UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, 9:32AM
There are four more cases of COVID-19 in the community in Auckland.
They are linked to the first case, announced on Tuesday, who is confirmed to have the Delta variant.
One of the new cases is a workmate of the initial case. The other three are contacts of this workmate - one of whom is a fully vaccinated nurse who works at Auckland City Hospital and had been working in recent days.
More information will be provided at a 1pm press conference.
NZ in a full lockdown
New Zealand went into Level 4 lockdown at 11:59pm on Tuesday.
Cabinet made the decision following a 58-year-old Devonport (Auckland) man on Tuesday afternoon testing positive for COVID-19.
The whole country, other than Auckland and the Coromandel, will be at this alert level for three days to begin with. Auckland and Coromandel will be in lockdown for longer - likely seven days. People have 48 hours to travel home.
The wage subsidy and other financial support from the Government is available to businesses.
More on the initial case
A link between the initial infected man and the border or managed isolation is yet to be established.
The man has a handful of close contacts - household and workplace. He hasn't been vaccinated yet. His wife has been, and has returned a negative test result.
The assumption made on Tuesday was that he has Delta, as all the cases at the border in recent weeks have been Delta.
The man became symptomatic on Saturday, visited Coromandel Town over the weekend, and went to his GP on Monday.
There are a number of locations of interest in Auckland and the Coromandel. See the preliminary list at the bottom of the story.
Wastewater testing done on the North Shore on August 11 didn't pick up traces of COVID-19. Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said this was a good sign and suggested there isn't widespread contamination.
Vaccinations will be suspended for 48 hours.
More than 2.55 million doses of the vaccine have been administered to date.
Of these, 1.61 million are first doses and 934,000 are second doses.
On Monday, 46,096 doses were administered and 2,587 tests were processed across New Zealand.
Financial support available
The Wage Subsidy will be available via Work and Income to businesses throughout the country, should Auckland and the Coromandel be in lockdown for at least a week - as planned.
Businesses need to demonstrate they've suffered a 40% loss of revenue due to the alert level change to be eligible.
Subsidy rates have been increased to reflect the increase in wage costs since the scheme was first used in March 2020.
Businesses will be eligible for $600 per week per full-time equivalent employee, and $359 per week per part-time employee. The Wage Subsidy will be paid as a two-week lump sum.
Applications open on Friday August 20, with the first payments usually available after three days.
The COVID-19 Resurgence Support Payment is also available via the Inland Revenue.
Businesses need to have suffered a 30% loss of revenue due to alert level changes to be eligible.
The payment is worth $1500 plus $400 per full-time equivalent employee, up to a maximum of 50 full-time employees (so up to a total of $21,500).
The Leave Support Scheme is also available. It provides a two-week lump sum payment of either $585.80 per week for full-time workers, or $350 per week for part-time workers, who must self-isolate and cannot work from home. More information is available here.
Finally, the Short-Term Absence Payment provides a one-off (once per 30 days) $350 payment for workers who must miss work due to a COVID-19 test and cannot work from home. More information is available here.
MPS to go ahead
Finance Minister Grant Robertson said he had spoken to Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr on Tuesday afternoon, who confirmed the central bank would still be issuing its Monetary Policy Statement on Wednesday. Robertson suspected the press conference might not go ahead in person.
ASB and Westpac economists now expect the Reserve Bank to hold the Official Cash Rate at its record low of 0.25% at Wednesday's review rather than increase it, as they await more clarity on the COVID-19 situation.
Robertson said forecasts suggest a nationwide, Level 4 lockdown (which is not the plan currently) would result in $1.5 billion of lost economic output. He said the cost of not controlling COVID-19 would be higher.
Delta a 'game-changer'
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Delta was a "game-changer" and going hard and early in response was the best response.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment on Tuesday morning said three people in managed isolation got COVID-19 last month, after they opened their hotel room door at the same time as someone across the corridor from them, who had COVID-19.
