COVID-19 update 1 September 2021

News article

01 September 2021

COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield will update the media today at 1pm.

 

>> kia ora koutou katoa.

I will start with a quick  update on the alert level IV, level III border around Auckland. We have had reports from police that they are seeing very good complaints. Most people have the correct documentation with them when they have been stopped. I understand a small number of people have been turned around. Police are going to be providing an update on numbers later on today or early tomorrow.

The number of companies that have been issued with travel documentation to move across the boundaries is more than 3300. That covers 23,000 That covers 23,000 a half, employees.

On flooding, for those in West Auckland to are cleaning up, we understand that this must be a particularly stressful time. I would like to remind those who have been affected that there are ways for them to keep themselves safe under alert level for. Some may have had to breach their bubble due to the emergency situation they face and we encourage them to keep physical distance wherever possible. Follow basic  hygiene measures that we all know can reduce the spread of COVID-19. Under alert level IV, plumbers, electricians, locksmiths and other tradespeople can carry out work that is required to address immediate risks to health and safety.

 As long as they are continuing to follow public health measures and they are wearing appropriate PPE. 

A brief word on vaccines before I hand over to the director- general, I will have more to say on vaccines after he has given the daily update, but I want a note on this first day of spring, that we are also recognising a milestone for the vaccine program with all New Zealanders over the age of 12 now eligible to begin to get the vaccine, regardless of their age, where they live, which group they belong to or any other factors, such as occupation and so on.

This is a big step forward in our work to protect New Zealanders from COVID-19 and I do encourage people to take the opportunity to make their bookings so they can get their vaccines.

I will now handover to the director-general and I have some words on vaccines and other issues and that we will have questions. 

>> Kia ora koutou katoa.

Today there are 75 new cases in the community that are part of the Auckland outbreak. All but one are in Auckland.

Was also one other case under investigation that is almost certainly an historic case that is not related at all to the community outbreak.

 However the other case that is not in Auckland today is in Wellington. It is a household contact of an existing case and this person has been in isolation since 24 August. Of note with this case, is that the person had returned three previous negative tests before returning a positive test and remains asymptomatic. Emphasises the importance of anyone who is a close contact or a very close contact, seeing that 14 day period through and having that day 12 test.

 This latest bounce in numbers is not unexpected. We did see this last April, when our numbers went from 89 on 2 April to 71 the next day and then 89 again on the fifth and 67 the following day. Then continued to fall, and I have a visual aid today, and that a 4 size visual aid. You can see how that bounced around in one of the numbers was 53 one day before bouncing back up. If we look at the smoothing of the average over the last three days, it is clear on average the daily case numbers are lower than the peak in the early 80s.

But of course we will be watching carefully. Of note, just thinking about the cases we reported yesterday, there were 49, 57% of those were household contact of an existing case. Similar to the day before. Rather than from exposures in the community. 75% did not create any exposure events similar to the proportion of the day before, which was 77%. That implies they have been isolating since lockdown was since being identified as a contact. Therefore, as I said, of the cases we reported yesterday, just 25% were considered to have been infectious in the community in the time before they were diagnosed.

Furthermore, moving to the reproductive rate, based on the latest modelling, that continues to be promising and there is a 90% probability that remains under one, with the numbers coming through over the last days, indicating the number of cases will continue to decline and we are successfully breaking the chains of transmission. We are looking at the cases today just to work out what proportion of these are expected cases from testing of close contact, in particular, those of day 12 tests from other household contacts or people we knew about from a location of interest.

As of this morning, there are 32 people in hospital. They are all in Auckland Hospital after the one patient in Wellington Regional Hospital was discharged yesterday back to a quarantine facility.

Of those in hospital, eight are in intensive care and three are currently ventilated. Another big day for testing  yesterday with 22,158 test process nationwide.

Demand for testing in Auckland remain strong with around 6500 swabs yesterday across the metro Auckland region. A reminder to anyone wherever you are, if you have symptoms that could be COVID-19, so isolate in your bubble and get a test.

