Covid Watch

Get off the screen and stretch your legs. 
That's the message from an expert in mental wellbeing after new research showing a marked increase in device-time during lockdown.  
Neuroscience educator Nathan Wallis told Kate Hawkesby exercise is crucial. 
"People go on about it, but it makes a huge difference to your mental health. Kick-start the hormones that are in your brain and you can get that from just 20 minutes exercise a day, actually you can get it from just walking to the mailbox and back." 
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We could be waiting a little bit longer to know if the short, sharp lockdown is bringing the Covid-19 outbreak under control. 
New Zealand now has at least 148 cases in the community. 
The Ministry of Health has also identified more than 15,000 contacts and more than 450 visits to almost 350 locations of interest, with Farmers Westfield Albany being added to the list this morning. 
Canterbury University Covid modeller Michael Plank told Mike Hosking more contacts will be identified, but it will take time. 
"We do have to be patient, I'm sure those contact tracing teams are working as hard as they can to find those contacts, get them in and get them tested." 
Meanwhile, Otago University's Michael Baker says he's concerned that a staff member at Middlemore Hospital's Emergency Department has tested positive for Covid-19. 
However, health officials say the risk to the public remains low as the person is fully vaccinated, and showing no symptoms. 
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The Government’s Covid-19 fast track consenting process is being branded a success. 
It’s seen the $1.2 billion Sleepyhead Estate in north Waikato granted resource consent for its foam factory. 
The consent allows for five buildings and infrastructure, with the factory expected to be operational in 2023. 
Comfort Group director and developer Craig Turner told Mike Hosking the fast-track process worked well. 
"It takes into account all of the resource management issues; it just cuts through all the palaver and makes it happen really quickly." 
The factory is the first stage of the master-planned development at Ohinewai - which comprises a 178-hectare manufacturing hub and residential community. 
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As soon as Headquarters in Auckland's Viaduct can re-open, proof of vaccination will be needed to enter.
The restaurant and bar is a location of interest due to a recent positive Covid-19 case.
Thirty staff members were working at the time of exposure on the 14th of August.
Owner Leo Molloy told Mike Hosking mandating vaccines will be relatively easy to implement when they reopen.
"You get a small, library-sized card given to you. I've photographed that and put that on my iphone, so fairly basic to prodcue that, no different to any other form of ID."
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Frustration from the opposition over an alleged Government lack of transparency over New Zealand's Delta outbreak.
National's Covid-19 Response spokesperson is pushing for the last year's Epidemic Response Committee to be reinstated.
It would allow the committee to question the pandemic response, without being shut down.
Chris Bishop says he attempted to ask Chris Hipkins how many contacts have had a test, but the chair jumped in to say he couldn't ask that. Bishop said it's "just Labour running interference."
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Since the beginning of the Delta outbreak there have been long queues in various areas for covid tests and yesterday a record 50,000 Covid-19 tests were processed.  
Richard Prebble in the New Zealand Herald suggested the alternative of rapid DIY Covid tests being brought into New Zealand to get people self-testing. 
But Vaccinologist Helen Petousis Harris is sceptical of whether this solution would work, saying they will likely have a place in the future but not right now. 
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I’m feeling for the teachers this lockdown. 
For everyone to be honest, not just the teachers, and also while we’re at it, those of us parents having to juggle work and home schooling while also keeping households calm, well stocked, as well as walking the dog. What a time.  
Feeling slightly jealous of the people able to just sit back and watch Netflix this lockdown! 
But the teachers have been thrown back into something most of them don’t enjoy – and that’s having to drum up all their lessons into online learning. 
So much of what happens in the classroom these days is practical, hands on and experiential. That’s tough when kids are sitting at home in their PJs with a laptop on their knees trying to decipher worksheets. 
Made tougher if they have parents who, like me, aren’t the most helpful on the old maths front.  
I mean to be fair to us, it’s a long time since we did maths right? How are we supposed to remember how to multiply fractions? Actually, I can multiply fractions, it’s the algebra that throws me. We didn’t bank on having to repeat it did we? 
But for the teachers this is tricky. And it’s by no means easy for the kids either. 
My daughter lamented the fact yesterday that she didn’t have all her school supplies at home. The school had given them a heads up about a week before lockdown to clear their lockers and take all their books and bags home. They’d obviously had a directive from the Ministry of Education or Health that a lockdown may be imminent and it’d be prudent to prepare. 
I remember that day vividly because my daughter came out of school at pick up time loaded down with bags, convinced we were going into lockdown that night.  
“We must be” she said, “because they’ve made us take all our books home and they said be ready for online learning!” But that was a whole week before we actually went into lockdown. And here we are, and though yes, we’ve been here before, it's not the easiest. 
The teachers, from what I’ve seen, are doing a fantastic job.  
They’re trying their best to make the learning manageable, they’re trying to get the balance right between workload and downtime. Many of the teachers doing the online learning have kids of their own at home needing attention in the background too. 
Much like last time, I notice my daughter is working harder and longer for online lessons than she does at school.  
The first day she didn’t take a single break and forgot to eat. Without the punctuation of a bell, it can be confusing for them to stick to structure, so we’re trying to manage that better.  
It’s stressful for the kids, but I’m grateful to the teachers who’re showing compassion for that, who’re abandoning and redesigning their lesson plans as they try to work around the circumstances. 
And to the ones keeping the kids’ morale up by making some of the online learning fun and checking in on their mental health, they’re the best teachers of them all.