The three people were staying in a Jet Park room with a pre-existing case. However genome sequencing linked them to the person across the corridor.
The two hotel room doors were open at the same time for three to five seconds on four occasions between July 19 and 27.
While no one was breaking the rules at the time, processes have been tightened in light of the event.
"What this investigation has highlighted is how easily COVID-19 can be transmitted, even in tightly controlled environments,” Ministry of Health Deputy Director of Public Health, Harriette Carr said.
Locations of interest
192 Comments
What difference does it make? There is poor evidence that lockdowns work and none that New Zealand's worked.
The only study I have seen of our first lockdown is here:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)3022…
Look for yourself. The chart shows cases were already flat when we went into level three. The curve is clearly flattening before we even enter level 4. And most experts seem to give lockdowns 7 days to have an effect.
You would think someone might want to do a bit more work on that, but we don't even have a basic cost benefit analysis from the government,
well over a year later.
Michael Baker, one of the loudest cheerleaders for lockdowns, and an actual epidemiologist, has published nothing on the first lockdowns after over a year. You would think someone so certain they work would have done some number crunching to back that up no? He hasn't even done a crappy model.
We were told the lockdown cost about 58 billion. Sweden had no lockdowns and has about 14000 deaths. We are half the population of Sweden but I will be skeptical and say we might have had 10k deaths because we have more fat people. That is 5.8 million dollars per life saved. Sounds like a lot to me.
But how would we know as we don't even have a debate.
We have sold the youth largely to pay for sick old people to live another year or two. What a bizzare society.
Be afraid. Wear your mask. Comply.
A bit of advice mate, don't get too worked about thing on here. There is historically a thing known as the burning of the books, a symbol really of throwing any brains out the window and letting the narrative take over. Despots and dictators don't like intelligent people. The burning of the books has happend at interest.co, for the most part the smart people on these forums have been eradicated or left. Sadly a few have also died.
The most dangerous people are those masquerading as intelligent, and you are dealing with examples above. Don't let them drag you down. Statistically they are likely older, of reasonable net worth, but also fat, don't exercise, and highly vulnerable to death by Covid when it comes. And it was always going to come.
No the dangerous people are the ones that tell you there is only a select few books to read and the other books are heresy. Ones that claim they are almighty intelligent are the ones to watch out for. Usually they have book smarts but no common sense. What we need is balance in both practical and academic. I see young and old incredibly delusional about how the real world works. The danger always lies in mob or cult like thinking. I'm always amazed how in a pandemic how people protested, started with BLM and continued with other issues.
I agree that NZ can't lock down forever. It just wont work. I'm in lockdown and coming up to three months, delta case's have risen, people are broken, economy is crap, more suicides', more domestic violence etc... The virus will come to NZ at some stage and the only thing is to get the country vaccinated fast. There is no stopping delta.
You people are hilarious. So where is your data that the first lockdown worked? Please. Any data. Anything.
Yeah, I thought so.
In the UK over 50% of the jobs lost in 2021 were in the under 25's. There's some data.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmen…
Kids in the UK have missed nearly a full year of school on average. But kids’ education everywhere has been hammered.
I guess it's fine by you, if kids need to spend their savings on keeping the family afloat during lockdowns:
https://moneyage.co.uk/uk-parents-withdraw-2-75-bn-from-childrens-savin…
Or if Nigerian kids are raped a bit more during lockdowns:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/world/africa/nigeria-rape-castration…
This is what it's like in the richest country in the world:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/millions-of-kids-are-going-hungry-and-i…
What the hell do you think is happening to kids in places like India? You think if you close your eyes and just think of Siouxsie all the poor people will be fine when we shut everything down?
The average age of death in the UK from covid is higher than the average all age death. Over 50% of covid mortalities have three or more comorbidities
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed…
Please explain how this is not a disease of the old and sick being paid for by the young? And the poor?
How many poor people benefited from the jump in house prices in this country, last year? Do you think they had good internet connections and laptops at their places when their kids were home from school? Do you think those kids were getting as much to eat?