On the wastewater testing was upfront, the latest results showed no unexpected detections to report. And a sample collected here in Wellington on Monday has returned a negative result for the first time since 19 August. COVID-19 was also not detected in a sample collected in Monday from the broader Christchurch wastewater treatment plant.

While COVID-19 continues to be detected in a number of locations, for the first time since 18 August, it was not detected in a sample taken from the western Auckland network. Samples were collected from a number of locations yesterday and those results are expected tomorrow as part of informing that final confirmation that Northland will be able to move to alert level III at 20 3:59pm tomorrow.

 Just health boards around tomorrow, they have been impacted by alert Level 4 and this has created pressures on the three Auckland Metro areas. We are working with our district health boards across the country to support the Auckland DHBs with additional staff. That includes a number of additional staff to help the frontline response in hospitals as well as in the new quarantine facilities that are being installed up there, including nursing staff in hospitals, healthcare assistants and ICU specialist nurses as well.

We want to stress all hospitals around the country are open and able to provide acute care for any condition and people should seek care as soon as they needed.

Moving on to locations of interest. Out of an abundance of caution and after some discussion internally, we have decided to add a number of supermarkets as duplications of interest. Around 40 supermarkets across Auckland will be added to the website today. These are places that were visited by people who subsequently were identified as a case. A risk assessment has been done on each of them, and due to physical distancing, plastic screens, PPE use and so on, the events are low risk. People should look out and if anyone has been in one of these, even if it was some time ago, the advice is just to be careful, watch for symptoms, since you have been there. If you were there at the time and place indicated on the website. You may need to go and get a test, but this is just for awareness.

Finally today I would like to give a shout out to all the workers in our diagnostic medical labs. Yesterday they processed their 3 million nasal PCR test since the start of the pandemic, an amazing pandemic and absolutely fundamental to other -- to the success of New Zealand's elimination strategy. 

>> A a few words on vaccines.

 As of 11:59pm last night, 3.5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been administered in New Zealand.

 I do want to acknowledge that the rate of vaccination in New Zealand has stepped up significantly since mid July, when we started receiving bigger deliveries of vaccine in New Zealand.  We have increased the number of doses administered from around 190,000 per week to around 540,000 per week, an increase of 184%, just in the last couple of weeks. 2,290,000 people have now had at least one dose of the vaccine.

That is around 54% of the eligible population aged 12 years an over. That means around half the eligible population have received at least one dose of the vaccine, which is a significant milestone. Of those, 1,200,000 are fully vaccinated with two doses, almost a third of the eligible population.

All the New Zealanders are showing the way and I want to acknowledge that we did start with older New Zealanders first.  More than 85% of people aged 65+ have never been vaccinated with at least one dose. Using our older Kiwis as an example, that does pose a challenge to younger generations to come forward and receive your vaccinations, at least an equivalent rate. We do still have a challenge around ethnicity and ensuring we are reaching into all of our communities. Around 37% of the Maori population have had at least one dose and around 47% of the Pacific population have had at least one dose of the vaccine.

 In terms of full vaccination, the rates are around 19% for Maori and 26% for Pacific. That suggests we still have an ethnicity challenge, though I want to acknowledge for both of those communities, the age profile is younger, so they would have been underrepresented in some of the old age groups.

We have seen bookings surge in recent times as New Zealanders take up the opportunity to book in for the vaccine. The highest state on record so far -- date with 25 August. With 250,000 people booked. We expect to see another surge in coming days as the larger population group books in.

There was around 1.9 million  future bookings and some people may ask why we talk so much about future vaccines. It is important because it recognises the commitment that New Zealanders are making to play their part in the vaccination campaign. 68% of New Zealanders in the 12+ age bracket, either booked  or have had a vaccination. That Has come down, that number has come down in recent days because we have just added the latest population cohort in there. If you look at old age groups, it is actually 79% of New Zealanders aged 30+ who have either booked or have had a vaccine. That suggests that New Zealand is on track to achieve a good high rate of vaccinations, because we know not everybody will have yet booked in. I encourage people to make sure they are booking end. 83% of  those aged over 40 had either booked in or have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

 Thank you to New Zealanders for coming forward, making your bookings and getting a vaccines. It is important in our fight. I encourage everybody to take up the opportunity. Vaccinations are one of the most powerful tools we have against COVID-19. They are completely free and they are safe. The highest possible uptake is the best way for us to get back to a greater sense of normality and of course stay there. People should reserve their spot and if they have questions or need help, they can call the vaccination Healthline.

