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New Zealand’s low Covid-19 rates have been tinged with the sadness of a fifth death, as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson credits an Invercargill-born nurse for saving his life. Get all the important news and read the full stories at the links below.
Key developments in New Zealand
• The decline in Covid-19 rates in New Zealand has been tinged with sadness at the news of a fifth death. The fifth person to die is a man in his 80s – the third death of a group at the Rosewood Rest Home in Linwood, Christchurch. The man had been transferred from Rosewood to nearby Burwood Hospital, where it was announced today that a staff member had also hired Covid-19. Another 19 cases have been reported in the last 24 hours, but almost four times more than many people, 75, have been reported as recovered in the same period. It means that the number of active cases has dropped from 855 to 798. The 19 new cases announced today are made up of 15 confirmed cases and four probable cases. There are 15 people in the hospital, four of them in intensive care. One is in critical condition in Dunedin.
• The Government will provide highly anticipated details this Thursday on how and which companies will be able to reopen if the national uprising is lifted on April 22. While the country spent just two days at alert level 3 before moving to full closure on March 25, ministers have been discussing the details in anticipation of an April 20 announcement that the country will begin to exit the crash in the second half of next week. Thursday’s announcements are intended to give much more detail about life at Alert Levels 3 and 2 and will follow the announcements on Tuesday and Wednesday that will include economic scenarios and new measures to help companies affected by the shutdown.
• With all efforts focused on containing the coronavirus, a second epidemic is flourishing: domestic violence. Kirsty Johnston reports.
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Worldwide
• The Invercargill-born nurse credited by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for saving his life after being hit with Covid-19 is “overwhelmed” by the international response. Last night, Johnson, who has been in the hospital for a week on treatment for Covid-19, thanked the National Health Service and its staff, but noted two nurses who were at his bedside for 48 hours “when things could have been gone either way. ” . He said that Jenny from New Zealand – Invercargill “to be exact” – and Luis from Portugal were the reason that “in the end, my body started getting enough oxygen.” But Jenny McGee has more important things to do than focus on praise – she’s back at work helping others fight the deadly virus.
• 100 days have passed since the first signs of coronavirus appeared. It started as a group of pneumonia cases in China’s Wuhan and has since spread across the world, changing the lives of billions. Now, three months after the pandemic, more than 1.5 million cases of Covid-19 have been reported with more than 100,000 deaths, primarily in the United States, Italy, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom. This is how the crisis unfolded.
• By the time the President of the United States, Donald Trump, first spoke publicly about the coronavirus, it may already be too late. On January 22, Trump played down the threat posed by China’s respiratory virus, which had just arrived on the American shores in the form of a lone patient in Washington state. “We have it fully under control,” Trump said on CNBC. “He is a person who comes from China, and we have him under control. He will be fine.” In the 11 weeks after that interview, the coronavirus has infected more than 500,000 Americans and killed at least 20,000. In the following month, before the president first addressed the crisis from the White House, no key steps were taken to prepare the nation for the next pandemic.
Business update
• The governments of New Zealand and Australia should start planning a trans-Tasmanian travel “bubble” now, even if it is months before it can be safely implemented, says Auckland International Airport Executive Director Adrian Littlewood. If both countries maintain their apparent success in containing the spread of the Covid-19 virus within their own borders, the opportunity to open borders with each other would be a major boost for deeply abused tourism sectors, Littlewood said. About 54 percent of all international travel to and from New Zealand had an Australian connection last year. Littlewood’s comments agree with Australian Federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham, who predicts Australia’s international travel ban will likely continue until the end of the year, but with the potential to ease restrictions on travel to New Zealand.
• Boutique fund manager Black Crane Capital is not put off by Sky Network Television’s falling share price and high bond yields, generating considerable engagement in the expectation that the media group will emerge as a key content aggregator. The Hong Kong-based investor has quietly accumulated a 5.1 percent stake in the pay TV operator since the end of January, spending around $ 17.3 million. Despite uncertainty about how Sky would cope during the coronavirus crisis without its regular live sports offerings for several months, founder Peter Kennan said Sky has a good way of generating solid margins from content. While Kennan expects the business to go through a major transformation, he anticipates that satellite services will continue for a long time.
Joking
• When Ben O’Keeffe raises his hand, it is usually for a violation on the rugby field. Now, it is to help New Zealand, if necessary, combat the Covid-19 outbreak. The Super Rugby trial and referee is also an eye treatment doctor, and he told Elliott Smith that he has offered his services to a New Zealand healthcare system that he says is handling significantly better than its counterparts in the Foreign.
Check our chart for the latest case numbers in New Zealand.