Covid 19 coronavirus: zero cases overnight; Papatoetoe High School refers abuse to police

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New Zealand will have to stay at least three more days at current alert levels, despite another case-free night, says a senior government minister.

Minister Peeni Henare says New Zealanders will have to wait until after tomorrow’s cabinet meeting before finding out whether Auckland will exit Tier 3 and the rest of New Zealand from Tier 2 starting at 6am on Sunday.

It revealed that there were no new Covid cases in the community overnight.

Henare said that confirming zero cases of community transmission later today would be a positive sign, but it would not mean that the lockdown would end sooner.

“The prime minister has made it clear that we are in this for seven days,” Henare told Newshub.

Meanwhile, the high school at the center of the group that has sent New Zealand’s largest city to two lockdowns has been subjected to abuse, including an email so bad it had been forwarded to the police.

Papatoetoe High School principal Vaughan Couillault says that while the school received mostly positive comments, there were negative comments on social media.

Couillault told Mike Hosking of Newstalk ZB today that by tomorrow everyone at his school would have either been screened twice or spent fifteen days in self-isolation.

“We got some emails, I got some yesterday, things like ‘fix your luck, your kids are a mess, your school is a joke, you are a joke’, all those kinds of things that you can easily say when you are anonymous and behind of a keyboard, “Couillault said.

“I gave one to the police because it had a bit of vitriol with words that would have offended my mother,” he said. “My mother is not easily offended, I must add.”

However, the police told him that there was not much they could do as there was no tangible threat, he said.

However, they followed it up to make sure it wasn’t anything more sinister.

Couillault said he was anxious for the alert level to be lowered and school to resume.

Meanwhile, Henare said that about 10,000 people had received the vaccine so far and he believed the country was on track to complete the largest vaccine program in the country.

Henare said there was “quite a long queue” for online training to carry out vaccines.

He said he was confident that the country would have enough people to carry out the general deployment by the end of this year.

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Covid-19 data modeling expert Shaun Hendy said it was an excellent sign that none of the tests taken in the community had come back positive this week.

He said that if there were no new community cases today and tomorrow, the government would likely reduce alert levels.

New Zealand had proven “lucky” this time.

He said there was a stinger in the tail of the initial outbreak, that a three-day shutdown was not enough to shut down. In this latest seven-day lockdown, the government made absolutely sure to close it with confidence.

He said it was difficult to narrow down the UK variant, but that shorter and more precise locks to control outbreaks seemed worthwhile in the long run.

“It was a good sign yesterday that none of the large amount of tests processed on Tuesday came back positive. That is an excellent sign and we hope to see the same today.”

There were a number of possible exposures to a positive case last week and so far it appeared that there had been no infections as a result.

“The only thing we know with this B.1.1.7 variant is that you really don’t want to let it get out of control. It spreads faster and takes a lot of work to control.”

He said it was a widely spread virus, so while four out of five infected people would only affect family or very close contacts, the fifth person would spread it everywhere.

He hoped that the student who attended classes and went to the gym while infected for up to a week was not that fifth person.

Hendy said one of the main lessons from this outbreak focused on contact tracing difficulties in a school community.

“It’s very different from a workplace, for example, or even a retail setting. You have a lot of chance encounters, you have kids who switch places and classrooms. I think that actually presents a great challenge.

“If we have a situation like this in a school or university in the future, we will have to be much better at our game.”

Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins said New Zealanders could “feel like there’s light at the end of the tunnel” when it comes to fighting the pandemic. But he also warns that the tunnel is “very long.”

It’s a sentiment shared by many across the country, but particularly those in Auckland who are in their fourth confinement.

Many companies are “frustrated” with the fluctuation between alert levels, which according to BusinessNZ CEO Kirk Hope is having dire consequences.

And there is a “groundhog day” feel for many students in New Zealand’s largest city, according to the president of the Auckland Secondary Principals Association, Steven Hargreaves.

Students, he said, are “really out of school for being out of school.”

But as Auckland nears what is expected to be the end of the lockdown, Mayor Phil Goff urged Auckland residents to “stay the course.”

“With the vaccine launch underway, there is high hope, but for now we just have to move on.

New Zealand is still a few months away from a comprehensive nationwide vaccination campaign, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says will begin “in the middle of the year.” Hipkins says it will be “some time” before there is a significant expansion of the program.

“We will still have to make the necessary arrangements over the next year until we get to the point where we have extensive vaccine coverage,” he said yesterday.

So far, more than 9,400 MIQ and border workers have received the vaccine.

This week another 65,000 doses arrived, which means there are 200,000 vaccines available nationwide.

But New Zealand remains vulnerable to outbreaks and changes in the alert level.

“While I am hopeful that we will see fewer outbreaks in the next year, the risk remains significant and more outbreaks are likely,” said University of Otago epidemiologist Amanda Kvalsvig.

“As we’re seeing right now, it only takes one less-than-simple outbreak in the community to cause a major disruption.”

This time, that “less than straightforward” outbreak occurred as a result of people ignoring health advice from officials.

Those are: a 21-year-old student who went to the gym and college when he should have been isolated, and his mother who broke the Level 3 restrictions to go for a walk with her friend in another bubble.

As it turned out, her friend was the mother of an already infected family.

Although epidemiologists such as Siouxsie Wiles have said that putting Auckland at alert level 3 was the right move, Kirk Hope said companies are feeling a growing sense of frustration moving between alert levels.

Auckland Council economic research shows that, on average, Auckland loses 200 jobs every day it is locked up.

“There is a growing sense of frustration, but companies are still doing their part,” Hope said.

He added that business leaders and owners will keep a close eye on the government and what it is doing to prevent further lockdowns.

It will also focus on what will happen next, how long the vaccination campaign will take, and how that may affect future alert level changes.

“People are willing to play their role, but it would get a change if people saw that there are ways to stop the alert level. [increases, which weren’t taken]. “

Macleans College Principal Steven Hargreaves said many students appreciate that this is a global pandemic and are playing their part.

“We need to be out of school and stay home. As much as we may not like it, we are taking a larger view that we all have to do our part.”

But there is a feeling that many students have a “here we go again” feeling.

Meanwhile, there was some good news yesterday: There were no new community cases of Covid-19 for the third day in a row.

This despite the fact that health officials processed more than 16,000 tests on Monday.
But Hipkins was careful not to get too excited about the number.

“I think we are still in the critical period where we are waiting to see all the test results from all the relevant close and casual contacts to come back.”

However, the Health Ministry was unable to provide the Herald with information on how many close contacts from the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) or the Hunters Plaza gym have been tested so far.

Hipkins said the government will seek to see a more complete picture of this data “before we can breathe any kind of relief.”

Chief Health Officer Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said these latest cases constitute an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to his alert level recommendations for tomorrow’s Cabinet.

– Additional reporting by Julia Gabel