A few words on managed isolation. I do want to acknowledge that the pressure that our managed isolation system has been under in recent weeks. M IQ is one of our key lines of defence to keep COVID-19 out of our community. They have done an incredible job of that.

Over 168,000 New Zealanders have come back into the country through these facilities very safely with very few incidents. I want to acknowledge the dedication of the team who are running those facilities. We do have a current challenge in accommodating those positive cases in our community and those who cannot isolate safely at home.

As a result of that, we have repurposed or are in the purpose of repurposed and, two further facilities to use for quarantine and for isolation of community cases. In addition to the park which has been the mainstay of our efforts in that area so far. That is putting further pressure on the network. We also have further investigations being done and I am inspecting to proceed the results of those in the next 24 hours, of the Crowne Plaza, to ensure we have isolated any risk before anyone further is brought into the Crowne Plaza for isolation purposes. It has been a really important part of our M IQ network and I do want to acknowledge that. Are making sure we have that facility as tight as possible before we put anyone further into it.

 All of this means it is unavoidable that for now, we have had to extend the pores on releasing any further M IQ vouchers for a few more weeks, to ease pressure on the system. That means there are no vouchers available to be booked through the voucher website at the moment.

 I acknowledge that that is not easy for New Zealanders abroad who are looking to come home. We do need to isolate current COVID cases in the community and their close contacts safely in order to bring the entire of New Zealand back to normality as quickly as possible. That has to be a priority. That is one of the reasons why we are asking New Zealanders abroad to play their part in this response by being patient. Acknowledge that that is a very challenging thing to ask of them.

 I do want to stress that the pause on release of further vouchers does not cause emergency allocations. New Zealanders who are in desperate need to come home urgently can still make an application for an emergency allocation. We are working to defer where we can bookings coming in, and that includes deferring some of the regional seasonal appointment workers who are coming and due to becoming over the course of this coming month so that we can again further expression on our M IQ system.

When we do release the next round of vouchers, and I have more to say on that next week, people will note that the booking system will operate differently to how it has operated previously. When we release large numbers of vouchers, we will be foreshadowing that in advance of the vouchers being released.

We will be introducing a virtual lobby booking system. The lobby is a virtual queue and it will mean that people can be selected from the queue randomly, removing the need for people to be the fastest person to hit the button. It will not fix the overall issue of supply and demand. We still have more demand than we have supply available, and in periods of high demand it is still going to be the case that we won't have room for everybody that wants to come home. By this change will make bookings more transparent, and it will be easier for people and it will create a more level playing field for people on sale on the website. Once all the rooms have been taken, the lobby will be closed and anybody in the queue will be informed that they have unfortunately missed out this time. We will then continue to announce a larger room releases so that people will know when to come back and we will look to use a virtual lobby again, taking on board any lessons that we have learned from the first use of the lobby which will be the next significant:I hope to have more to say on the timing of that release as soon as I can, but as I've indicated there won't be any more releases in the week or two.

>> Is is pause happening legally? Are you breaching human rights by not allowing them to come home and Kenny provide more information about that?

>>I don't want to get into the legal advice that we get given, but in terms of balancing human rights and People's rights to return to New Zealand, and all the other decisions that we make that have a limitation on people's rights, the overriding principle comes into play here is at the restrictions put in place have to be proportionate to the level of risk. At the moment we are clearly dealing with an elevated level of risk, which is why we have at this point had instituted further restrictions that we would normally have a.

>>So people will not be able to come home?

