COVID-19 update 8 September 2021

News article

08 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 good afternoon, everybody and welcome.

I want to start by acknowledging the millions of New Zealanders coming forward to be vaccinated against COVID- 19. As of midnight last night we reached another significant milestone with more than 4,032,710 doses of the covert - - COVID-19 vaccine have been administered representing 2.6 million New Zealanders who have had their first dose including the 366,000 New Zealanders who received their first shot over the last week.

1,799,579 people have received their second dose and have been fully vaccinated.

That is really strong progress and testament to everybody's efforts to get it done for themselves, their family and New Zealand.

All New Zealanders aged 12 and over can now book to get your vaccine. If you haven't already done so, I advise that most places across New Zealand have places available. You just need to visit the website book my vaccine.nz, identify the time and location that works for you and book.

For today's numbers will hand over to Dr Ashley Bloomfield.  

>> Thank you, Minister. Kia ora koutou katoa.

There are 15 new community cases to report, all in the Auckland region.

Our total number associated with the outbreak is now 855.

There was a case previously included in the total which has now been reclassified as border related. So the total is now 855.

218 cases are deemed to have recovered.

 There is one case in a recent returnee in managed isolation today as well.

Ongoing investigations by Auckland Regional Public Health has resulted in the total number of unlinked cases being 25, an increase of one from yesterday. However only two of today's new cases are yet to be linked even as of 9:00 this morning. Investigations into all unlinked cases continue. That number is expected to fall. The focus of those investigations is very much on the more recent cases and even if we are unable to link them back specifically to an earlier case, the key thing we are looking for is that there is no onward spread from those new cases.

Analysis of yesterday's 20 cases shows 19, or 95%, were contacts of known cases and of those 15 were household contacts already isolating and not active in the community.

 Five people yesterday were potentially infectious in the community with 17 exposure events. Over half of those related to essential workplaces. Mostly multiple events associated with one or two workers. Being on different shifts.

On the hospitalisation front there are 37 cases in hospital. All in the Auckland region. Of these, six remain in intensive care or high dependency with four on ventilation. I want to again reiterate our thoughts being with those people and their whanau, and I recognise it is a stressful time especially in Auckland where whanau members are unable to visit.

 Contact tracing, just over 38,000 individuals are in our system still. A small drop from yesterday reflecting further tidy up of the numbers and also some new contacts being identified. Around 87% of all contacts have been tested. The focus remains on those who are very close contacts.

Yesterday there were 13,000 -- 13,230 swabs processed around the motto with 8566 swabs taken across Metro Auckland -- motu. It is a welcome pickup in numbers so I thank everyone who has come forward to test in the last couple of days.

Our most important action that can be taken is for us all to be confident there is no virus still circulating in the community, to know that the outbreak is controlled in Auckland. So if you have symptoms, please get tested.

Finally a word about vaccinations, which the minister already mentioned. One of the reasons people can leave home in Tamaki Makaurau is to go and get a vaccination, however, generally that should not involve crossing the boundary out of Auckland to get that vaccination. There will be a small number of people whose usual health care provider, for example their general practitioner, is just across the boundary. Then it will be legitimate, and you should show proof of a booking. I know on the northern boundary there are people just across the northern boundary who receive their care in Silverdale or they have their vaccination booked and that is appropriate. Again evidence of that appointment is important. But you should not be booking to have your vaccination done in Hamilton and then be expecting to cross the boundary at the south end of Auckland to be vaccinated down in Hamilton.

Thank you, back to you, Minister.  

>> Thank you, as many New Zealanders step out again today or their first day at alert level II, it's important to remember it is now mandatory to record where you have been if you are visiting certain locations. The New Zealand COVID tracer app and QR codes are the easiest way to do that but there are other alternatives for those who don't use that technology.

We have made it mandatory to keep records so that if there is a case of COVID-19 in the community, it will be easier to track and locate people based on where they have been. It is the responsibility of the business to keep and maintain records of visitors similar to how the bars have always asked for ID if you are drinking alcohol.

