses horrified by visitor numbers in Auckland hospital and a Māori leader calls for new approach to get rangatahi vaccinated.
Photo: RNZ / Stuff / Manurewa marae / AFP
By the numbers
- There are 13 new cases in community today, all in Auckland.
- There are 2 new cases in managed isolation today.
- 35 people are in Auckland hospitals with Covid-19, five people are in ICU, three are on ventilators.
- There are now 868 cases in the community outbreak, 264 cases have now recovered.
Spain supplies NZ with 250,000 extra vaccine doses
More than 250,000 extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine are now on the way to New Zealand from Spain, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed at today's 1pm briefing.
Ardern said the vaccines coming from Spain departed Madrid at 1am (NZT) and were due to arrive in New Zealand tomorrow morning. These are additional to scheduled doses.
This is the first of two deals and the second was an even larger order, she said.
Ardern said the assurance of the extra doses meant the country's vaccination programme could continue at speed until larger supplies arrived.
She said there were a number of factors why Spain was chosen to get surplus doses from, including the importance of where the doses were manufactured, so they could match New Zealand's batches.
There were pre-existing relationships that meant this conversation was able to happen, she said.
No reason to delay 'overall' plan for reconnecting - Ardern
The plan to reopen New Zealand to the world has not changed in light of the Delta variant, Ardern said, but there may be some delays.
The government early last month announced plans to have a risk-based border from early 2022, but University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker this morning warned that could be delayed for months by the outbreak of the Delta variant which sparked national lockdowns just five days later.
Baker said there were several reasons the reopening would be delayed, but the most obvious was limited resources. With so much effort being put into fighting the outbreak, there would be little left over for trialling new ways of doing things.
"The other big change of course, is I think all the countries we're going to be connecting more with now have the Delta variant."
But Ardern said this afternoon the government's plans had not changed.
"I think what we've always said is within this risk framework we've always got to be willing and able to adapt to the variants of concern.
"I think there's been an assumption that somehow our reopening plans have dramatically changed, I'd say that is not the case. We just have to build in, as I say, the impact of Delta in the way that we risk profile but we've always kept room for that."
She said there was nothing that would delay the overall timetable, but she was less clear about trials for home isolation due to start in October.
Nurses' organisation horrified at amount of visitors at Auckland hospitals
Hundreds of visitors are being allowed to visit Auckland DHB hospitals every day, despite the region being at the highest Covid-19 alert level due to the Delta outbreak.
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) said it was absurd that the DHB had the softest visitor policy of any DHB in the country, despite the heightened risk in Auckland.
NZNO had been raising concerns about the inconsistent visitor policies as well as poor visitor behaviour, including people refusing to wear masks and turning up in groups.
WorkSafe is now involved and Auckland District Health Board (ADHB) said it will be involving health and safety representatives in further decision making.
NZNO acting nursing and professional services manager Kate Weston told Nine to Noon even other DHBs in the Auckland region had stricter visitor policies.
ADHB's policy was "completely illogical given the size of the hospital" and the number of people coming through, she said.
"It's actually causing people to break their level 4 alert bubbles, so there's just so many reasons that this is not a good decision and it's putting patients and staff at risk by having such a free policy.
"Then when those people have gone another group come through. So it is a very considerable risk."
The NZNO and other unions had asked for national consistency around visitor rules.
Middlemore Hospital close contacts test negative
Test results from 149 patients and staff at Middlemore Hospital have come back negative for Covid-19 after a man admitted at the weekend was found to have the virus.
The day 3 test results included those of the three patients most at risk of contracting Covid-19.
The fellow patients spent hours in the small ward with the man, who was initially admitted to a part of the hospital for people with a low risk of Covid-19 but later found to have the coronavirus
"There's no suspicion of any cases as a consequence of what happened on Sunday," Counties Manukau Health chief medical officer Dr Pete Watson told Morning Report.
More than 80 patients and 29 staff were potentially exposed.
The tests were of patients in the hospital and staff who were at work, while people who had been discharged and required to be in isolation were being followed up by Auckland Regional Public Health, he said.
They will have day 5 tests tomorrow, day 12 tests, and daily symptom checks.
'We need to do something different' - Māori leader
A Māori leader has stated a different approach is urgently needed to attract young Māori along for their Covid-19 vaccines.
Data released by the Ministry of Health showed Māori are still behind in the vaccine rollout, with the disparity largest among 20 to 34 year olds.
At Manurewa Marae, whānau have been coming in for injections for weeks now, and the number was steadily increasing since lockdown.
But chief executive Natasha Kemp said they were coming across a hurdle: Getting rangatahi along.
"We can see it, they're not coming, they're not taking the uptake of being vaccinated so we've gotta do some more work around that," she said.
"I think it's about finding those key rangatahi leaders as well in our communities, and bringing them together and saying, 'we need to do something different'."
According to data released by the Ministry of Health on Wednesday, 34 percent of people in the European or other category are now fully vaccinated.
But for Māori, that was only 21 percent.
Minister for Māori Development Willie Jackson said the vaccine rollout for Māori had not been good enough.
"I'm already on record, along with [associate health minister Peeni] Henare as saying that we could have done better at the start," he said. "But I'm pleased with the effort that we have had, particularly in the last few weeks."
But rangatahi were always going to be a difficult cohort to get to, and campaigns were rolling out, with the government working with a range of Māori providers, he said.