>>Look, we will have further vouchers to release before the end of the year. There will be more opportunity for people to come back before the end of the year. But clearly there is a lot of demand. So those who are hoping to have a summer holiday in New Zealand, my request of them is to leave the vouchers, to leave the room availability to those who really need to come home and who are coming home for good. Now is not a good time to come home for a holiday with the intention of returning to where you are. We do need you to play your part by allowing those vouchers to be available for those in the greatest need a sound

>>People are calling for vaccination prioritisation for Auckland. Is that something you are considering?

>>There is a big focus on vaccination in the last couple of weeks it has been in Auckland, and we have seen a scaling up of the program as quickly as possible. We have seen a great number of Auckland people coming forward to get their vaccines. As we look to the next few weeks and making sure that we are using the doses available to us, as best as possible, I can absolutely provide reassurance that Auckland is front of our thinking in that. They will be a priority. They are a priority now and will continue to be a priority.

>> Is there a significant enough increase in the vaccination rate chemically happy with the rate?

>>I been pleased to see the rate of vaccination has doubled over the last couple of weeks. On a day-to-day basis. Make I think that is a great sign. There is additional funding going out to Maori and specific providers to support some of the initiatives that we have seen stand-up over the last couple of weeks. It is important in a big focus for outing.

>>In Auckland over the next few weeks, (inaudible), will you have to slow things down around the country?

>>I think it has been well signalled. We are seeing whether there are things that we can do to increase the supply over the next few weeks until we get the large deliveries that we are expecting. We will be in a position to provide greater clarity on that by the end of the week. We will do that as soon as we are in a position to do that. In the worst-case scenario where we cannot increase supply, the existing supply will be focused on Auckland and on making sure that we have people that are booked in. It may mean things that walk-in clinics around the rest of the country might need to be scaled back. We will work through that. Obviously the longer we go at these higher rates anymore restricted we will be if we can't get additional supply and by the middle of the month. But we should have greater clarity on that in the next few days and by the end of the week should be able to provide more of an updated.

>>Yesterday there was content about a student in Auckland flying down. There was another that flew from Auckland to Wellington. What are they supposed to actually do to be able to get on a flight in Auckland to go elsewhere in the country?

>>I will look again at that. They should be being checked at the airport to. They should be being checked before they can even get into the airport terminal. Before restrictions, and I want to make sure that it is operating as it has previously, but there should be people at the airport terminal checking why people entering before they can even get anywhere near the aeroplane. I will go back and check that that is happening. This is disappointing. These people should not be travelling and there will potentially be consequences for them for breaking the rules of. I don't make your decisions around individual infringements, but there are infringements that can be applied for people that have knowingly broke the rules. In these situations we are talking about with people returning to their halls of residence, they should not be doing that while the place accurately at is at level IV.

>>How worrying is this given that the border is the protector of the rest of the country that is now level III and will hopefully come down further?

>>I don't have information about what information they supplied when they went to the airport in order to be able to get on a plan -- an aeroplane and leave Auckland. I am just being cautious about making a conclusion about whether or not the system is robust sound

>>What information would it have to be? Would be that you are an employee or an essential worker?

>>They would have had to demonstrate the system is working as it should. We will check that it is working at it should. They will have to show that they are eligible to travel before they get on a plane, and there is a range of criteria to make somebody eligible to travel. They would have been able to demonstrate that before they were allowed in the terminal.

>>Willie look at having different levels for different parts of the country depending on testing in different areas ?

>>We have not made the decision at this point. There will be some logistical barriers to doing that. What we are working on is a more rapid and regular form of testing for those that are having to travel across the border. For example, truck drivers who are moving across the border. We are working with the transport and logistics industry to make testing more readily available for people that are doing that and doing everything we can to minimise that risk. There is still some movement across the border, as indicated before. We have 33.5 thousand employees that are -- 33,500 employees at authorised to travel across the border. We have a significant amount of people coming into the areas but we give that under regular review. One more.

>> There is an example of somebody flying. [inaudible]

>>I haven't had the information on the checks that we've done at the airport. That is one of the things that we will be looking closely at.

