Covid Watch

The Government is being accused of buying time.
A roadmap has been announced for Auckland in Alert Level Three, easing restrictions on a weekly basis.
Retailers will be able to open under step two, while hospitality and hairdressers have to wait until step three.
Employers and Manufacturers Association Chief Executive Brett O'Reilly told Heather Du Plessis Allan he gives it a 1 out of 10.
“There’s nothing in this really substantive for business beyond the early childhood education piece. It’s great 10 people can have a picnic, but what about 10 people that have been fully vaccinated who want to go to work?”
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The cops need to charge Brian Tamaki for that protest at the weekend for one primary reason: social cohesion. 
The Prime Minister is absolutely right.  That was a slap in the face for Aucklanders who have been following very strict rules for 7 weeks now.  
I can’t even begin to imagine how infuriating it was for business owners who are losing their livelihoods and homes to watch Tamaki thumb his nose at these rules.
Many people hate the rules, but we follow them anyway for the greater good.
It is extremely damaging to social cohesion and the willingness of people to keep following the rules if we witness people like Brian Tamaki getting away with flagrantly disobeying them.
I think the cops made a massive misjudgement in trying to take a softer ‘education first’ approach with lockdown rule breakers.
They ignored the Black Lives Matter protests, they’ve laid no charges as far as we know for the gang tangi in West Auckland on Friday, and now this.
Instead, they gave the protest their tacit endorsement by meeting with Tamaki beforehand and negotiating a compromise for all attendees to wear masks.
I think they have completely underestimated the rage of Kiwis over this.
Social media is furious and more than 60,000 people have signed a petition calling for police to charge Tamaki.
My guess is that the cops decided it was better to take a light touch at the protest because arresting Tamaki might only turn him into a martyr and harden the attitudes of his followers who are already sounding very anti-vax and anti-mask and anti-authority.
But what the cops are risking is frustrating potentially many, many times more people who’ve watched this unfold and feel even more disheartened about compliance with the rules.
Auckland – and in fact the country really – has a long road of it with restrictions for some time yet.
If the cops want to increase the number of people who stay on board with these rules, they need to make an example of him and charge him.
And then they need to charge every other person who is caught breaking the rules from here on in.

Well haven’t we worked ourselves up into a tis was. 
Frustration with 7 weeks of lockdown in Auckland is starting to boil over in public with claims that everything is failing and not working and will never work. We’re being left behind and there is no plan.  And it’s all this Labour government’s fault.
There have been calls to give up the lockdown strategy. To open our borders and start to live again. 
But has New Zealand’s strategy against Covid really been such a failure. 
Melbourne today celebrates it’s 246th day in lockdown becoming the world’s most locked down city.  Meanwhile Sydney approaches their 100th day in a row.  A rough back of the envelope calculation shows that Auckland is around 120 days all up since March 2020. 
On Saturday Melbourne had 1176 cases and 3 deaths. On Saturday 10 people died in New South Wales.  No body died in Auckland and there were 33 cases. 
While Covid was not eliminated, it was mitigated by the lockdown strategy preventing hospitalisation that we could not cope with. Call me a glass half full fella but I call that a success. 
But, like everyone, I want the lockdowns to stop and in every country where they have there is only one factor that led to their scrapping; and that is the level of vaccination in a population. 
We’re so close to hitting those goals I wonder why on earth would anyone want to throw out the effort that we have made so far. 
There has been a lot of talk about anti vaxxers and the vaccine hesitant but I’m more worried that New Zealand’s remarkable success over the past 18 months is now working against us. 
Last night’s television gave us this admission from a Raglan resident. 
“Before you didn’t really think too much about it but now it’s arrived it’s time for a test and a jab.” 
What an astounding degree of complacency. The Auckland truck driver who drove to Palmerston North: unvaccinated.  The 2 in Raglan: unvaccinated. There appears to be no urgency to get the jab amongst a small minority of New Zealanders.
Not because of ethical grounds, just complacency.
Maybe it’s because we have been fortunate compared to the rest of the world. We’ve worked 464 days since the beginning of the pandemic as opposed to 82 in Australia and 75 in Britain. We don’t have neighbours and family members dying gruesomely. 
But this tardiness has a terrible consequence and that’s a loss of a billion dollars a week from our economy.  You would have thought that was more than enough motivation.

