The Ministry of Health is reporting 14 new Covid cases, including one in the Upper Hauraki area that is a household contact of the earlier reported cases.
Just one of the latest cases is unlinked.
The latest case numbers follow 22 cases on Monday. Nine of those cases were infectious in the community.
Auckland is moving down to Level 3 as of Wednesday.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the lower numbers on Tuesday were encouraging, but he expected the numbers would "bounce around". He said based on contacts of known cases that were now in isolation there were another likely 50-60 positive cases likely to result just from that group.
There are 15 people in hospital - all in Auckland. Four of these are in ICU.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was urging Auckland to get its vaccination rate up to 90% (with at least one dose) by the time Cabinet next assesses alert levels in two weeks.
Ardern announced an increase in the penalties for people breaking the Covid rules. The maximum fine for an individual rises from $300 to $4000. If it's a court-imposed fine the maximum moves up from $1000 to $12,000.
This is the detailed update from the Ministry of Health:
| Cases | |
| Number of new community cases * | 14 |
| Number of new cases identified at the border | One historical case |
| Location of new cases | Auckland, Upper Hauraki |
| Location of community cases (total) | Auckland (including 4 cases in Upper Hauraki*) 1,068 (773 of whom have recovered); Wellington 17 (all of whom have recovered); |
| Number of community cases (total) | 1,085 (in current community outbreak) |
| Cases infectious in the community | Nine (41%) of yesterday’s cases have exposure events |
| Cases in isolation throughout the period they were infectious | 10 (45%) of yesterday’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked | 13 of today’s cases |
| Cases to be epidemiologically linked | One of today’s cases |
| Cases epidemiologically linked (total) | 1,054 (in current cluster) (10 unlinked from past fortnight) |
| Number of sub-clusters | Ten epidemiologically linked subclusters. Of these, two are active, seven are contained and one is dormant. There are eleven epidemiologically unlinked subclusters. Of these, three are active, three are contained and five are dormant |
| Cases in hospital | 15 (total): North Shore (1); Auckland (4); Middlemore (10). |
| Cases in ICU or HDU | Four |
| Confirmed cases (total) | 3,739 since pandemic began |
| Historical cases, since 1 Jan 2021 (total) | 152 out of 1,921 since 1 Jan 2021 |
| Contacts | |
| Number of active contacts being managed (total) | 1,375 |
| Percentage who have received an outbound call from contact tracers (to confirm testing and isolation requirements) | 87% |
| Percentage with at least one test result | 84% |
| Locations of interest | |
| Locations of interest (total) | 135 (as at 10am 21 September) |
| Tests | |
| Number of tests (total) | 3,248,982 |
| Total number of laboratory tests processed (last 24 hours) | 8,346 |
| Tests rolling average (last 7 days) | 12,971 |
| Swabs taken in Auckland (last 24 hours) | 8,588 |
| Testing centres in Auckland | 24 |
| Wastewater | |
| Wastewater detections | No unexpected detections in ESR’s latest testing |
| COVID-19 vaccine update | |
| Vaccines administered to date (total) | 4,762,679; 1st doses: 3,118,082; 2nd doses: 1,644,597 |
| Vaccines administered yesterday (total) | 50,196; 1st doses: 24,522; 2nd doses: 25,674 |
| Mâori | 1st doses: 294,099; 2nd doses: 143,416 |
| Pacific Peoples | 1st doses: 190,538, 2nd doses: 100,575 |
| NZ COVID-19 tracer | |
| Registered users (total) | 3,237,146 |
| Poster scans (total) | 373,119,386 |
| Manual diary entries (total) | 16,706,087 |
| Poster scans in 24 hours to midday yesterday | 2,127,881 |
Historical cases identified at the border
| Arrival date | From | Via | Positive test day/reason | Managed isolation/quarantine location |
| 17 September | United States of America | Direct flight | Day 0 / routine | Christchurch |
*Today’s cases
Today’s number of community cases includes one positive result from Upper Hauraki. This was a household contact who was tested yesterday.
Two previously confirmed cases from Saturday and from yesterday have now been reclassified as under investigation. As a result, today’s net increase is 13 cases.
84 Comments
If it stays like this or goes up the government will enforce another week of the status quo. Last time they offered an “in principle” inducement. What is not known though, is at that point, what happens next. That is because the government obviously doesn’t know themselves, but another 2 or 3 weeks of vaccination progress and continued testing will undoubtedly add value to the discussion. The trouble is Auckland and Aucklanders wil have had to bear a very heavy burden for 7 weeks at least and the government really could alleviate some of that, and the uncertainty alongside, by at least indicating what the options are to be and what governs them. Hell the public has long been patient and compliant enough for their part, it’s up to the government to come to the party and help them with some much more definitive information.
