Covid Watch

National says the Government does not need powers to deal with Covid anymore.

Documents leaked to Newshub show it's now proposing retaining existing powers - due to expire in May - to 2025.

Latest official figures show case numbers are continuing to rise week-on-week.

But, National Leader Christopher Luxon told Mike Hosking it's time to move on.

“Why do we actually need it? Is the big question.”

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Almost heartbreakingly and yet entirely predictably, a bunch of media outlets have gone back to that tired, old, and lazy approach to Covid reporting. That's asking Michael Baker what he thinks.

Desperate to drum up yet more alarm and fear, he wants a return to the alert level systems because we have new variants and death is coming.

What wasn’t covered to the extent it should have been, was the government's announcement of the extension to their health and wellness support package, First Steps.

It was a $60 million programme rolled out to deal with the stress, anxiety, fear, depression, and general mental health damage that was inflicted upon us by the government through their approach to Covid.

Why do you think it's being extended? Demand is the answer.

What we should be focusing on is the damage. Not more fear, speculation, and modelling.

The Reserve Bank's unfolding $9 billion dollar fits into the same category. You and I are paying for Adrian Orr's printing spree and Grant Robertson's almost inexplicable desire to indemnify him for the damage he has done.

The trouble with mental health is it’s not as tangible as a $9 billion hole. Or a bit of titillation around variants, cases, death, and everything else we got obsessed with in the dark days.

And because it's intangible, it's also hard to measure in terms of length. How long does the damage go on for and in what form? Did the business go bust? Or is it still operating but the owner is just a shell of what they once were?

Does the malaise that sits over the country in terms of fear, violence, truancy and crime get measured as part of our Covid response?

This country, as a whole, is a shell of its former self. We are inward-looking, angry, and unsettled. It’s a direct outworking of being a hermit kingdom and being so tragically slow to reopen to the world.

Yes, the whole world has issues. But we have a bad case of those issues and the mental health damage done as a result has not got the attention it deserves. Nor have the government been held to the level of account they should have been.

Because, instead of holding a few feet to the fire, when Stuart Nash announces an extension to a mental health programme the media, as they so often do these days, simply reprint the press release, as opposed to asking why, and making the government explain whether they think the ongoing cost and damage is a reasonable price to pay for their world-leading door locking exercise they put us through.

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A lot of people who are eligible for live-saving medication don't know enough about it.

Research shows the antiviral tablet Paxlovid reduces the risk of severe Covid infection by over 80 percent.

But the Ministry of Health has found people with a higher risk of Covid hospitalisation or death are relatively unaware of the benefits of antivirals.

College of GPs Medical Director Bryan Betty told Mike Hosking he wants to see the medicine used more.

“They are being used in a widespread way, but not quite as much we’d like probably due to lack of awareness about antivirals.”

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Voluntary administrators have been appointed to Ruapehu Alpine Lifts Limited, which will keep it trading while trying to figure out the best way forward.

The company runs Mt Ruapehu's Whakapapa and Turoa ski areas - currently employing 196 staff.

Covid-19 and poor weather has meant the fields have significant cash flow issues.

Ruapehu mayor-elect Weston Kirton is most worried about those who work there and he'll be doing everything he can to cater for them using the mayoral taskforce.

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Coaching guru Wayne Goldsmith joins Piney with an in-depth look at the world sporting landscape after the pandemic disruptions.

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Hopes studies into long Covid will better illuminate how it affects New Zealanders.

The Ministry of Health is funding a range of research into the condition, including a national register of people with symptoms.

Auckland University Health Economics Chair, Paula Lorgelly, says around 10 to 20 percent of people infected get long Covid.

She told Tim Dower that means at least 170,000 New Zealanders have long Covid.

Lorelly says we don't know how it manifests in New Zealand, a place with high vaccinations and no immunity from the first few waves of the pandemic.

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The Finance Minister is standing by decisions to borrow a lot of money to get through Covid, after the Government's books were opened.

Treasury has reported a budget deficit of $9.7 billion, almost half the Budget forecast.

Grant Robertson told Tim Dower relative to where we thought we'd be, and the rest of the world, we've done well.

He says every country had to find a way of dealing with this massive shock, and the accounts show we've come through it better than most.

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Canstar have released a survey of 700 small business owners, which shows many small business owners feel positive about their futures, having survived the struggles of recent years.

Along with feeling optimistic, more than a third of small businesses say their revenue has also increased in the past twelve months.

Jose George is the general manager of Canstar New Zealand, and he joined Roman Travers.

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More than a third of young people in the UK feel like their lives are spiralling out of control, according to new data.

The survey was conducted among 16 to 25 year olds, and it found that a majority of them were concerned about the future. 

Between living through Covid-19 and an ongoing cost of living crisis, UK correspondent Gavin Grey has a clear explanation for why these people have such a pessimistic outlook.

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