 Please make it as easy as possible for them when you are signing in, when you visit the premises. That is happening all over the world and it is a simple way to record visits, and it will be hugely beneficial to us if we need to contact you.

 Turning to our managed isolation facilities, again I want to give a really big shout out to the dedicated team of workers in MiQ who have so far helped around 170,000 people returned to New Zealand and isolate safely for 14 days before rejoining our team of 5 million.

Since May, everyone going through MiQ has been invited to take part in a survey at the end of their stay. Of the thousands who have stayed in that time, 88% found their stay at MiQ was a positive experience. Over 90% said they were treated fairly and with respect and 94% said they felt safe. I acknowledge for some people it can be difficult to spend 14 days in a room with limited outdoor access.

The survey comments, however, tell a story of a friendly and caring staff who are working hard to make everyone staying in MiQ as comfortable as possible. So again, thank you to our frontline border workers and to those working in our managed isolation facilities, they are true Kiwi heroes and we should all value and appreciate their work. The survey shows there are some negatives in the system and it won't be a surprise to anyone that the booking system and a difficulty in obtaining a booking is a point of frustration for many people. As I indicated last week, when we are in a position to open up for new bookings the system will look and feel different. The new virtual lobby accompanied by greater notice when vouchers are being released will give everybody a more equal opportunity to secure a booking.

We are also constantly looking at how we can increase capacity. I acknowledge current travel restrictions are challenging for a lot of people and I want to reassure everyone that we are doing as much as we can to provide a safe passage into New Zealand for as many people as we can safely accommodate without putting our hard won gains as a country at unto risk.

While we are on the topic of MiQ capacity, an update on the Crowne Plaza. Since it emerged to the current outbreak of COVID-19 could have emerged via Crowne Plaza in Auckland, that facility has been the subject of extensive review. The final source investigation report has determined that despite significant investigation into potential epidemiological links, the exact chain of transmission from the MiQ returning is not able to be determined -- returnee. In order to confirm procedures and ventilation at the Crowne Plaza meet the relevant infection control standards.

Modelling by engineers but the risk of infection to the public if an infectious case was standing in the MiQ lobby as very low, less than 1%. Even under a high-risk ventilation and air flow condition, the technical advisory group concluded there is no rationale or justification for shutting the public atrium.

Auckland Regional Public Health Service investigation concluded transmission to a member of the public walking through the public atrium was highly unlikely and negligible.

Regardless of these findings, a number of remedial actions have been taken. Further work has been undertaken to seal the public part of the atrium from the hotel lobby. Further work is also being done to enhance the protections around the outdoor area used by returnees for fresh air and exercise. The wall of the walkway, the nearby walkway, is being raised and a roof placed on top both covered with a plastic coating. In the nearby vaccination centre, it has been moved to a bigger and more convenient site that will help to alleviate public concern. Changes have also been made further to operating procedures especially around how arrivals are processed and how movement within the facility is managed.

So the government has carefully assessed all those findings and the recommendations. We are satisfied the Crowne Plaza can continue to accept returnees. The first cohort going into the Crowne Plaza and any community close contact to cannot safely isolate from home are expected to arrive at the Crowne Plaza tomorrow.

The risk will never be zero, but we are taking the words of the experts that it is negligible. The hotel has served us well and has been a core part of our MiQ network.

Finally today a word on education. We are insuring students around the country especially in Auckland will continue to be supported if they are facing hard times due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Today I announce we're topping up the tertiary education hardship fund for learners with an additional $20 million to ensure students can continue to focus on their studies and learning despite the disruption caused by Alert Level 4 changes.

If you are a treasury student, if you need help, get in touch with your tertiary education provider. They will be working with the Tertiary Education Commission to ensure helpers provided where needed most. The fund has been helping a lot of people over the last year and a half and we expect around 15,000 students could benefit from the funding we injected today.  

>> Even though you have made those changes at Crowne Plaza, if you can't work out the exact chain of transmission it means you cannot be sure you have plugged the gap, right?  

