Covirus 19 coronavirus: what you need to know about Wednesday’s Tier 3 big alert developments

The first few days of Level 3 closure have come with important reminders for New Zealanders to obey physical distancing guidelines as schools reopen and the search continues to contain Covid-19. Get all the important news and read the full stories at the links below.

Key developments in New Zealand

• Winston Peters has revealed that the government rejected the advice to close the New Zealand border to anyone coming to the country in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. Peters said the Health Ministry was pressing hard for border closures, including for New Zealanders seeking to return home, but Foreign Ministry officials rejected the suggestion. Peters said the advice was understandable and appropriate from a health perspective, but that kiwis abroad “would never have forgotten” if the government had turned its back on New Zealanders in other countries.

• There were 104 confinement violations on the first day of alert level 3, with 21 people processed, 71 warnings issued and 742 complaints about companies that did not comply with the regulations, mainly due to the lack of physical distance. The most notable came after photos of people gathered at a BurgerFuel store in Auckland appeared. The company responded by placing crowd controllers outside of its 56 stores in New Zealand. Director General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said the overall message remained the same: “Stay home, save lives.” Bloomfield also revealed that there were two new Covid-19 cases today, consisting of one confirmed and one probable case. It is the eleventh day in a row that the case numbers have been in the single digits.

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• Schools are officially open again, but one in six schools is not waiting for any students through its doors this week. Federation of Directors President Perry Rush says parents have gotten the message that they should keep kids home at Tier 3 if possible, and many are still concerned about the health risks of sending them to the school. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed that 7,713 children reported to early childhood centers this morning, with 4% attendance, and 11,846 students reported to school, with an attendance rate of 1%.

• Health Minister David Clark completed a house move while the rest of the country was locked up, but insists he did not violate the rules a third time. Clark was seen moving to another property a few hundred meters from his previous home when the lock was closed, and has since been seen passing between the two. He said he had not violated any rules and that he had used his previous home as a work office while the country was under level 4 restrictions. National leader Simon Bridges asked Clark to resign, but Ardern said Clark, who has already Criticized for breaking the blocking rules by taking his family to the beach and mountain biking on a trail during level 4, he had not violated the rules in this example.

Thoroughly

• New Zealand’s health system was ill-prepared to “keep Covid-19 out,” and we’ve had to endure extraordinary sacrifices to “kill it,” MPs told us. Professor Des Gorman of the University of Auckland said public health units were under-resourced and that personal protective equipment for health workers was lacking.

• As New Zealand emerges from the blockade, new cases of Covid-19 are still emerging. the Herald Talk to some of the country’s top scientists to find out why, after a month of “staying home,” cases of the life-threatening virus continue to pop up.

Business update

• The Deputy Prime Minister says New Zealand should rebuild the tastes of its pharmaceutical industry, and has criticized the current structure of the New Zealand economy. Winston Peters believes that the New Zealand economy is overly reliant on Fonterra selling dairy products to China, and cannot go back to the way it was once the Covid-19 pandemic recedes.

• The Farmers retail store has told staff that it will continue to cut wages as long as the store cannot open its doors. Farmers’ stores are not physically open on Level 3, but like many other retailers, the company offers deliveries. Staff were paid 80 percent of normal wages, but it was likely to drop to 70 percent in May and 60 percent in June if stores were not yet open. Some employees have already been fired.

Worldwide

• As the level 4 blockade was lifted on Tuesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern managed to use the time to speak to the Queen. Ardern said it was “a pleasure” to speak to the 94-year-old monarch. “His affection for New Zealand, his interest in what is happening here and his memory of places and events that are special to us never ceases to amaze me.”

• The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that “the world should have listened” to the advice of the UN agency to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from becoming so severe. As global cases exceed 3 million and more than 212,000 deaths from the disease, WHO leader Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic is “far from over” and that countries should have heard its warnings months ago. He said the UN agency sounded the alarm on January 30 by alerting about a global health emergency, the highest level, when only 82 deaths from the virus were recorded.

• Covid19.govt.nz – The official government Covid-19 advisory website

The last word

• The first joyous day of freedom from the confines of the level 4 blockade will become one of the best days in New Zealand appetite history, writes Steve Braunias, reflecting on the historic day the nation finally stopped baking. .