Covid Watch

Kiwi shot putter Tom Walsh is considering moving out of New Zealand next year because of MIQ.
He is the latest athlete to raise concerns over the inability to pursue his dreams because of MIQ making it too hard to base himself in New Zealand.
Walsh told Heather du Plessis-Allan he is looking at basing himself in the US from March.
"I have World Indoors in mid-March, and then I have World Champs in mid-July followed by Commonwealth Games in late July, and so I really can't afford two weeks in an MIQ hotel room between mid-March and mid-July, it's just not suitable for trying to win both World Championships and Commonwealth Games."
LISTEN ABOVE

The Auckland hospitality sector is gearing up for Level 2 next week.
Auckland Council is letting cafes and restaurants extend their dining space out into the street.
But the catch is that it will come at a cost for businesses wanting to apply for a new street trading license.
Heart of the City's Viv Beck joined Heather du Plessis-Allan.
LISTEN ABOVE

Hopes New Zealand isn't too far behind Australia, with opening our borders.
It's set to allow international travel for fully vaccinated Australian travellers in November.
There'll be seven-day home quarantine on return, in states and territories ready to open.
People will still have to do 14 days in MIQ if they're unvaccinated.
Board of Airlines Justin Tighe Umbers told Heather du Plessis-Allan the clock is ticking for us with the rest of the world opening quickly.
“We don’t get a hoof on down here, when New Zealand flights have only got about 30 passengers coming into them in many instances, airlines are just going to shift their planes north.”
LISTEN ABOVE

There needs to be perspective in understanding Covid-19 death modelling.  
DHBs and the Ministry of Health have developed contingency plans, in the event of an uncontrolled Covid outbreak.  
The plans, obtained under the Official Information Act, set out levels depending on how wide the virus is circulating, and hospital capacity.  
Australasian College for Emergency Medicine President John Bonning told Mike Hosking people need to understand the statistics of what happens in hospitals normally.  
"When you hear statistics like there's going to be six deaths a week from Covid, there's six or seven hundred deaths per week, generally. And people perhaps don't understand that." 
LISTEN ABOVE

Prediction time, don’t we love prediction time? It's what we do when are locked up full of fear having dropped from 1st to 38th in the world. 
The world open, we are not, but we are still supposed to be grateful. 
Anyway, the good thing about this Government is they are not that smart. And as such, spend their lives in a state of panic worrying about what fire to put out each day. They live in a 24-hour cycle.  
That’s why we have no plan, they don’t plan because they are too busy hosing stuff down. 
Sir John Key strikes at the weekend, it resonates, they flip out and bam, a week's worth of announcements. Oranga Tamariki, immigration, and self-isolation. Pick a day, pick an announcement. 
The other game they play in the lead up to the next level decision is dropping hints. The first one, a while back, was Auckland needed to get to 90 percent first jabs. We most likely won't make it, but it will be close. 
I put the fact the Prime Minister messed that up by telling us to get to 90 percent and then saying it didn’t matter down to forgetfulness. When you are spinning as hard as they are, it must be difficult to remember all the bollocks you have got to get out there in any given day. 
Then we get some encouragement around the numbers, until Wednesday arrived with the dreaded 45 cases. But no matter, they went back to their spin. 
We heard it's to be expected. We heard about mystery cases. We heard about known cases. We heard about household cases. We heard about cluster cases. It reminds us that, despite all they have said for the past two years about zeros and elimination, numbers don’t actually matter if they don’t want them to. 
Then yesterday, another clue. The warning that Auckland, even if it goes to Level 2 will still be cordoned off. That's the bad news, they will save the good news for Monday. 
And on Monday when they move to Level 2 and you can get a haircut, and go to a café, you will be grateful and hopefully forget you can't leave the city. And because you can't leave the city the rest of the country will go to Level 1, and they won't give a monkey’s about Auckland. 
That is not a firm prediction. We still have plenty of numbers to come, but politics has largely over taken health and elimination is now over. 
So, as we sit here this morning, some sort of Level 2 is more likely than not to be on its way come Monday.

We're all over this lockdown, but it doesn't mean we can take it out on business owners.  
There has been a reportedly huge increase on business owners copping abuse for things out of their control. Things like unrealistic demands for stock, having to queue outside because of a lack of space in a store or at having to wear a mask.  
In fact, the Sewing Depot in Petone is actually closing down for the foreseeable future; saying it was the only choice for the safety and mental wellbeing of staff after the abuse had gotten so bad.  
Retail NZ chief executive Greg Harford joined Mike Hosking. 
LISTEN ABOVE

Tourism businesses around the country expect to be left in the cold without Aucklanders for these school holidays.  
Even if the city moves to alert level two, it's unlikely the border would come down. 
Many tourist operators around the country are bracing for big losses in income.  
Tourism Industry Aotearoa Chief Executive Chris Roberts told Mike Hosking it will cause other issues too.  
"The majority of the school holiday related events have been cancelled. All those school tournaments, without the Auckland teams participating, most of those have been cancelled." 
LISTEN ABOVE