>> It may well still remain a mystery. You will recall where we have had in facility transmission previously, talking about conversations about the elevator button, the wheelie bin and a variety of other things, we were never able in those circumstances to determine exactly what happened but we put in place additional risk mitigation for the facilities to ensure they are secure and tight against potential in facility transmission as possible.  

>> You cannot assure the public that will not be another outbreak like this generated from Crowne Plaza because you can't be sure you have fixed the problem?  

>> I have to be completely honest with you, I cannot hand on heart to be 100% guarantee there will not be in transmission -- in facility transmission in any of our facilities but I can assure you we have done everything we can to remediate any risks we see and whenever an incident happens we are looking to see again if we can hit new information about where a risk may have existed and everything we can to mediate that. the timeline showed someone with a positive test was late for an hour.

>> The timeline was from the hospital that provided it to us. I don't think it was negligent. The staff with control experts did exactly everything that could be expected of them. I know that today is something they will have a look at so we will see what comes out of that assessment.

>> Can you not admit there was a serious era and perhaps apologise to those affected? -- error.

>> It is not my role to second- guess the clinicians and I wouldn't pretend to do that. Let's see what comes out of that assessment and there will be more to say and that will be said by the district health board.

>> There are reports (inaudible) MiQ wanted to go to hospital but have been prevented from doing so. What is your understanding? Is that acceptable?

>> I haven't heard these reports. MiQ facilities are set up, quarantine facilities set up to deal with people who have symptoms of COVID-19. The threshold hospitalisation is reasonably high, so the fact someone is unwell COVID-19 doesn't mean they would justify being sent to hospital just in the same way if you go to your GP because you are unwell, they will not necessarily send you straight to hospital either, so the same thresholds would apply as to whether or not someone is true transferred -- is transferred to hospital.

>> (Inaudible) they say that they feel like going to the hospital and please send them to the hospital. Isn't that reason enough?

>> There asked our fully trained there that are fully trained who have COVID-19 and exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 just as if somebody showed up in and A&E for example unwell, that doesn't necessarily mean they will be admitted to the ward. You don't automatically go to hospital just because you are sick. If someone gets very sick, yes, if that means they require hospital treatment, but yes. I will ask the director-general to comment because these are ultimately judgements made by medical professionals.

>> Thanks. Just to reiterate the teams working particularly in the jet Park quarantine facility and the new ones are used to assessing caring for people with COVID-19 and we see people occasionally a person who has come across the border who needs hospital care and they don't hesitate to refer people to hospital if that level of care is needed.

>> (Inaudible) cost barriers (inaudible) are you confident that (inaudible) are adequately addressed when dealing with a large Pacifica community?

>> Effort has gone into that to ensure there are interpreters and Pacific providers, health providers and non-providers to support the needs of whanau in those communities.

>> Coming back to the Mau Mau case, can you tell me any details about the risk of further community infection from the family, contract -- contact tracing, anything?

>> This case was one appeared and the first we knew was when this person was diagnosed with COVID-19 during the transmission. What I can say is the enquiries and the discussions with that family since have elicited... Have been very much abiding by the Liverpool restriction so there hasn't been unnecessary movement outside of the threshold -- household. -- level IV.

>> Presumably trips to essential services and places. Have they been identified as locations of interest with respect to that family?

>> From what I'm aware, no locations of interest specifically (inaudible) and I should say they're having ongoing conversations with individual members of that family and to see if they can get to the bottom of how the first person in that household was infected and find the link to the wide outbreak.

>> Was the patient or his family vaccinated and what is the impact on surgeries and treatments more broadly at middle more as a result of the situation?

>> I cannot comment on the latter but I think the DHB has spoken about that and I know Doctor Peter Watson and the Chief Medical Officer was interviewed this morning in the media. -- middle more. I don't have information about the vaccination status of that family and we don't pretend to provide it down to that detail. We are regularly providing an update on the overall vaccination status of the pool outbreak and we can do an update again on that today.

>> Any details on the process (inaudible) staff went to middle more to help replace those (inaudible)?

