The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Officials are scrambling to identify the source of infection for a man who tested positive days after completing managed isolation, as the Government prepares to announce whether the country can drop to alert level 1.
The mystery case recorded two negative results while quarantined in Christchurch but has now passed the virus on to two people in his household, including a student at a Mt Roskill school.
The four new cases confirmed yesterday - two in the community - come as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to announce changes to the country's alert levels after Cabinet meets today.
The latest community cases are unrelated to the Auckland cluster and stem from a man who arrived in New Zealand from India and tested negative while in isolation - sparking calls from one of the country's top epidemiologists for the Government to consider reviewing our two-week quarantine period.
The man was allowed to fly home to Auckland from a managed isolation facility in Christchurch on September 11 after leaving quarantine, but tested positive five days later.
One of the people he infected is a child at Three Kings School in Mt Roskill, which the public health service says remains safe for children to attend as the student did not attend while infectious.
The student and two other close contacts are now in a managed quarantine facility.
Three Kings School principal Moira Blair said the school underwent a "deep clean" yesterday as a precaution to reassure parents.
It is unknown how the man was infected and the Ministry of Health is now investigating whether it was during his flight from India. The genome sequencing is consistent with two confirmed cases from the same flight, which landed on August 27.
"It is possible that this case was infected during that flight and has had an extremely long incubation period – there is evidence that in rare instances the incubation period can be up to 24 days," the ministry said.
But the man could have also been infected during a Government-chartered flight with other returnees in managed isolation facilities from Christchurch to Auckland after leaving the facility nine days ago. People on this flight were being contacted and assessed.
The ministry said most people who are infected with Covid-19 will become unwell within 14 days.
"Having returnees stay in managed isolation for 14 days remains the gold standard, and this is also the approach adopted by other countries."
"It's a curious case," Otago University infectious diseases expert David Murdoch told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking today. "One theory is that it's a long incubation period. In very rare instances you do get prolonged incubation periods with this infection, but it would certainly be unusual."
He could not speculate on whether Auckland would move down from level 2.5 this week but believed the chances of New Zealand moving to level 1 were "pretty high".
The two imported cases confirmed yesterday were a man in his 30s who arrived from London via Dubai on September 16 and a man in his 20s who arrived from India via Singapore on September 12.
There are 71 active cases - 36 are imported cases in MIQ facilities and 35 are community cases.
Three people are in hospital with Covid – one each at Auckland City, Middlemore and North Shore hospitals. All three patients are in isolation on a general ward.
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said cases such as the man testing positive after completing two weeks in isolation were "very unusual".
However it was documented that some people had unusually long incubation periods, and he believed it was worth reviewing whether New Zealand should lengthen the isolation period.
"Basically 14 days has always been a practical maximum, but we've always known there was potential for the maximum to be longer than 14 days in very rare cases," he said.
The person could also have been infected within the managed...

Mike Hosking spoke with ACT leader David Seymour on his party's rural sector policy.
Included in the policy are plans to repeal the zero carbon impact, working on methane emissions, and allow local councils and communities to set their own water management limits
 
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The good news is National has come up with a genuine alternative fiscal policy to the government's welfare program. The bad news is they didn't add the numbers up properly.
Mike Hosking spoke with National's finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith this morning on the blunder
National used May's budget figures and not last weeks  Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update (PREFU) figures which led to a $4 billion gap.
Asked if it was the "biggest cock-up ever?" Goldsmith says it's an irritating mistake but doesn't alter the fundamentals of National's package.
Those fundamentals are being able to offer tax cuts from the 1st of December and pay down debt faster than Labour.
How does something like this happen, considering National said they waited for the PREFU to be released before calculating their policy? Did they look at the numbers?
"We did look at the numbers, and it is an enormous document. There are a lot of numbers." says Goldsmith.
"I owned it. We made a mistake. Our external reviewers missed it as well but the good news is it doesn't alter the fundamental numbers which is to say we can still afford tax cuts."
Goldsmith compared National's now revised target of net debt to 36% by 2034 to Labour's 48% as a "colossal difference".
On top of the figures botch up, it probably didn't help that Gerry Brownlee's geography wasn't up to scratch and according to Hosking all in all it was a pretty inept Sunday for the opposition.
Goldsmith defended the mishaps "at the end of the day you've got to focus on what matters most to New Zealanders"
"They (Labour) are all very angry at the thought of tax cuts.... they will never willingly give you back a cent of your money. They hate the thought of tax cuts. They always believe that government's can spend your money better than you can."
"We have a different philosophy. We want to give it back and ultimately New Zealanders have that choice."
 