I won’t be here next week because I’m off for a week of the school holidays; to my living room, like every other Aucklander, but before I go, I thought I’d make a prediction for Monday. 
I still think, as I said the other day, that we’ll go to Level 2 in Auckland and Level 1 for the rest of the country. But it won’t be called Level 2, it’ll be a new bespoke arrangement, some version of a 2 with a cutesy catchphrase they’ll think up to try to make it sound fun; like Delta 2.5+ or something.  
They'll just want to give us the illusion we're not in 3 anymore. It’ll include a hard boundary around Auckland, as we know already. But, we will get hairdressers open and a few shops, the idea being that we feel so grateful and appreciative for that, that we forget about how long we’ve had our freedoms taken off us. 
I know people tend to predict things they hope will happen, and I’m guilty of this too, this may be my hope overriding my common sense, but I just can’t see how they keep Auckland in 3 and the rest of the country in 2. When in the same breath they keep saying they’ve got control of this, that there’s no widespread transmission, and that they’re not worried about case numbers. 
Of course, if that’s the case, then what the hell have we been doing locked up all this time? 
But logic is not their strong suit, nor reason, they’ll simply look for appropriate spin, and hope we suck it down like Kool Aid. 
I’m finding fewer and fewer people around these days who find lockdowns a good idea. 
You’ve got the odd retired person, or those who’ve swallowed the fear messaging who seem to enjoy it, but anyone with a business, a young family, teenagers, students, or half a brain about the country’s economy and debt levels, are over it.  
We don’t have the same novelty around it this time, it’s been longer and more painful, we’ve had less clarity (if that’s even possible), there’s been no plan, and the ultimate sting that much of this could've been avoided, had we made a decent and timely vaccine order back when everyone else did. 
Every tunnel needs a light at the end to drag us through it. This one has just felt like a long dark tunnel. 
A torch flickers on and off periodically when they talk about vaccination rates, but then they back peddle and say ‘oh actually vaccinations are not the only thing that’ll get us out of lockdowns’. 
So how much is on us and how much is on them? It’s their job to sort ICU nurses and ventilators and vaccines and access to vaccines, all we can do is get vaccinated. 
Given this Government’s addicted to good press, I reckon we’ll see a political decision made Monday to appease people; a drop of sorts, a bone thrown. I don’t even care anymore, as long as they open the hairdressers.

The school holidays start today, but it may not provide much relief to struggling businesses around the country.  
The Prime Minister signalled that Auckland's border will probably stay closed, even if the city moves down to Alert Level Two.  
It's not the news many businesses dependent on Aucklanders wanted to hear. 
Blenheim's Phoenix Inn owner Marty Kennedy told Kate Hawkesby the situation is tough. 
"When you hear those numbers in Auckland going up... you just shake your head and wonder when they're going to get out of this in any great hurry." 
LISTEN ABOVE

I bet there are a bunch of people up and down this country walking around with smiles on their faces today after that immigration announcement this morning.  
This is going to make the world of difference for so many migrants who haven't had any certainty for 18 months. 
They haven’t known if they’d be allowed to stay in New Zealand, they haven't been able to buy a house, they haven’t been able to open Kiwisaver, they haven’t been able to bring their families over. 
It is hard to imagine how tough that must’ve been. You think how hard it’s been – if you’re in Auckland – not to see your friends, siblings and parents for nearly 7 weeks.  Imagine that but it’s your spouse and your kids and it’s 18 months.  
And it’s going to make the world of difference for employers who have been terrified of losing their migrant workers overseas.  
We’ve heard from farmers losing staff who’ve moved Canada because Canada is more welcoming to migrants. 
We’ve heard of clinics losing their doctors back to the UK. 
And these employers know that once the staff are gone it is close to impossible to get replacements in through MIQ or even find Kiwi workers in a very, very tight domestic labour market.  
No one, literally no one, I’ve seen today has criticised this decision.   
Business associations, farmers, doctors, think tanks, the opposition parties have all said it’s the right call. 
Even a union praised it. And you’d expect the unions to be potential critics because they represent kiwi workers who we are told have their wages undercut by migrant workers. 
So, what does that tell you? It tells you this was the right call and it should’ve been made ages ago. 
Begs the question why wasn’t it made earlier, before we lost God-knows-how-many critical workers overseas. I suspect the biggest holdback was Kris Faafoi himself: he knew he had a problem but he didn’t know how to fix it. He was just out of ideas.  
Then in August, National’s Erica Standford released her policy idea of a Covid Contribution Visa, he took it, tweaked it a bit, renamed it the 2021 Resident Visa and voila, problem solved. 
Yes, it took too long to get here. Yes, it took a huge amount of political pressure to force Faafoi from his Wairarapa semi-retirement. Yes, we lost too many workers in the meantime. But we’ve got a solution and it’s a good one. So, it’s a good day.