>> In the first instance that would be moving staff within that facility. This is a hospital with thousands of staff and so they will re-roster staff aren't towards and no they have had to close a couple of boards to admissions. Then of course they can draw on the neighbours but also we still have staff coming in from other DHBs into the Auckland region, some arriving to day and more tomorrow.

>> How is that going? It is going well. I want to thank the DHBs around the country for providing not just clinical staff but public health staff to support Auckland regional Public. You can imagine several weeks into the outbreak staff have worked very long hours so tired and there are public health unit supporting them.

>> Returning to James's question in terms of vaccination rates and the overall out, 702 people have no vaccine recorded, 115 one does and 38 two doses fully vaccinated as at 9 AM.

>> But you can't specify the patients within those numbers?

>> No. We generally don't specify individuals. I will come back to Jenna.

>> On the vaccine (inaudible) hospitalised, please?

>> That would be a question for help to consider if they release that bearing in mind it is potentially possible to identify people and we try not to release information identifying individual people. We can come back to you on that.

>> It should be fine to release and we can give an indication of how many people in hospital war who have been hospitalised throughout the wreck had a vaccine or were fully vaccinated. -- were. -- outbreak.

>> They can only have 50 people while other places can have 700 people inside. --     - Waitemata? Te Papa . All these things are work through which is why there are things work through so different rules applying to public restaurants, bars and so answer people need to familiarise themselves.

>> You are looking at a small cafe when not all hospitality outlets are created equal.

>> We did work for those things and have to convey the rules and the way it is easy for people to understand and follow recognising is already quite a bit of complexity in them. But ultimately I would say back to the hospitality industry, I acknowledge the going is pretty tough at the moment and has been for 1.5 years, not as tough in other parts of the world where the hospitality industry has been shut down 1.5 years effectively but it is still tough and I acknowledge that. However we construct the restrictions, there will be people finding that typical.

>> Businesses have plans based on square metre ridge in the cafe and how many people can safely been in there. Couldn't you amend that system to fit a like-for-like system for how many people can be in the building? -- B.

>> I'm not familiar with the establishments you speak of but I acknowledge there are variety of sizes and shapes of business. We try and take that into account when seating -- setting out guidelines and requirements around distancing and the number of people who could be admitted but ultimately the overall goal here is to keep the risk profile as low as we possibly can.

>> Minister, is the vaccine rollout (inaudible) rate? You are doing about 20,000 less than last week for the last three days.

>> No, I don't think it has peaked. I think there is the potential that we will still see higher daily numbers for example than some of the daily numbers we have seen previously. Ultimately that will in large part come down to sustaining the level of demand we have seen in recent times. We are seeing... Mild report at this point that in some parts of the country some of that demand might be starting to ebb away. On the other hand and in other places notably Auckland demand is still very high and very encouraging, so why I started with that message to New Zealanders book in. I know there have been questions about supply. The Prime Minister will speak more to those tomorrow but we will not run out of vaccines.

>> (Inaudible).

>> But I can tell you around supply of vaccines as today making sure I have the right sheet of paper here is as of today we have around 629,000 doses in the country, around 500,000 of those are sitting at vaccination sites and the balance of those are sitting in our central stores ready for distribution, so at the moment supply is not a challenge but DHBs will be making sure they are administering vaccines in accordance with the supplies they have and supplies they know they can access.

>> One thing that is important because there have been... Has been an increase in opportunities for people to be vaccinated including can drive an opportunity sometimes people do not cancel bookings and so I would encourage people if you are going somewhere or your booking forward, please cancel your other booking to free that space up for someone else because some of the drop of is because DNAs do not attend and people missing these appointments and so if we can encourage everybody to do that, that will keep vaccination rates up high as well.

>> I will have one more and enjoy.

>> Trials of (inaudible) more effective than Pfizer and not an mRNA vaccine and not so serious. New Zealand has an order for lots to come in (inaudible) safe approval, any logistical issues using Novavax?

>> Made safe approval is an integral part. -- Med. The pharmaceutical company apply and it goes through the process and once they have a tech, there is a decision by Cabinet, the decision to use. How, by whom it is available. -- tick.  We have booster shots, whether it is those or another round of vaccination required or ongoing, we will have systems in place able to do that.

