Covid Watch

Apart from Auckland. the rest of New Zealand is set to move to level 2.
A Hamilton restuarant owner says he's relieved alert levels are dropping.
The Cook's Chris Rollitt says a limit of 50 people at indoor gatherings will cost them.
He says businesses need ongoing support [from the Government] to get them through.
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Business owners have been left frustrated and angry as the Government's wage subsidy application website appeared to close three hours ahead of its deadline last night. 
National’s Social Development and Employment spokesperson Louise Upston says the Government must apologise to business owners and make sure no one misses out on wages.
Louise Upston joined Kerre McIvor.
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Before we blow a fuse at managed isolation, let's have some context. Nearly 170,000 people have been through the system. 
12 escapes all up involving 16 people, and that includes this one we had yesterday, who'd been in there not even 7 hours before he made his break. 
What makes you sick about this guy is that a whole bunch of police have had to go chasing after him, and be exposed to him. 
They now all have to be tested and I suppose isolate until they come up clear. 
Ironically, if they've caught it in the process of picking this character up, they'll end up in MIQ. 
The point is that this one escape is really serious; the guy has put a whole lot of people at risk. 
We don't know anything yet about where he went while he was out and who else might have been exposed. 
Hopefully, because everyone is meant to be at home and this happened in the middle of the night, it won't be a lot of people. 
But there was a driver, whether that person was a deliberate accessory is another matter. 
What I'm wondering, is whether this guy should have been in MIQ at all. 
From what I've read of his online ranting and raving, the man was not a willing guest of the system. 
That would have been clear from the get-go, so to point the bone at MIQ for the escape seems unfair. 
And now we're plucking people from their homes into obligatory quarantine, we can expect more of this. 
And we need to have, what shall I call it, alternative accommodation for those who don't want to play the game.

So once again we're on our seemingly never-ending quest to hold this government to account by asking a few simple questions. 
Just to refresh the past 24 hours events, a bloke breaks free from MIQ. That's another leak. 
And it's another reminder that Delta, one way or another, was arriving and a series of plans and executions around vaccinations, MIQ, capacity, contact tracing, and hospital capacity might have, could have, should have, been in place given we started learning these lessons 18 months ago. 
So, at the 1pm Pulpit of Truth, we learn the Prime Minister, the chief instigator of the idea that this would be the most open, honest and transparent govt this country has ever seen, was standing in front of us announcing Level 3 for Northland. 
No announcement, yet again, on the extra vaccine this country so desperately needs, given they didn’t go hard or early on anything to do with a needle. 
And while filling the air with the usual puffery, the real story is unfolding. The story of the escapee was not presented to the nation despite the fact the Prime Minister was in full receipt of the facts of an escape. She arrived, made the usual noises, departed, and yet at no point told us about what really the most important detail of the day was. 
Yet again, a person had escaped from MIQ, Thelma and Louise like, and was on the run as she spoke. He had been on the run for hours. 
The security, yet again, asleep at the wheel. They were only alerted by the family, who did the right thing given the state had yet again failed in their duty. 
The Prime Minister, in her never-ending desire to run fluff pieces to distract us, talked of bus drivers being abused verbally and how shocking this all was. No kindness, no teddies, tut tut tut it's not good enough. 
What about the escapee? What about the hours of Covid in the community? Nothing, not a word. The Pulpit of Truth, yet again, the Pulpit of Deception. 
The biggest city in the country in level 4, a crippling economic and mental health impact, the rest of the country barely into level 3, and the Prime Minister yet again manipulates, hides, diverts, spins, and avoids anything that might remind us of what a bunch of fundamentally manipulative Machiavellian and basically dishonest bunch they really are. 
What she hid yesterday was indefensible. Show me I'm wrong.

Warnings that Covid restrictions could continue for several more weeks to come. 
There are 720 community cases in Auckland, and 16 in Wellington. 
Experts have told Newstalk ZB Auckland may have to remain under the toughest Level 4 restrictions for another three to four weeks. 
Auckland Business Chamber Chief Executive Michael Barnett told Mike Hosking the rules are taking a huge toll on Auckland, and the rest of the country. 
"Tourism in Fiordland and Queenstown, recruitment in Rotorua, nurseries in Tauranga, manufacturing in the Waikato. They all have the same desperate stories." 
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Grant Robertson is vowing not to let another MIQ escape happen again. 
A Covid-positive man left Auckland's Ellerslie quarantine facility around 1am yesterday, but wasn't arrested until early in the afternoon. 
He's been charged with failing to comply with the Covid-19 health order, and remanded to another facility to complete his quarantine. 
Security has also been beefed up at the Ellerslie site. 
The Deputy Prime Minister told Mike Hosking they are investigating how it all went wrong.  
"Clearly something happened that none of us our happy about, but the reality is it's one incident in more than a year. we'll make sure it doesn't happen again." 
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The Education Minister has laid out changes to NCEA because of lockdown.
Chris Hipkins says the changes will kick in if schools are disrupted by Alert Level 3 or 4, for more than 20 school days.
Students would be entitled to one extra Learning Recognition Credit for every five credits earned - up to 10 at NCEA Level One, and eight at levels Two and Three.
Course Endorsements would require 12 credits instead of 14, and University Entrance will require 12 credits instead of 14 - in three University Entrance approved subjects.
But NCEA isn't the only challenge facing students. A study has found they do worse when they use a computer to learn about math, reading, and science. Which exactly what they're doing in lockdown.
Claire Amos Principal of Albany Senior High School says putting technology put into the hands of teenagers without the strategies, skills and a change of design in how they learn, means [using a computer] is not going to help with their learning.
She also says educators are lacking confidence is how to design online learning.
But what she says is even more concerning is the approximate 100,000 who don't have access to a device or robust wifi.
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National wants big changes to be made to the MIQ booking system; to make it fairer. They want a ban on bots, a new point system to prioritize bookings, a waiting list, more transparency over room release dates and a new Kiwi expat advisory group. 
National leader Judith Collins says “it's important to have a system that is actually fair and takes into account the fact that we've got people who can't get home to be with dying relatives or who can't go overseas for particular medical treatment, because they don't think they can get back again.” 
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Australian Atates grappling with Delta have abandoned elimination and one is offering incentives.
Daily Delta cases have risen sharply in Victoria, with 176 recorded.
New South Wales has 1288 new cases and seven deaths.
Both say easing of restrictions will be linked to vaccination rates.
Correspondent Murray Olds says New South Wales Premier knows they won't beat Delta.
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Contact tracers are racing to find out if anyone was exposed to a Covid-19 patient who busted out of MIQ.
Police in PPE arrested the man this afternoon at a house in Otahuhu - almost 10-kilometres from the quarantine facility he'd been confined in.
It's thought he fled the Ellerslie Novotel and Ibis facility about one-am.
He has been charged under the Health Order, and bailed back to MIQ by an Auckland District Court judge, after appearing by video-link.
Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall says public health teams are interviewing the escapee.
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