>>People already expressing their frustration about the voucher system. This is something the government should have implemented a whole long time ago connected you seek Crown law advice for this decision?

>>I get Crown law advice regularly. Representatives of Crown law are at meetings where I make decisions. Of course I'm getting regular legal advice on that. As is long-standing convention, I don't share that legal advice publicly. In terms of the message to New Zealanders who are frustrated by this, I do want to knowledge that we are in a global pandemic. That has made international travel much, much more difficult and has made it much more restrictive and much more limited. There are a lot of people around the globe who are affected by that at the moment. We are doing what we cannot do, and we are doing what we can do safely. There are limits to the number of people we can bring in through the system. There is not an infinite ability to stand up more MIQ. We are looking at standing up more of those facilities and you will see some resistance where we are doing that. There is also a health workforce required to support these facilities, and that is a workforce that at the moment is very stretched. There is not an easy way of expanding the size of the health workforce. Similarly the security workforce that goes without stomach we are using a Defence Force a lot, but there are other requirements to staff and make sure that those are happening safely. It is difficult when families are being separated. I do want to say and reiterate that people do have to adjust their expectations a little bit at the moment a. The ability to travel for family events like weddings and birthdays is a lot more restricted in a global pandemic then it would be in normal times of. People need to be realistic about that.

>>To have an update on the quarantine facilities and how many are available?

>>We have one that is standing up that is a holiday in by the airport. It has been converted for quarantine purposes a. That will bring in seven more hundred rooms. That should come on stream within the next 24 to 36 hours or so. We have enough within the two facilities that we are operating at the moment, the Novatel and the Duke Park to accommodate the cases that we are seeing today. We still have some left over after that. As of early this morning I think there are about 12 cases from yesterday that were still awaiting transfer for. We are more or less clear the backlog there, the system is operating as we would expect it to with people being relatively efficiently transported into wanting facilities. We will need that facility coming in in the next 24 to 36 hours to make sure that we can accommodate potential cases tomorrow and the day after and so on. We will get to the point, too, in the next week probably where people will start to leave at the other end of that cycle and that will free up some of the rooms for increased capacity for every new case we get because we will start to release capacity as well. We will keep modelling that, but I do want to emphasise that they are under 18 and I was amount of -- and an enormous matter pressure. On behalf of the whole country I want to thank them for the work they're doing.  

>>Where are things at with the ventilation upgrades?

>>There are various stations that make stages to the network. In some cases it was a case of cleaning out the adducts -- adducts for example. Where was not flowing correctly. Sometimes the facility needs to be emptied for that work to be done, other times it can be done on a floor by floor basis of Aristotle people in it. Sometimes it is more significant work needing to be done. Some of the facilities, it is  minor maintenance, things like the duct between the bathroom event into the main ventilation system may have worked loose over many years. All of those things get follow through. The goal is as much as we can, where we can, divide negative pressure within a room many air does not flow out of the room into the corridors. That is how we can reduce the risk of airborne transmission. It is a different stage. Also it is important to remember, all of the facilities we are talking about a different. They have different types of air-conditioning systems so it is difficult to give you a good, accurate, this is where we sit across the network, because every facility is different. They have different challenges and in some cases they need new filtration systems. Other cases, the filtration is fine but the FI was not right. All about work, I am not an expert, but we do have experts looking closely at it. 

>> To follow on from Jason's question, while it is reasonable to say people overseas have to accept things, it is also reasonable for people to expect in a large facility like the Crowne Plaza should not need to require checks to make sure it meets the standards. 

>> The Crowne Plaza is currently empty on schedule. Is one of the things about the Power putting that we do at the moment, is that facilities do empty out, they get clean, minor maintenance required between cohorts gets done. The Crowne Plaza is currently at that point of the cycle. We do expect that current bookings have that starting to fill up again I think from early next week.  There are sometimes gaps between cohorts and sometimes they are bigger than others. One of the challenges in managing bookings, I want to highlight at the moment if you look at the MIQ numbers today, and I have them here somewhere, the overall headcount number is relatively low, but we have six planes coming in tomorrow and seven, sorry, six planes today and seven planes tomorrow. So we are expecting a jump in numbers. Sometimes there are days where the overall number of rooms occupied goes down. It does not mean the network is not being used to its maximum, we are certainly aiming to use it at its maximum but there will be periods where one facility might sit empty for a few days between cohorts is missing to accommodate all the bookings. 