>> Has any consideration being given to compassionate exemptions for people wanting to visit loved ones and -- in hospital where they are not in hospital because of a COVID -related matter, it is a separate matter but the person has dementia? A person who is a contact has been caring for (inaudible) and the partner had to go into hospital for medication issues. The doctor has knowledge that that would be beneficial in terms of seeing the partner. What consideration has been given to that sort of thing?

>> There is clear guidance and under alert level IV, restrictions are tight around visiting and people unable to visit their family members in hospital who have COVID, so generally, unless there is a very clear reason, visitors are not loud and partly that is about the challenge of operating the whole facility under an alert level IV arrangement and then the affection control. -- infection. If there are cases in the community it is tough and one area, in fact, I know my colleagues work in healthcare really feel this and you are right because for many people having access to family members is a really important part of their well-being and recovery so something we will constantly be looking at but at the moment that is what the alert level IV guidelines to say.

>> (Inaudible) no I guess when it is a doctor recommendation  the care and experience of that person would be improved if the partner was coming and part of the exemption process.  

>> There is consideration given to that setting principles and rules in the first place because there is no doubt for most if not all people in hospital, having access to family and support is a really important thing. And I know they go to great lengths to enable that if possible to happen, you know, through access through teleconference or other means. In this case of course that wouldn't be as helpful. At the moment those are the restrictions. They have served us well to date, and they are part of the Alert Level for arrangements. -- Alert Level four.  

>> In terms of your advice around parliament, what is your advice for people taking their bubble with them? Wellington now level 2, level 4 here, what is the advice around taking your bubble with you?  

>> I have not been asked formally for advice and it applies not just to parliament, but if people are coming out of Alert Level 4, this is not new but we recommend as much as possible to take your bubble with you. So saying, and I can see this even here in parliament at the moment, the Delta level 2 arrangements, especially the use of masks and thoughtfulness about distancing and scanning in, are all things that are much stronger elements of the Alert Level 2 arrangements at the moment. People coming out of Alert Level 4 as a place, if they are here in Alert Level 2 should be very conscious abiding by those expectations.  

>> Or our students getting a raw deal?  

>> Not at all, the fund is equitable. The funds are run by the institutions so we are essentially topping up the hardship funds they have in place. Many institutions, I can say the students themselves are involved helping to administer those funds and making sure they get to the people who need that support the most.  

>> Would you consider increasing the amount due to the take-up what my?  

>> We did look at that and we did some work around that, we increased what people were able to draw down last year. It didn't mean it was very untargeted, though. Ultimately this is a better way of targeting.  

>> Is there any serious consideration for rapid tests for all presentations at Auckland ED, secondly, DHBs say they won't know how many staff have been vaccinated until October, it was meant to be August, what is the hold-up?  

>> I will ask the director- general to comment on both.  

>> On the rapid tests, no there is an assessment done of everyone who turns up in the emergency department to see if there is a risk they may have been exposed to COVID-19. In terms of rapid testing, the testing done on people, we have what is called point of care testing available where there may be a suspicion someone could have COVID-19. That has a turnaround of about one hour or so. However those machines which do the rapid PCR test can only take a small number of samples at one time. So it is not a rapid volume and way of getting testing results. And the key thing is asking those questions to determine the risk that someone may have been exposed to COVID-19.  

>> Staff vaccination rates and DHB, they were asked to have them by August but now it is October?  

>> I have to come back to you on that. A number of our DHBs including Auckland already have that information.  

>> With the outbreak in Auckland has that added some urgency?  

>> I haven't seen the numbers, I will have to get some advice and come back to you.  

>> Are you doing enough to attract early childhood teachers to ease the shortage?  

>> We are working towards pay parity for early childhood educators which is one of the big things about attracting people to the early child -- early childhood profession. We have a lot of work to do. There is no doubt it is a very tight labour market when it comes to early childhood teachers.  

>> There are also calls to set aside MiQ rooms for border exemptions to get workers in, when you consider that?  

