Covid Watch

The case of a basketball star who's lost his job after refusing to get a Covid-19 jab could have wider implications. 
Tai Webster's been released by mutual consent from his Breakers contract, after refusing the vaccination due to personal reasons. 
Jackson Russell Lawyers associate, Jeremy Ansell, told Mike Hosking if an employer can show a genuine reason for requiring vaccinations, they could argue unvaccinated employees can't perform their job. 
"It's now a requirement that it be done by a vaccinated person for health and safety reasons, so employees who continue to hold out on getting the vaccine could run into difficulties with their employers." 
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There's disbelief James Shaw wants to go to a climate change conference in Scotland with an entourage of 14 people. 
The United Nations summit, dubbed Cop26, is due to start at the end of the month. 
The Climate Change Minister intends to take nine people from New Zealand and five people from overseas. 
National Party climate change spokesperson Stuart Smith told Kate Hawkesby Shaw thought it was too dangerous to go to Parliament under level four but is going to Scotland, which has a lot of Covid-19. 
"So if New Zealand's too dangerous with about 30 cases a day, why is Scotland not dangerous at all with 3833?" 
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Dr Ashley Bloomfield is confident Auckland is getting on top of stamping out its Delta outbreak. 
Auckland moves down to Alert Level Three tonight. 
Daily case numbers in the region remain in the double digits. 
But the Director-General of Health told Mike Hosking almost all of those cases are household contacts of existing cases. 
"Those are actually, for a Delta outbreak in a big city, very low numbers. In both Victoria and New South Wales they've still got really significant restrictions in place, and they've got numbers in the hundreds." 
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A top businessman is urging the Government to ease demand on MIQ by allowing loosening travel restrictions.
More than 25-thousand people logged into a virtual lobby today to clamour for one of three-thousand MIQ vouchers.
It was the first room release in weeks -- and only four-thousand more will be released each fortnight until Christmas.
Animation Research Limited Chief Executive Sir Ian Taylor says it's made it near impossible to send staff overseas.
But Taylor says all of his staff are immunised and could be regularly tested while abroad.
He says a chain of hotels have offered to step in for the workers to stay there for three days and be tested and cleared before returning.
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The New Zealand Breakers have agreed to release Tai Webster after the star guard refused the Covid-19 vaccine.
Webster, the breakout star from last season, inked a new two-year contract with the Breakers in July but will no longer be with the club after he decided not to get vaccinated due to "personal reasons".
Breakers owner Matt Walsh says the decision was mutual.
The Breakers look set to start the upcoming ANBL season scheduled for November 18 in Australia due to the Delta outbreak.
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An expert says the million-dollar question is how long Auckland will stay in Level Three.
The region moves down a level from midnight tomorrow.
Covid-19 modeller Shaun Hendy says contact tracers have had an epic five weeks, and it's now in their hands to close out this cluster.
He says we'll know in a couple of weeks whether that's worked.
Hendy says the alternative is an extended level three while we wait for vaccine rollout to finish.
He says that will be six to eight weeks from now, and so we'd rather see contact tracers win the day.
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Just when it was looking promising for Auckland to move down a fraction of a level, giving us the welcome morale booster of click and collect shopping - why in heaven's name can't we buy books in Level 4 - along comes the news that Waikato has three positive cases of Covid, including two children one of whom was symptomatic while at school.  
If the PM faffs around and holds everyone in suspense while taking ten minutes to praise a group of essential workers, to thank Auckland and to update the vaccination rates, I will probably have a cardiac infarction.  
Just give us the news - good or bad and let us deal with it.  
I cannot believe that people haven't been able to cross the Auckland Waikato border to attend funerals - and yet an Auckland prisoner is remanded out of the region.  
Explain that one.  
So now we've got all the experts piping up telling us this exposure complicates things and makes it a very difficult decision for the government and so on and so forth.  
And I'm absolutely sure it does.  
We have an under resourced public health system that will struggle to deal with a significant outbreak and given that not enough people have been vaccinated to let the virus rip, we are going to have to be cautious. 
But people who have been doing it tough, been doing the hard yards - I'm not too sure how long they can hang on.  
We have a public health system that cannot deal with a pandemic and that's the fault of successive governments; we have a woefully inadequate MIQ system - unless you're a top tier sportsman; we have a failure of our immigration department where criminals are given residency and GPs return to their home countries because they can't get certainty about their future - businesses are doing their bit but they are being let down by an inefficient government.  
How else can you explain our MIQ system and the fact that businesses and our DHBs are screaming for experienced staff and immigration won't let them in?  
So many people are white knuckling it through  this lockdown while bureaucrats and government officials make knuckle headed decisions that render their sacrifice meaningless.