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THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Monday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) Seems Alright... Other Than That Four Billion/Voting Out MMP/Swedish Update/WP 4 MH/Flight to Nowhere

Resilient but not invincible.
That's the analysis that's come from the Reserve Bank's stress tests of our major banks.
The stress tests found that if we had a banking crisis were to occur on top of our economic crisis, our ability to recover would be "seriously compromised" and would require significant capital injections.
Associate professor at the Massey University Business School Claire Matthews joined Mike Hosking to explain.
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If a sulphite free, vegan friendly and organic wine is what you've been after, then some Kiwi innovation in the wine sector could be your cup of tea.
The award winning Loveblock Wines has designed and launched what is believed to be a world first - using green tea as a natural preservative at every point the wine is exposed to air, instead of sulphur.
The Loveblock Tee Sav 2019 it's called - and Loveblock founder Erica Crawford joined Mike Hosking this morning.
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Seven Sharp reporter Tim Wilson has announced he is leaving TVNZ.
Posting on his Instagram account last night, the reporter and Newstalk ZB Sunday talkback host says he is pursuing a new chapter in his life.
"Time to leave. It's been a wonderful 16 years at TVNZ, but I've decided to pursue a new season and fresh harvest fields.
"Thanks to the colleagues who taught me, scolded me, encouraged me, prayed with me, laughed with me," he wrote.
On Mike Hosking's Breakfast show on Newstalk ZB this morning Wilson elaborated about his decision to leave the broadcaster. Wilson worked closely with Hosking when he hosted the evening current affairs programme.
He said the decision to leave had been "fermenting" for a while and "it's time to go".
"TVNZ is great and the people there are amazing," Wilson says, explaining the "daily grind" was taking its toll.
"It can be a grind at times, there's no question about that. But I just want to take time and pause, maybe do a bit more writing, that kind of thing."
Wilson joked that he wants to open a new car dealership named "Munters and Grunters" with Hosking - although he doesn't plan to rush into any new ventures immediately.
"I'm going to take some time off, I'm going to hang out with the kids, might write a bit of poetry in the interim," he said.
He added lockdown helped spark his decision to take a break.

"Lockdown was actually great for us as a family, it was just like 'wow'. We started to breathe more regularly, and it was really great."
Wilson has three children with his wife Rachel.
In April the ZB host announced he was stepping down at the end of this year from his The Weekend Collective show, but is sticking with his Sunday talkback slot.
"It's basically been a choice between work and family, and family wins," he said.
Wilson joined TVNZ in 2004, and told Hosking his first job was covering George W. Bush's inauguration but failed to deliver a track for the news. He worked as the US correspondent before joining Seven Sharp when it began in 2013.
TVNZ confirmed to the Herald Wilson's last day would be October 8.
Wilson has been approached for comment.

The Victorian Opposition has launched a bid to kick Premier Daniel Andrews out of office over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Opposition Leader Michael O’Brien will introduce a motion of no confidence in Mr Andrews in parliament on Thursday.
The motion will be tabled on Thursday with the vote to be put to Lower House MPs next month.
Mr O’Brien said the Premier had lost the support of Victorians.
“Every Labor MP will have to decide whether they will vote to protect the jobs of their communities or the job of the Premier,” he said.
“A no-confidence motion is not a decision made lightly, but increasingly frustrated Victorians are telling us loud and clear that Andrews must go.”
As Labor holds a comfortable majority in the Legislative Assembly, the motion is almost certain to be voted down.
But if it passed, and the house did not pass a motion of confidence in the Premier within eight days, the parliament would be dissolved.
The Opposition only gets one opportunity to move a motion of no confidence in the Premier each parliamentary term, and if it fails they will have to wait until after the 2022 state election to move another.
The Opposition said it was the first step in dissolving the parliament and allowing Victorians to vote the Andrews Labor Government out of office early.
Mr O’Brien cited the Government’s botched handling of the pandemic, including hotel quarantine, refusing Australian Defence Force support, contact tracing failures and imposing what it claims is a potentially illegal curfew.
“Victoria deserves the chance for a fresh start,” he said.
“With Andrews’ road map to nowhere, millions of Victorians know their jobs are on the line if this Government keeps us locked down.”
Victorian Nationals leader Peter Walsh claimed the Premier had made too many mistakes to continue.
“Andrews’ failures are the very reason Victoria is in the second wave through his botched hotel quarantine and delays in contact tracing, and Victorians are left with no confidence in him or his Labor government,” he said.
When asked about the motion on Thursday morning, Mr Andrews dismissed it as a political stunt.
“Cheap politics is no vaccine against this virus, and that is all I will say about him and that,” he said.