>> We have some MiQ rooms set aside for a limited number of essential workers. In particular industries. Where group allocations are useful and required, we work with industry to do that and you will have seen that previously with RSD. We have a number on hold -- RSE. But we keep it all under constant review.  

>> So you can create border exemption is to bring them in but there is nowhere to put them so they can't come in?  

>> I acknowledge that first up and in terms of teachers we approved an exemption for up to 300 teachers. I would expect them to be here in time for next year. Getting them here earlier than that, it is not just about MiQ, there is a Visa process they have to go through before they get into the country. 

>> With the Maori and Pasifika vaccination rates so low, is it time to pull in those advocates who felt they weren't listened to, is it time to get them back in and look at designing a specific vaccination program for them?  

>> I am disappointed if they feel they have not been listened to because certainly I know the team have been working very hard to reach out to every community around the country to make sure we are getting high vaccination rates everywhere. I am aware some of our Maori and Pacific health providers have done incredible work not just supporting Maori and Pasifika nations, in fact there was one clinic had been criticised and it was revealed that they had done five times as many Pakeha cylinders as Maori, shout out to them. -- New Zealanders. It's best now to focus on getting the most coverage on the communities they serve now.  

>> Putting vaccines in vans, driving up and down the coast, getting too hard to reach areas, you confident they have got the resources to do that?  

>> Yes I am. The director-general and I both spoke about the funding that has gone into supporting providers to be ready to administer vaccines based on the needs of their populations. But I will invite him if he wants to add to that.  

>> The only thing I would add is we have got some really good analysis now of rates of vaccination and the pattern of vaccination right from the start of the program by ethnicity and age group, and I have asked the team to make that all available on our website. It shows for the first two or three months of the program, in virtually every DHB around the country, the rates of vaccination for Maori and Pasifika over the age of 55 were higher because of the involvement of them. Only recently the rates have caught up and in some cases superseded them. The real focus now is ensuring we get high rates of uptake right down through the age groups and particularly because we know we have younger populations for the Maori and Pacific people it is essential to protect their older people and also there tamariki. We will continue to work with the full range of dividers to do what they do best. -- providers.  

>> In light of your comment yesterday it may be inappropriate to stratify countries based on their risk level because of Delta, does that effectively spell the end of any hope for a Trans Tasman bubble? Even to a state like Tasmania?  

>> Not necessarily but it does bring a degree of realism to the timing around discussions around the Trans Tasman bubble. I am aware our initial indication of the length of time we were suspending the bubble for is drawing close. I think it would be unrealistic to expect there will be speedy decisions in the next few weeks about reopening the trans- Tasman travel bubble. I think those New Zealanders in Australia should be making preparations to secure bookings through MAS to come back through MiQ when there are spaces available. I keep in touch with their consular officials so if there is an emergency need to travel back, they can access that pathway to return to New Zealand. Discussions around reopening the Trans Tasman bubble are a long way away. -- a fair way away.  

>> After the report that came out a month ago there was a burst of optimism that people might be able to travel early next year once the reopening started, with what you have seen with Delta you talked about MiQ in the medium-term, should people be preparing themselves for the border remaining closed for the next 18-24 months?  

>> No, they shouldn't be. We have acknowledged we want to be able to reconnect and we want to provide for a greater amount of movement at the border than we are currently able to provide through MiQ. The Prime Minister set out a pilot for isolating at home. We will be endeavouring to proceed with that pilot between now and the end of the year which is the timetable we set out in the Reconnecting seminar - it feels like a long time ago now - just before the outbreak started. We do acknowledge the current model we are working to, whilst it may still have an ongoing role, is unlikely to be the only pathway in and out of the country in the medium to longer term.  

>> Between level 2 Northland, through Auckland, out through the Waikato, what protections are in place to stop any Auckland are saying they are from Northland and heading south from level 4 into level 2?  

>> People would need to verify they are from Northland travelling through. My message to everybody in Auckland is, don't try and cheat the system. If you get caught cheating the system, there will be repercussions for that. There are fines for people deliberately and knowingly trying to cheat the system.  