I know the rest of the country is sick of hearing about this, but for the 1.6 million people who live in Auckland, we're into day 34 of level 4. 
Since the start of the pandemic that means Aucklanders have spent “6 extra weeks at levels 3 and 4” than the rest of the country, and there’s more to come.
Stuff reported that, “over the 2020 and 2021 school years, Auckland students have now missed 69 days of in person schooling, and counting, compared with 39 days for their peers elsewhere, a whole additional month of learning gone.” 
That’s before we even get to the mental, psychological and financial toll on Aucklanders. 
So for all those outside of Auckland saying, stop whining, get over it, just think about that from your perceived Level 2 luxury for a moment. 
It sucks.
The fact we're seeing more arrests for people bailing, trying to leave Auckland during this, says all you need to know — Aucklanders are over it.
The appetite for lockdown has gone, the buy in is over. 
We don’t remotely feel like any part of any team of 5 million. 
In fact that terms makes us cringe, along with the gratuitous thank you’s from the PM as she sits comfortably in Level 2.
So I think today they have no choice but to drop us into Level 3. 
Forget case numbers, they could hit 30 today and it won’t change a thing.
None of the stuff they banged on about in the beginning matters anymore. 
They’re even playing down the mystery unlinked cases now. 
They know they’re not going to achieve zero cases, they know they can’t keep us locked down forever, they know we’re over it. 
Compliance is fading, people are at their wits end.
Robertson knows, he all but confirmed the Level 3 move last Friday. 
Even Michael Baker, who they clearly got to, had changed his tune between Friday morning and Friday night. 
Did you notice that? 
Suddenly he went from saying in the morning, ‘at least another week in Level 4’ to ‘oh actually, we could probably risk Level 3 now’. 
They know. 
They don’t have the buy in. 
Hence the huge pressure to vaccinate everyone – and why I think they should’ve prioritized Aucklanders for the vaccine — like literally taken vaccine buses out to every street in South Auckland for a start.
They’ve put enormous energy, money and pressure into ‘asking’ Aucklanders to go get vaccinated, but if you’re not tuned into any media channels, you’re not hearing that. 
So they should’ve taken the vaccine to people sooner and in greater numbers. 
But here we are, D-day, and possibly the day we see the government sheepishly admit, without looking like they’re admitting it, (stand by for the spin that lockdown worked blah blah) that we’re going to have to live with Delta. 
We are going to shift down levels despite case numbers I reckon, the only question is, how long are we in Level 3 for?

Concerns over misinformation continuing to spread about the Covid vaccine.
Rumours have been circulating online in recent weeks, about people allegedly dying after getting jabbed.
National Immunisation Clinical Director Nikki Turner told Mike Hosking conspiracy theories like this are harmful and having an impact on progress.
“The problem is these days, particularly with social media, that misinformation creates its own echo chamber so that there's always one or two people in the world who are an antihero.”
73 per cent of eligible New Zealanders have received at least their first jab.
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Covid has spread to Waikato hours before Cabinet is due to review alert levels.
Cabinet ministers will gather at 12:30 this afternoon to decide if Auckland's ready to move to Level Three, from tomorrow night.
Ahead of that announcement, three members of a Waikato household - linked to a person released on remand from Mt Eden Prison - have tested positive.
The trio includes a pair of Mangatangi School students in Hauraki Plains, one of whom was sick while at school on Thursday.
Local MP Scott Simpson told Kate Hawkesby  it's worrying for the community, and the country as a whole.
“This case is one that has caused concern. People in the area are worried as for their own health and well-being, also they're worried about what it might mean for the rest of the country.”
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