>>... Schedule September 9, the Crowne Plaza has been empty. Are you suggesting there is no capacity in the system to deplane a hotel and make it available, so people can book MIQ spots, you are saying it is more reasonable to continue to pause?

>> We have not made a decision on whether the Crowne Plaza will be able to open for that booking on the night. We are getting further assessments of that facility done. I have not said that, we are getting the latest information at some point this afternoon on the latest review. I would highlight, as we have previously, that there was a full infection prevention and control order done in June. The next one was due to be done about now, in September, and that is part of the regular improvement cycle we have. All of that work is very important to us. We learn more all of the time about how we can continue to improve the system. 

>> What the Prime Minister said, she asked for a different review in terms of looking at it from a Delta perspective. That is your normal everyday review. She has been clear she wanted something more. 

>> All of the IPCC audits we do on a regular cycle take into account the latest information about what we know about the virus. Of course the information we have about Delta has really started to firm up in the last 6 to 8 weeks. Yes it has been around longer than that, but the scientific advice on what Delta means in terms of transmissibility and so on, has really only started to become apparent in the last 6 to 8 weeks or so. That of course, gets factored into the next round of reviews. Because of the issue we had with the Crowne Plaza, we are having a very close look at that. We will not put my people into it until we are satisfied the risk is as low as it can be.  

>> What that have an impact on RAC workers? 

>> We are still continuing to work with our potential quarantine free travel partners, so we are talking to the three Pacific countries we mentioned before, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, about the ability to bring RAC workers into the country without the 14 days in MIQ. There might still be some public health measures in place, vaccination, testing, isolation arrival, those are all things we are working through with those three countries. To be able to do that. If we can avoid having RAC workers coming from countries where there is no COVID currently in the community, and I think in all three of those cases, there has not been COVID-19 in the community, we can do that without needing to stress the MIQ system, that of course is our first preference. 

>> In terms of... General services have reached out and said the Ministry of health, under Level 4, guidelines will change. Where is that out? 

>> First of all under alert level 3, outside of Auckland and North, can occur and have up to 10 people. Over the last couple of days, I have received and signed off advice around safe ways that people in the Far North could view and that advice would be going through the system as an exemption, as long as the funeral directors have got the appropriate protocols in place. I am expecting that advice will go to the sector. 

>> Probably do Dr Bloomfield. Talking to public health experts, they believe the peak has either happened or is on the way down. That had the biggest risks are the transmissions that could happen at essential workplaces and caused super sporting events. This is also your biggest concern, and therefore how worried are you about the protections at the factory? 

>> What we are most concerned about now of course is as you said, essential workers who may in fact colleagues within a workplace setting, or people gathering when they should not be. We have seen this is a big problem in Sydney. Where you have had the private gatherings and large numbers of people become infected. To your question about the factory, the public health units have been working closely with the employer that who is taking a very risk averse approach to closing down parts of the production if needs be, testing people, who may have been exposed.  The workers who tested positive there have been links back to exposures in the community. So that is important in the first place, but secondly, and this is an important message for employers, it is very important if you have casual workforce, and this is particularly in the food manufacturing and distribution area, and also in the security area, that you can find those casual employees to just working at one site and not working across multiple sites. That is something our public health unit has observed. Most employers are aware of this and are taking steps, but I do need to emphasise, that will be very important in helping limit the potential for if an essential work becomes infected, spreading that through the workplaces. 

>> A few days ago the Prime Minister says she hesitated to tighten restrictions  particularly if businesses cause spread. Other plans to tighten the restrictions? 