But I bet they had nothing to do with the explosion in food banks. Just a crazy coincidence.
But hey why would you care you can work from home right? Kind of like a holiday when you are middle class or better right? No big deal.
And nice move trying to bring politics into it. I didn't because I don't think it makes much difference but I'm sure you do, just like you think you’re a nice person who cares about people. Just not so much the poor or the young.
None of the politicians in this country have even tried to debate this stuff. They are all weak. Pathetic. No surprises the political system does not incentivise being courageous or standing against groupthink. It doesn’t matter which side of the spectrum they come from.
You are being completely non-sensical: our lockdowns in NZ eradicated covid in the first wave in just 4 weeks, and shorter sharp lockdowns eradicated covid again when border incursions were made. No other evidence is necessary. For the rest of the last 18 months New Zealand has had a covid-free existence (outside of MIQ) and a booming economy. It’s 100% disingenuous to claim our lockdowns didn’t work, it’s complete nonsense.
I'm not being anything I'm simply interpreting the data in those charts, in that study, I quoted above from the Lancet.
As I understand it the Lancet is a prestigious journal. Or at least that's what everyone says when they agree with what's in there.
Read the paper. Look at the charts. Feel free to explain anyway you like how the curves are already flattening when we enter the lockdowns. So just the talk of lockdown scares the virus is that what you propose? I guess so it's a "tricky little bugger" this virus.
Feel free to actually provide some data. You know numbers and stuff. A paper. A study. Even just some scratchings on a napkin maybe?
Anything other than the utterly mediocre Siouxsie Wiles and her woke, pseudo scientific ramblings.
You would struggle thought, as there is bugger all. There is no cost benefit analysis, no publications, no enquiries, virtually nothing. Unsurprisingly and just like in China, the government has done a perfect job, nothing to see her move along.
The government hasn't done theses analyses. Nor has Baker, Wiles, Wilson or any of the other lockdown crew. Or they have done them and not published them because they didn't say what they wanted them to say. That is also a possibility. And they have rather hooked their reputations to this stuff.
But I can only comment on what is in the public domain, which is bugger all aside from that lancet paper.
You are just making claims. You are also committing one of the biggest mistakes in science by attributing correlation to causation without even a preliminary look at any data. Otherwise I am sure you would have shared it with me right?
I expect you are the sort of rigorous mind that when seeing that it is raining out and observing all people are carrying umbrellas you conclude that umbrellas cause it to rain.
I am actually quoting a study and providing the source in the hopes of having some actual debate about whether these things are worth the phenomenal damage they cause and the uneven costs they impose on two of our most vulnerable groups, children and the poor.
According to that lancet paper something was already "flattening the curve" before we entered level 4, probably even level 3. I suspect border closures were enough and it was fizzling out on it's own. Perhaps there were other things at play.
That's the thing about science though you don't find out what was really happening unless you poke holes in all the gaps until there aren't any gaps anymore. So feel free to poke away, but the only nonsensical thing I can see here is your weird, almost cultist belief in New Zealand's lockdowns without seeming to have a shred of data to back it up.
That's another disaster brewing. The kids didn’t deserve the grades. Teachers just lowered the bar and inflated grades to prove that their working from home was effective. There'll be hell to pay if the exams suddenly get hard again next year so I imagine the bar has been permanently lowered.
Top tier universities will no longer be able to distinguish the bright kids from the rest. The consequence will be that universities like Cambridge will demand their own entrance exams. Of course only rich parents will be able to afford pay for private tuition. Therefor this will result in a sharp decrease in social mobility in the years ahead. Unintended consequences!