New just out, fines for breaching COVID Rules will be increased significantly:
The penalty for failing to comply with a COVID-19 requirement that has been specified as an infringement offence will increase to a maximum infringement fee of $4,000 (previously $300) or a $12,000 maximum court imposed fine, up from $1,000. Examples of infringement offences include failure to wear a face covering in places where it is mandatory.
A person who intentionally fails to comply with a COVID-19 order, thereby committing a criminal offence, is now liable on conviction for a fine of up to $12,000, up from $4,000, or six months imprisonment.
That could include offences such as a person travelling without permission, or travelling for a purpose other than what was permitted, from an Alert Level 4 or 3 area to Alert Level 2.
A maximum infringement fee of $12,000 or maximum criminal offence fine of $15,000 has also been introduced for body corporates who fail to have systems and processes in place in accordance with the Health Order.
These changes will take effect in November, subject to the passing of the COVID-19 Public Health Response Amendment Bill.
You're questioning this now, after two jabs? Have you actually been following international news? A vaccination ain't no silver bullet, but one tool among many. It is neither 100% effective nor will there be 100% uptake, so of course should they be needed, then future lockdowns to alleviate pressure from already overloaded medical services are on the table.
Future 'imprisonment' of some variety is assured. Have they failed to prepare? I think so. Unfortunately, medical services here are already overstretched, and they can't wave a wand - but FFS, there was still plenty they could have done and still need to do, to prepare as best they can with what we do have, but really don't seem to have the faintest.
Just remember at any given time Mr Delta could pass through a MIQ leak, or customs areas, ports, airports and set the whole cycle in motion again and not only at Auckland. This is where NZ has been badly exposed by the wilful negligence in not adopting saliva testing. In other words even should the government get it eliminated, in whatever version the mood of the day that might mean, how long will that last until there is another outbreak somewhere?
I don't think any health system could realistically prepare for this.
The truth is we're fat and unhealthy as a population. Our health and therefore our immune systems are not adequately prepared and that is something the vast majority of us are capable of fixing. Just needs a little personal responsibility.
If we weren't fat, vitamin D deprived and addled with lifestyle disease this would just be a bad flu season.
They told me this wasn't human transmissible..
They told me it didn't come from the Wuhan lab..
They told me masks didn't work..
They told me vaccine passports were a conspiracy theory..
They told me the vaccine would stop Covid..
They told me we needed herd immunity..
They told me natural immunity wasn't as good as vaccine immunity..
They told me the vaccine wouldn't be mandatory..
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was urging Auckland to get its vaccination rate up to 90% (with at least one dose) by the time Cabinet next assesses alert levels in two weeks.
What does 1 vaccine do, don't we need 2 vaccines to be fully protected? If Auckland intends to drop down to level 2 and travel, doesn't the country need to be vaccinated? As a country it's at 37% double vaccinated and the aim is for 90% right...
Looks like level 3/4 will be around for a long time for Auckland...
I will be applying for my refund when the jabs wears off and I have to have many booster injections with many side effects
Cindy and Hip Chops/DR Ash / Little may have conned us
1/ The jab would eliminate Covid -it hasnt you can get but not as bad
2/ Side effects are not being reported correctly , I wont be having a booster..............
3/ The injection wears off 4-6 months
4/There new variants of Virus that are useless to this strain
5/ What else are we going to find out in next few months
Frankly I wish I did not have this so early because the effectiveness will wear off in 2 months time
Yep I was quite taken aback by that change in narrative - that 90% benchmark now appears to means 90% having had their first dose. That and the change to how various Alert Levels are triggered. Not that I disagree, given the evolving nature of the situation, but I am getting rather tired of how the message is being manipulated.
You should work in the construction sector! Quite a few worksites by a few bigger main contractors now require vaccination or no site access, no exceptions… (well for start, then maybe they can find a work around if they really need you in future). But is is getting ridiculous. It is now exactly where the government has many organisations applying pressure to achieve their stated vaccination goals. Even the Human Rights Commission website is now softly softly showing not a single definitive sentence guaranteeing your basic human right to refuse vaccination. Very simple really. Look at the linked worksafe website and the linked MBIE site for references of the ‘what if’… Very scary times indeed for basic human rights.