>> We have not made further decisions on that yet, but I will echo with the prime ministers said. We look at the evidence of what is emerging every day, to make sure the Level 4 restrictions we got in place are achieving the desired outcomes, which is to stop the spread of the virus so we can get back to the point where everybody has a greater freedom of movement. Of course week review information every day. We get more information about the latest cases, case investigations every day and whether throw some issues we need to deal with, we consider those. 

>> New Zealanders stranded in Australia, also receiving the benefit, the Minister for social development came out yesterday and said For support. 

>> I have not been briefed on the topic. I will have to refer you back to the Minister of social development for further questions and that one. 

>> Regarding 12-year-olds being able to be vaccinated,,?

>> There are some logistical challenges on those sites for vaccination making that difficult, particularly the timing we are talking about, exams late in the year when we might get to that point where the ability to move our on-site vaccinators around a bit. That might coincide with exams so that creates a challenge. What we have heard from school communities, in the engagement I have had with them as Minister of education, other of the families are indicating they would prefer to take a family based approach to vaccination, which is when their parents get vaccinated, there would like to take their kids with them and do it together, rather than have the parents and the kids vaccinated at separate sites. I think that makes a lot of sense. We are seeing good indications that is what is happening already, and I encourage families to take that approach. 

>> The Northland, North regional coordination centre are reporting some good states in terms of vaccinating homeless people. This is something we will see across the country? 

>> There has been specific efforts in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, where a large part of our homeless people are. I know each of the DHP has had a range of initiatives in place to reach out usually in conjunction with the relevant city mission or homeless shelter. That has already happened and I know there will be ongoing efforts in this regard. 

>> We do have parliamentary question time to grapple with today. 

>> On that note, is responsible for NT to have flown from all over the country to attend  Parliament? Is where Parliament sitting an issue where New Zealanders should be focusing on? 

>> In answer to the latter question, no, I don't think whether or not forget to partake in the pantomime of parliamentary question time is something that is a particular priority to New Zealanders at the moment. With the create an opportunity for question time to be held remotely, so MPs could remain at home, and participate fully in parliamentary proceedings while adhering to the alert level restrictions we ask every other New Zealander to adhere to. I also want to correct some misinformation that has been circulated in recent days, that in all of the discussions with the opposition about that, and they are reaching for the epidemic response committee to be re-established, never at any  point did they indicate that was an alternative to Parliament sitting in person. They wanted both to happen. They wanted Parliament to sit in person and the response committee to be re-established, so the reinvention of history in the last few days, where they said they offered an alternative is simply not true. That was never part of the conversations we had with them. As to whether or not they feel they should travel around the country, I would simply note that no Labour members have felt fit to travel to Parliament for question time.  

>> Disappointing?

>> I think it is. We worked really hard to find a constructive alternative. I am the leader of the house of Parliament. I passionately believe in parliamentary democracy and belief scrutiny is very important, you will very seldom see me turning down an opportunity to be questioned whether here or in question time or at a committee, I try to make myself available for as many opportunities as possible, because it is important. It is the lifeblood of democracy. Questioning, dissent, argument, they are very important. Always to do those things safely, without requiring MPs to travel over the country. 

>> MIQ, on the pushback from communities about setting up new MIQs in the community, could you end up forcing it on them? 

>> Brother passed me again?

>> On the pushback about standing up to new MIQ's, could you end up forcing those on them that parliamentary order?

>> We wouldn't need to do that. The key issue or constraint is around getting a willing partner, so a facility willing to partner with us and a workforce, making sure we can supply the work was. We do take community views into account and try to work with the communities to deal with any concerns that they have. I understand in Rotorua, they have a concern around homelessness. They want government to work with them and we are doing that stop Doctor Woods is leading that work. We do acknowledge community concern and feedback but ultimately, we need to stand up and that is what we need to. 

>> I have two more. Did to catch Judith Collins interview? 

>> No I didn't. 

>> The first drive-through vaccination was opened in Auckland today. 