I like your calculation on $/life_saved denature. It really puts the hysteria into perspective. However, I think you're a little pessimistic with the numbers. Another way to do your calculation is to base it on Pfizer's clinical trial data. Lets assume worst case scenario ie. placebo group where 2 people out of 21921 died in six months. NZ's population is 4.86 million and lets say covid would've been with us for 2 years. Then we could estimate the NZ death toll at 2/21921 * 2/0.5 * 4.86x10^6 = 1773 people. If the elimination strategy cost us 58 billion (and counting) then that equates to $32.7 million dollars per life saved.
I guess a critic could argue that pfizer stacked the deck with healthy under 55's to make their vaccine look better. Maybe your calculation is better.
It's probably worth mentioning that this "game changing" delta variant appears to not cause any excess mortality. It's completely at odds with me media narrative, but that's what the data says. euromomo website https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps.
Long lasting health conditions? - pfft you can get that from the vaccine. What about risk factors? According to the literature (see below) it’s old age, cardiovascular disease, dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, liver disease, cancer with solid tumors. So kids are at risk huh? yeah nah.
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed…
This is absolute nonsense to equate potential health impacts of vaccine (which are astonishingly improbable) vs the widespread long lasting health impacts for a significant portion of covid survivors (both in reduced cardiovascular and assorted other pulmonary conditions, as well as diminished mental capacity)
It did flatten in Singapore after the "Delta Sydney-skyrocket style" spread.
Oh, and vaccination reached 73% (second dose) which has probably helped.
Oh, and they have good contact tracing - can't enter most of the public places until you can code (nowadays it's BLE touch token or phone touch) and get your temperature measured. Your phone/token automatically exchanges info with phones around you.
Oh, and they all wear masks.
Nothing to worry about, we're as prepared here. Not.
You people are hilarious.
Honestly you can't even see the perversity of you're own circular logic.
"Sydney is bad because they didn't go hard and early". It's a beautiful statement and impossible to prove or disprove.
Except if lockdowns work then it doesn't matter if you start late or early right? They should still "flatten the curve" the curve will just be higher on the chart. But it should still flatten. Sydney's curve is not flattening.
And bringing Trump into this. Seriously? Why don't you actually try and think about the data and stop putting your pet political filter over everything?
Here I'll get you started. In my opinion this is the clearest data that lockdowns don't work. Pssst.....I doubt Siouxsie has read this and oakeyed it for the New Zealand public, just a bit of a trigger warning there:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.28.20248936v1
This is the perfect natural experiment. Similar population make up, similar culture, similar racial breakdown, similar socioeconomics, but varying degrees of lockdown stringency. No difference in outcomes.
I cannot say "lockdowns do not work" although I suspect they do not. However anyone who says "they do work" is lying. The correct approach for this is vigorous debate in the public domain so we can really hammer out what works and what doesn't.
For chrissake we don't even have a simple cost benefit.
You should listen to yourself spurting out the governments throw away propaganda line and not offering a shred of data to support your position.
It's a worry.
I am sure that we the people would be last know.
It is well known government departments are not very efficient and our current systems in my view would involve multiple people shuffling paperwork/emails for days on end across multiple sets of eyes.
Just look at how long it takes government to try and deliver i.e Kiwibuild and then they throw in the towel.
If you cant build some houses what hope do we have.
Come on guys the timing couldn't have been better if you planned it. I guess all we need now is confirmation its Delta and boom we are back in lockdown. Must be some clear link, it doesn't just pop up unless several others already have it also. Lockdown here we come in Auckland.
COVID community transmission and interest rates is definitely a conspiracy. But it’s not a conspiracy to suggest that there may have been cases last week. The MOH has been on high alert prioritising PPE, among other things, since the beginning of last week. Winston Peters, as much as I loathe him and his politics, also timed his attack on the Government knowing that community transmission was inevitable.
If they really want to avoid future disaster should control by increasing LVR and introducing DTI and not manipulate pandemic to support their vested narrative.
Let us see how Mr Orr Targets speculative demand tomorrow as even without raising OCR has enough measures /tools to control,. IF WANT.