It may surprise you to know that I was a difficult teenager. Dynamite. My biggest fear was being grounded during the school holidays. The threat of that was a trusty tool in my parents' box. After all, being grounded sucks. 
Which is how Aucklanders must feel as the school holidays dawn. Grounded at home. Grounded from leaving the city. After seven weeks of lockdown, Auckland is ground down. Businesses are buckling and people are brassed off. Aucklanders need a break from level 3. 
If you’ve been following the daily case count, over the past thirty days, the ticker has been stubbornly averaging around twenty cases a day. The outbreak hasn’t got substantially worse or better. Elimination is an illusion. When is the government going to stop the denial and publicly admit they are switching to active suppression. 
Waikato will have put the wind up the Beehive. They’ll now be spooked about lowering Auckland alert to Level 2. But for the sake of the wider city, even if it’s a hairy-chested Level 2 or 2 point five, drop it they should. 
The Ministry of Health should man up and go hard at Delta’s epicentre, the seven suburbs of interest that continue to spawn cases, including transitional housing. We need mandatory mass-testing, saliva-based, in a hyper local crackdown to lasso this virus where it’s seeding and spreading. Target those suburbs with elevated restrictions and let wider Auckland have a half-decent staycation, supporting and resuscitating local businesses, in Level 2. 
Auckland’s iron ring, the boundary, is utterly dysfunctional. Workers should only be allowed to cross it if you’re fully vaccinated and pass a negative test, whether you’re on the road or jumping on a plane. 
Beyond Auckland, many regions are agitating for Level 1. The most compelling case is the South Island, who haven’t clocked a Covid case for three hundred and thirty two days. Cup and Show Week will soon be trashed, if the South stays stranded in Level 2. Let them off the leash. Loosen the noose. 
But it’s Auckland that really needs a breather. You’ve suffered and sacrificed, long enough.

Calls for the business community to lead the way on vaccination.
The head of a travel company wants a logo which indicates when an staff's entire business is vaccinated.  
Unvaccinated international travellers will be banned from flying with Air New Zealand, from February. 
Southern Crossings Chief Executive Sarah Farag told Tim Dower vaccination needs to be incentivised.  
"I think soon enough we've got to see that actually being fully vaccinated does mean something." 
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Most small businesses are backing mandatory vaccination in workplaces. 
A survey by the Auckland Business Chamber suggests 90 percent of small and medium sized businesses want it. 
Chief executive Michael Barnett says told Mike Yardley the Government must mandate it, otherwise the obvious legal battles would come. 
"It's about safety and it's safety for workplaces and safety for the consumers and the Government needs to remove the ambiguity and give clarity for employers and do it now." 
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Greg Foran is defending the decision to require international passengers from 18-years-old to be fully vaccinated from early next year. 
Air New Zealand's new travel requirement will be in place from February. 
It will apply to all passengers aged 18 and older, arriving or departing New Zealand.  
Customers who aren't vaccinated will be required to present proof of an exemption. 
The Air New Zealand Chief Executive says told Mike Yardley it makes sense for the age requirement to start from 18.  
"That fits in most sensibly with what countries are doing in terms of vaccinating people around the world." 
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A claim officers didn't have much choice in their response to an anti-lockdown protest organised by Destiny Church.  
About two thousand protesters gathered at Auckland's War Memorial Museum on Saturday, without arrests. 
The president of the Police Association says the event could have turned messy if police had been more heavy-handed.  
Chris Cahill says told Mike Yardley now it's all over, consequences need to be meted out. 
"I'd be disappointed if there wasn't charges against key people that organised it." 
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Some more news from health officials on Waikato's covid outbreak. 
Hamilton and the Waikato District are waking up in a Level 3 Lockdown, following confirmation of cases in Raglan and Hamilton East. 
Jacinda Ardern says some of the household contacts of the Raglan case have now tested positive. 
However, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson says told Mike Yardley it's better news for the cases in Hamilton East and Palmerston North. 
"None of the close or household contacts of either the truck driver who went to Palmerston North or the person in Hamilton have tested positive so that was some positive news." 
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Hamilton is waking up back in lockdown following the confirmation of two new cases in Waikato. 
As well as the city, Tamahere, Raglan, Ngāruāwahia, Huntly and the rest of the Waikato District have moved to Alert Level Three. 
Other towns, including Cambridge and Te Awamutu remain in Level Two.  
Hamilton Mayor Paula Southgate told Tim Dower everyone is being trusted to play their part. 
"Hamiltonians, people passing through Hamilton, people living on the outskirts of Hamilton, they've all got the pay their part. Because if they don't this, won't work as soon as we'd like it to." 
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