>> As you will have seen over recent days, we are doing a lot to expand delivery capacity. Now we have bigger doses of the vaccine coming into the country, our ability to stand up new sites is not infinite either. There is a health workforce challenge and also the issue of make sure we have sufficient supply and we should have more to say on supply in recent days, at least to give people clarity around the situation for the month of September.

>>When will the country moved to level III? Have you had any concerns about whether those rules will be complied with?

>>I have not heard any concerns about rules being complied with. I travelled to Wellington myself and saw a low level of people movement across the region, which is encouraging and suggest that people are not going to work unless they have to. They are continuing to stick with air bubbles. The bubbles can get a little bit bigger and at a lower level III I know that some families will be reconnecting there bubbles as they are allowed to do. I think people are generally, from what I have seen and heard, sticking to the law.

>> There has been a huge demand this year on charities, there was a state of national emergency lucky. They want to know why that.

>>We don't need a state of emergency in order to do all of the things we need to do because of the COVID-19 public health response act, which we did not have in place last time. We were reclining on different legal tools. We now have better legal tools around that. Where we know that we have that, we can resolve those issues for them.

>>Minister, just on that, how is it fair that Kiwis are being stopped from coming home while the English level team is allowed in?

>>We are reviewing that. Where is it feasible to be able to do that, we understand it is orally underway. Where it is feasible to delay a group of bookings, then we will certainly be looking very closely at all of those.

>> How can sportsmen of a country come home when other people cannot?

>>Where it is feasible for us to delay a group walking, we are doing that. We are looking at those group bookings to see whether there are further bookings that can be pushed back in the system or even cancelled when necessary to free up that extra capacity.

>>Just two questions for you, Doctor Bloomfield. Can you talk about the advice about bubbles, because my understanding was merging bubbles was only around isolation and childcare. You are not recommending that to happen just for the sake of it.

>>People are able to amalgamate the bubbles where it is available for people for childcare reasons.

>> Not just for the sake of it?

>>People can follow the guidelines. I am aware that they can be more at level III then at level IV.

>>Second to that, can I also ask what your advice was to Parliament in terms of level IV and level III in terms of  sitting? How did they come in today?

>>Invited I was asked to give was around convening Parliament at an alert level for setting. I advice around distancing, use of masks and of course a limited number of people in the chamber. That advice seems to have been taken looking at the photos yesterday. To be honest, the same should apply at alert level III. Alert level III is still designed to restrict an necessary contact -- unnecessary contact between people. I would see that advice throughout the week as keeping those measures to reduce any residual risk that could be between people transmitting the virus between each other.

>> School holidays have been on October 4. Although that is underway, what I'm really wondering is has any thought been given to school holidays during the lockdown when people actually don't have to work? That kids can take time off and can get more teacher time and people can get back to work when they need to as well.

>>I will keep that under review. I've not made decisions about that at the moment. There are some logistical challenges about moving school holiday dates that make it challenging to do. We have pushed back the dates for exams to give the kids more time to exam. There has been a mixed bag of results of that actually. I think teachers welcome that but students are not so welcome a wild about that. They want to get their exams done. We are looking at shifting dates where we can. Moving school holiday dates is incredibly challenging and it is even more challenging where the proposal would be to do that for one part of the country but not another part of the country. I don't want to completely rule it out to. It is unlikely, but I don't want to completely rule it out because we don't know what we will be dealing with in a couple of weeks time. $$TRANSMIT

>>A quick follow-up on vaccinations in schools. We have had significant rollout like the meningitis vaccine at school before. Why not do that?

>>We don't know if that will be the best way to reach people. If they are coming forward to be vaccinated with their parents, that is not necessarily the case, but we could get families to get vaccinated all at once and that could well cover the majority of that age cohort. Bearing in mind that we do have a limited number of vaccination workforce and a limited capacity to administer vaccines. We want to do that in the most efficient way possible. It takes some resource to stand up a new vaccination site. In the case of schools you might stand up a site that is only operational for one day to get through people when it might be more efficient to get people to go through a different site and be vaccinated, but it does not have all of the complexity for standing up to site. Thanks, everybody.

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