Last week, the government announced that if there is delta variant in community, there will be a level 4 lockdown. The timing for these is very interesting. It's like speaking to specific someone. Haha, just kidding. Nah, better not speculate and not leave any room for conspiracy theory.
Health issues aside, and I hope everyone stays safe and this doesn't get out of hand...
This is the spark to start the spring / summer selling reason!
Get ready for a tidal wave of buyers with lower interest rates for longer. A timely reminder for Mr Orr we are not out of the woods yet!
How is having incomplete information a few hours sooner going to be helpful?
If the MOH considers they have important information they need to share, such as 'everyone who was at event X needs to self-isolate' they will announce that information as soon as they're confident and ready to announce it.
Well apparently this is a highly contagious airborne virus that can jump between hotel rooms withing seconds of a simultaneous door opening. So If I was about to go and stand in a Countdown queue in the same suburb as this person lived or worked I would prefer to know in advance.
This is why, time and time again, the smartest investors say "Time in the market, not timing the market".
The best time to buy a property is always when you can afford to. Waiting for things to "crash" will only disadvantage those who keep waiting for it to happen.
This is yet another example of the unprecedent times we are in. No wonder everyone puts their cash in assets.
I feel I have to first confess, then stand up for the toilet paper hoarders. So I confess to being a bit of a hoarder of said loo paper. My reasons are as follows.
I pee every half hour at least. I was blessed with the cheapest woolworths bladder. Seeing I dont have that long thing to shake I have to wipe. I use a lot of loo paper.
Secondly I live in the wops. After many years of having to go to the supermarket mainly because I was out of loo paper (and milk) I discovered hoarding loo paper and having milk powder on hand. Saves an hours drive.
Thats it.
I shall now go and check the wardrobes to see if I have some hidden away still. Who honestly wants to stand in line for hours outside a supermarket if but for a little forward planning.
I believe they routinely do wastewater testing at several locations in Auckland. They also do wastewater testing specifically at a junction near Jet Park, which acts as a control and confirmation that the tests are working (eg if they had multiple samples in a row show up false for Jet Park when they know there is COVID present, they can investigate if there is some systematic error with the tests that is producing unexpected negative results).
We are just 1 lockdown away from going backwards again. Leave OCR at current levels. If house price inflation is the issue, use other tools such DTI. Businesses will really struggle over the next few months v with on and off lockdowns. Our luck was going to run out at some point and I think it has now.
There has unfortunately been a new community case of Covid-19. This has been identified in a GP clinic located in North Shore area of Auckland. The Prime Minister is due to make a public announcement at 5pm today. The genome sequencing is due to be completed by midnight, however, this case is presumed to be Delta variant until proven otherwise. There is likely to be an Alert Level change to either Level 3 or 4.
Should be fine, Demand tapered off quite dramatically at 6pm (Due to price spike and warning) and prices looking stable now.
https://www.em6live.co.nz/PlanningRegion.aspx?planningregion=uni
The show continues!! Now part 2 of this series will be to see what Orr has to say about OCR. Part 3 would then be the banks!
Who would've guessed eh? Please..... everyone knew this was gonna happen.
And why don't they share more information on these people who cause the entire nation to go into lockdown? how are they allowed to come into the country or have contact with people who have covid? There should zero people coming in and out of that border. No exceptions. This is just another stupid decision by the government allowing "certain" people in. The rules just don't apply to all, only apply to "a few".
Who is this guy who travelled to Coromandel with the Delta strain. This person should be named to deter others from doing the same.
The entire city of Coromandel is now at risk of having Delta because of the incompetence of one person and a failed government not applying the "no entry border rules" to EVERYONE (but only applying the rules to a certain few). Zero equality here.
You all can say its an ignorant comment, but it all starts and stems from an ignorant government. Making different sets of rules for different sets of people. Full of prejudice and discrimination.