A major New Zealand retailer is confident shoppers will be back sooner rather than later.  
Under Alert Level Four Briscoes can deliver essential items to customers – but its stores remain closed.  
Group Managing Director Rod Duke told Mike Hosking they aren’t seeing the pent-up demand like last time – probably because people don’t think the lockdown will last  
He says he’s more confident this lockdown.  
"I think if we end up like some of the states in Australia when we have lockdown for 210 days it might be quite different, but at this particular point I don't see us heading in that direction." 
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Further revelations for you on our vaccine rollout, or lack of it. 
As we told you yesterday, as far as we can ascertain, we are the only western first world country rolling out a single vaccine. That alone, given all the other issues we have had with the Ministry of Health, should be of concern enough. 
Just what is it about us that makes us so spectacularly more insightful, skilful ,experienced, or advanced that we can chart a course unknown to anyone else? 
But I read yesterday that because of this approach, we turned down supply of other vaccines back in March. In others words we could have got more of other brands. We turned them down. I hope it's wrong. 
But it's a scandal. 
The premise of our single vaccine rollout, which comes from multiple interactions with the likes of Chris Hipkins and Ashley Bloomfield, is based on nothing more than they thought Pfizer was a good product. 
So far it is, but it's not the only good product. Their argument only holds up if we can all see that that every other vaccine, for whatever reason, isn't quite as good as the choice we made. It only holds up if they can point to the vaccines they didn’t buy and show us the why we, as the end consumer, would be happy with their choice. 
AstraZeneca? Yes, big issues. But new testing suggests efficacy may end up being better than Pfizer's and as Australia has shown us, they are jabbing at about the fastest rate in the world and a lot of it is AstraZeneca. 
We have, of course, also bought, but not rolled out, Johnson and Johnson, a single shot product. That doesn’t arrive here anyway until later this year. 
But, and it's a big but, Moderna would appear has always appeared the equal of Pfizer. And now the latest studies show it may be potentially superior. We don’t have any. 
So, their ‘Pfizer is the best’ line is dodgy at best and scandalous and dishonest at worst. 
So, the decision, and level 4 proves it, was a mistake. Pfizer is a good product, but no incentive payment to speed delivery and supply always an issue. They told us don’t worry we don’t have Covid 
The simple truth is they didn’t cover their bases. There was no urgency in dealing with Pfizer and we now, apparently, know when other product was offered, we turned it away. Where has that approach got us? 
Enjoy day 8 of level 4 going nowhere fast.

The Finance Minister expects big businesses will take up the wage subsidy if the level four lockdown goes on longer.    
Close to 130-thousand businesses have applied – but so far only one has more than 500 staff. 
Grant Robertson told Mike Hosking larger corporates have had a good year and their balance sheets are strong. 
He says Westpac economists are predicting a six percent drop in GDP in the September quarter, but a nine percent rebound in the December quarter. 
"I think that will be the calculation a number of those businesses are making, actually there is a temporary slow down here but the rebound is strong." 
But Robertson says cashflow will become an issue the longer the lockdown goes on. 
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