Very simple economic black mail! And it will work until the real effects show up not in 3-6 months. It will take longer than that. And by then it will be too late to link the issues back to the vaccines. I will leave the industry in short order.
I can imagine why the last 10% have made their decision not to get vaxed at all but I want to know about the 50% larger group that decided to take their first and skip the second. I think its been close to 90% for a while so can't all be waiting for the 6 week gap.
Because they can't get vaccine appointments. When all this first started we were told the 2nd jab would be available after 21 days. I think that interval has now gone out to about 2 months. The reason has largely been due to the bottleneck in vaccine dose deliveries from Pfizer. I understand MoH is scrambling to fix it but I believe it's going to take time/effort.
I (proactively) rocked up to my local vaccination centre on the 22nd day at 3:30pm (no appointment), in the hope there would be some spare jabs available from 'no shows' that day. Had no problem. Job done!
I made an appointment online easily. Then I had a couple of friends offer that I could come to their company mass vaccination. Plus I was sent a message saying I could go to the airport drive through vax. Then when I did go to my initial appointment they had walk in too with a queue about 10 mins long. So that does sound like an excuse to me.
Briefings always reminds me of that Mitchell and Webb Sketch about "The Event."
Interesting Bloomberg article ..
"Meanwhile, China, Hong Kong and New Zealand have vowed to keep vigilantly working to eliminate the virus locally. As a result, they are likely to be among the last places to leave behind the disruption wrought by walling out the pandemic"
We are a timing difference only.
When Will the Pandemic End? Here’s Scientists Six Month Outlook on COVID-19 - Bloomberg
Hong Kong isn't doing that well.
China is extreme in a way. Whenever they detected a case in the community, they would send in the police or even paramilitary to round up people doing mandatory swabs; they could order infected children to go to the hospital to isolate themselves without their parents. Such measures have helped the authority stamp out the virus effectively, though they need to do it often because they cannot stop Sars-Cov-2 from crossing the border completely. They never talked about the mental stress and financial pressure people experienced.
I don't think NZ can do the same.
I have no political affiliation, but to see Judith Collins 'pressie' suggesting the govt has "given up on [covid] eradication" was one of the saddest attempts to gain media attention I've seen in a long time. She's lost the plot!
I don't have a degree in epidemiology but my thought processes are coherent enough (unlike JC) to understand that eradication of covid, per se, was NEVER the goal, and is completely impossible. To me the idea is to "eradicate" outbreaks as they occur, at the border or in the community, so we can buy time until a huge majority of the population is vaccinated, and to also mitigate overloading the health system.... thus preventing unnecessary deaths. Everybody knows we must learn to live with covid, but let's do it on terms that we can cope with.
Like many overseas media outlets, Collins is now dissecting the word "eradicate" to build a narrative of impossibility, fantasy, etc., just so they can see New Zealand's efforts stumble and fall and then start pointing fingers. This is just silly point scoring nonsense. I think Collins needs to look at the 'virus' that is presently running rampant through her own party before she starts pointing her finger conspiratorially at others. She's looking tired, tragic and frumpy on visual media these days, and I think it's time she walked away and at least gave her party a chance to regain some sense of dignity.
In reality that was the only plan on offer. The government attended the first half admirably. NZ got to enjoy a covid free environment and unscarred by a significant death toll. But no game is won at halftime. The second half was vaccination to protect both the people from covid itself and thereby as well, the integrity of the health system for normal admissions and procedures. The lack of advance planning of vaccination , the decision to rely on just one type and the lack of urgency for supply of it has really undone that great first half hasn’t it.
Lets be totally honest here, Labour were chasing elimination of the virus from the community, end of story. What they should have been doing is trying to stay at the front of the vaccine queue while they were trying to do it. All the lockdowns have been a waste of time really as they were only ever going to buy us time to get the vaccination rates up. This is a never ending story however, all we need now is another vaccine resistant strain and even all the vaccinations will have been a waste of time. You end up going the full circle and end up with we should have never bothered to lockdown in the first place, all its done for certain is cost us Billions of dollars.
Where is Lanthanide then? But don’t do that identity a disservice by such comparison. It is reasonably easy to identify relative platform and direction and everyone is entitled to advocate to their beliefs and in this case there is usually research behind the relative argument. But as for the other party, in my opinion, lightweight parroting party voice of neither substance nor consequence, incapable of thinking for oneself.
"widely regarded" - you mean regarded by yourself ?