There is confusion around how Auckland University can return to campus.
The university's keeping classes online until October 2, after reneging on its plan to operate classes up-to 300 people on campus from Monday.
Tertiary Education Union national secretary Sandra Grey says official information is conflicting.
She told Mike Hosking details for the tertiary sector needed to be clear from the start - and they've asked officials for clarification.
Grey says they're asking if all students should be wearing masks because physical distancing will be hard.
Auckland University Students' Association is also advocating for compulsory mask-wearing, as well as staying online for the rest of the semester.
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The gulf between President Donald Trump and public health officials over wearing face masks keeps widening, undercutting medical experts who say consistent face covering is one of the best tools — short of a vaccine — to fight the spread of the coronavirus.
Trump has gone back and forth on protective masks in the roughly six months since the virus has taken root in the U.S., muddying the message from doctors and other health experts.
White House officials insist that Trump has always supported wearing masks, but the president's own words and actions tell a very different — and sometimes puzzling — story.
He dismissed mask wearing for himself, then allowed himself to be seen wearing one while visiting a military hospital. He has called it “patriotic” to wear a mask but seems to seldom pass up an opportunity to mock Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for his routine mask donning.
And on Wednesday, after the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Congress that his mask might even be a better guarantee than a vaccine against the virus, Trump publicly undercut Dr. Robert Redfield.
“As far as the mask is concerned, he made a mistake,” said Trump.
Hours earlier, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had said: “The president has always supported mask wearing, and he’s made many comments to that effect from this podium.”
Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University’s law school, said Trump’s vacillation between portraying masks as an infringement on personal rights and touting them as crucial to stemming the virus has left Americans “absolutely dazed and confused.”
“One could forgive the American public for not trusting anyone,” Gostin said.
But Gostin also faulted Redfield for asserting that masks are more important than an eventual vaccine, at least until one is approved. Suggesting that being vaccinated is less important as long as people are wearing masks further clouded the public message, Gostin said.
Public health experts largely agree that COVID-19, the disease the virus causes, will be brought under control through a combination of social distancing, mask wearing and a vaccine.
“One of those three is not enough, you need all three,” Gostin said. “It’s such a simple message. It’s just befuddling that the White House doesn’t consistently state that message.”
Trump has very seldom worn a mask for the world to see, though he is regularly tested for COVID-19 and says he does wear one when he can't practice social distancing. At one point, he suggested that the reason some people wear masks is to make a political statement against him.
The CDC recommended in April that people wear cloth face coverings in public when it's difficult to be socially distant. But Trump immediately undercut the guidance, declaring he wouldn't follow it and suggesting it would be unseemly to be masked in a meeting with a head of state.
The first image of a masked Trump surfaced on social media in May after he donned one for a behind-the-scenes tour of a Ford facility in Michigan. Reporters were not allowed on the tour, and afterward Trump told them he'd worn a mask in a “back area” only because “I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.”
In June, as he prepared to hold his first indoor political rally of the COVID-era, Trump complained to The Wall Street Journal that Americans were wearing masks as a way to signal disapproval of him, and not as a preventive measure. He complained that people can’t help but fidget with the coverings, similar to assertions he made on national television this week.
“They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth,” Trump said. “And then they don’t know how they caught it?”
Weeks later, the president offered a different take, sounding like a mask evangelist and going as far...