Serious about borders and COVID elimination? Get real. You are allowing "select people" come in and out as they please. While there are many families who have been seperated for the last 18 months, many of those who work the jobs that kiwis dont want to do. Wheres the fairness in that? And what about asset prices? How about small businesses going belly up because of these lockdowns? How about the lack of seriousness taken to speed up vaccinations knowing well in advance the DELTA variant is just over the ditch? Who caused that? All based on the governments failed policies and knee jerk decision making mascaraded as "saving the economy". Whose ignorant now?
Team of 5 Million? More like team of the rich and those who are lucky enough to be on the right side of the government benefits. Sorry, but I feel no remorse for those who inadvertently harm those who struggle to make ends meet.
This guy could have got it walking out to his letterbox as an infected person stopped and admired his garden. There is no evidence that he did anything wrong at this point. People have been infected at Jet Park without breaking rules. Treating this guy like a criminal is only going to make matters worse as people will withhold information to avoid being treated the same. There is a lot of luck involved in not getting infected. Some people will just be unlucky and get infected through no fault of their own.
House price pump by stealth. Stop all residential and commercial construction in Auckland for 7days while we are in a Housing crisis. While all the pen pushers and mouse shufflers ;) can carry on with there ‘productive’ work. When else in history have you been segregated and banned from making a living for yourself. Sure we may get paid out a COVID payment but it’s just your own tax money anyway on the ‘merry go round’. Can we have more specific work place COVID plans. Please. So chippies can carry on building homes.
fyi. a large number of sophomoric unfounded conspiracy commenting has been removed from this thread. We are not a forum for spreading nonsense and other politicised trash. That is what Facebook is for. Do it there in your echo chamber.
Reasoned critiques are welcome. Rants are not.
Sorry I didn’t mean to imply a conspiracy, was just commenting on reality. ( your website has a ‘comment section’ not a ‘reasoned critiques’ section.
But yes I am critiquing the government restricting work and trade for residential and commercial construction amidst a supposed housing crisis.
I would be happy to work all day with a mask amongst a limited amount of people eat my lunch alone. Go home and record all my close contacts. However I believe the political elites do not trust the nz proletariat to do this.
I’m afraid the rest of the world is learning to live with COVID / delta, the smarter we evolve to do this the better.
I don’t mind sitting on the couch for three - 7 days. But they must be bonkers if they think this pony trick is going to work much longer on the masses.
Lockdown fatigue is actually a real thing. Lockdown affects people in many different ways. For me, I can work from home and have been doing it at least 50% of the time for over a year. Working with kids at home isn’t ideal. For others, they can’t work from home and there is a real cost to them and their employers. There is definitely scope for sorting out how to allow more people to work so less people are badly affected and the support for those that are affected can be more generous. An example is a self employed lawn mower. They can definitely work safely as long as they don’t interact with people.
It is indeed. The payroll might not even be the big issue. You could have loan repayments for machinery, rent and other overheads. Depending on your business labour costs might only be a small portion. It is quite extraordinary how a government can make it illegal for your business to earn revenue but expect you to pay employees. I get that lockdowns can be needed and they cost less overall than the alternative, but lumping that cost on particular businesses is very unfair/wrong.
I’d feel much better today if I’d had the chance to be vaccinated. Lockdowns don’t seem to to working as well against delta. There are many reasons of course and some will be non compliance. It is disturbing that you can get it via a door being open for 3-5 seconds. Seems like going to the supermarket etc is going to be significantly more risky. Hopefully this puts an end to the view that we don’t need vaccines ASAP as we don’t have Covid here. You want the vaccine before you get it not after.
Maybe it's just me wondering this, but how on earth does it make sense in a level 4 lockdown, when they're worried about someone possibly spreading this virus, to allow people 48 hours to travel to wherever they deem to be home. If it has spread already, this thing could end up all over the place.
1 case yesterday, 5 today. I think Delta is probably here to stay now. If it can escape out of a hospital that was fully prepared for it then I don't have much hope that we can contain it with a lockdown. I'd say our best hope is to try to slow the spread while we get as many people vaccinated as possible.
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