Fact is that we have the lowest vaccination rate in OECD ; even Fiji , Samoa etc. have higher vac rates than us. We locked the country down ( which was the best thing to do under the circumstances ) - and did nothing with the time we bought dearly .
Best response my behind.
But NZ did open up and the government was indisputably entirely responsible for that decision. Since when has a radio mouth run the country. And the government knew full well at the time, that there was a new highly transmissible strain spiking, 10 hours flight away, in India at 150,000 daily and that the border security in Australia was suspect. And still in the face of that, the government opened the bubble with the full knowledge that the vaccination progress in NZ per population was woefully inadequate for such risk. And ask yourself, why then exactly did they do that? Only one answer. The popularity polls of course. And that puts the government then, on exactly the same level as any one radio mouth you may elect to nominate.
It was several radio mouths and websites. The government is very susceptible to the media, it is a democracy after all. They bowed to the pressure.
But either way he was wrong, just as he has been continuously about the whole pandemic. The fact the he has any listeners left is a sad reflection on our country.
How weak. Some government. Bowed to the pressure. Actually that is damningly pathetic given the not inaccurate warnings, every day from the podium about the deadly nature of covid. But the government bowed to the pressure simply because their political expediency was of greater priority than that danger. My god imagine if Winston Churchill had “bowed to the pressure.” The people elect the government and that is who they are responsible to, not the media, what the hell are their actual priorities then. Popularity first, people second and you are all full on in support of that quite clearly. Take a bow.
But tell me one thing please… how do you suggest we do differently and better than the Israelis?
https://www.science.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-vaccination-bl…
m hosking mr flip flop
Mike Hosking Debates Against Himself on COVID-19 Response - YouTube
To be “schooled” by anyone presumes the person doing the “schooling” knows what they are talking about. Hosking confuses brash reckons with professional understanding, confrontation with inquiry and confident assertions with acquired knowledge. He undermines the national effort to deal with this crisis with his whiny prognostications and provides aid and comfort to know-it-alls. A waste of good air.
I think you’re holding far too lofty standard of radio shock jock there…
Hosking solely exists to be a counter voice for the pathetic journalism we have in this country.
sure, his bias is extreme and often overrides good line of questioning but at least he is asking the hard questions.
The study, published Friday on the Journal of the America Medical Association (JAMA) Network, found that “youths gained more weight during the COVID-19 pandemic than before it.” The greatest change occurred among children aged 5 through 11 years old, which saw prevalence of obesity increase from 36.2 percent to 45.7 percent. "
https://nypost.com/2021/08/30/child-obesity-increased-during-covid-19-p…
'This report shows that in countries where less than half the adult population is classified as overweight*,
the likelihood of death from COVID-19 is a small fraction – around one tenth – of the level seen in
countries where more than half the population is classified as overweight.'
https://www.worldobesityday.org/assets/downloads/COVID-19-and-Obesity-T…
85% of Israel's Covid hospitalisations are double jabbed...The current vaccine is useless against Delta, which is presumably why Ashley has dropped us to level 3 even though we still have 20 cases every day?
Even he finally understands; Covid is endemic and elimination is impossible. We have to live with this as the IFR is the same as the flu (J Ioannidis) ...
Sunclap
What is the source of your data or just hearsay misinformation yet again?
Your past links have been to those recommending Ivermectin.
You need to show a bit of intellect and critically appraisal the rubbish you read . . . but better still, go peddle your misinformation elsewhere.
Singapore seems to have pretty detailed and easy to understand information supplied by their MOH. They have an 80%+ vaccination rate with some measurements kept in place. They have seen an increase in caseload and hospitalisations, but severity and death remain quite low. After all, they have a roadmap and they are following it. I don't think Israel is a good reference to NZ, they never had practical border control, to begin with.
The UK lost about 6x more lives from Covid than they would from a really bad flu season. And that is with long lockdowns, mask wearing, social distancing, etc.
At the peak they had 1200 deaths a day. Without intervention by my maths that could have been 400,000+ deaths a year.
Israeli death figures are common knowledge and all MSM death figures are lies as most dead have multiple co-morbidities.
Two top scientific adviser, FDA officials resigned two weeks ago and now say, "do not take the vaccine" in a top medical journal;
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)0204…
Your referenced paper says things like: "COVID-19 vaccines continue to be effective against severe disease, including that caused by the delta variant." and "The vaccines that are currently available are safe, effective, and save lives.".
Hardly seems to agree with your earlier statement of "The current vaccine is useless against Delta".
Seems like you're just making wild claims to stir things up?
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