>> Someone tried to get through a checkpoint, was stopped by police, produced a negative test and was then on their merry way.  

>> Difficult to comment on a case without knowing all the details.  

>> In terms of the pilot for the business people to travel overseas, come back and have a looser managed isolation, are you taking expressions of interest from business already? When can we expect that to filter down?  

>> I would have to check whether the expressions of interest have opened. A were due to open around about now. Those were the wheels set in motion prior to this current outbreak so I will have to come back to you on whether the process is now open. Certainly we are still forging ahead with the trial between now and the end of the year.  

>> Thinking October still, or is it November, December?  

>> We said in the beginning it would be in the final quarter of the year, if you like. Maybe movement in that required because of the current outbreak we are dealing with so there is not a specific time frame at this point.  

>> People coming back from overseas, it shouldn't matter too much that we are dealing with an outbreak here or not?  

>> One of the issues is the people doing this work are fully deployed on the current response as well.  

>> On the trend of cases, 20 or so in the last few days, 15 today, is that to do with the communities that have been affected and there are household contacts, what impact does it have on the tail of this outbreak?  

>> Thank you. The cases from yesterday, 15 out of the 20 were household contacts. It is encouraging. 75%, it is up from the day before and continues to grow. 95% of the cases yesterday were contacts of known cases. So we are not seeing cases emerging from locations of interest which is good. That alongside the drop in numbers is encouraging. But you know Delta is tough. And there is still a long way to go for us to be confident that the outbreak is fully contained here. We have seen in the past, even without Delta, these outbreaks have a long tail. So we are continuing to plan ahead and think about, what is the testing that will be required, what are the measures that will be required, to help ensure we have got the outbreak fully controlled as we go back down through the Alert Levels.  

>> Many countries in the northern hemisphere are about to head into autumn and winter, they have high rates of vaccination unlike they did last winter, when you look closely at what happens to those largely vaccinated countries to see how this profile is and what the differences are?  

>> Absolutely. We have been watching them already. The UK is instructive here with quite high rates of vaccination coverage but still getting the equivalent in New Zealand of around 3000 cases per day. And a much smaller number of, proportionately a much smaller number of deaths, around the equivalent of 10 per day here compared with the outbreak they had through their winter last year. This is showing the impact of vaccine, what the vaccine is incredibly effective, the vaccine greatly improves the prospect of surviving. With Singapore, people were saying that Singapore is opening up and now they are infection rates are rising even with over 80% of the population fully vaccinated. Just go back to my earlier comment Delta is tough and our objective is to make sure we are keeping all options open and looking to see for as long as possible what is happening in other countries at the same time as we get our vaccination rate up as high as possible.

>> Can I clarify, you said discussions about reopened borders are a while away. (Inaudible) are you saying reopening is a while away?

>> Reopening is a while away. Discussions are ongoing. What we are saying there and dealing with here suggest people should not hold their breath borders between New Zealand and Australia to reopen in the immediate future.

>> Less people in MiQ, people are leaving Xavier Park. (Inaudible) does that give hope and any update on when they might get back?

>> September is still very tight and we are doing everything we can to manage that. There will be more vouchers released in coming weeks for later in the year, so there are more vouchers coming. 

>> Due to (inaudible) I focus on that. You obviously have many portfolios and it has been suggested you should just focus on COVID-19. Do you think that you are giving you all COVID-19? There are no gaps in the COVID response because you are too busy?

>> It is amazing how much you can accomplish if you focus your time and energy on your work rather than fighting with colleagues.

>> (Inaudible) plans for essential workers? What you make of the concerns from transport operators that you start carrying out checkpoints to see if people have been tested it will create chaos at that border?

>> I will ask the director- general to comment on testing methods.

>> The testing is already available through our network of swab community testing centres, GPs and urgent care clinics. We are in the process of signing a contract with a provider to provide saliva- based sampling as a complement to that but at the moment the testing is widely available and we still have a significant capacity in the Auckland region to do that. On the second question we are working really hard with transport colleagues and transport operators and the police to make sure they are checking at the boundary does not cause bottlenecks. -- there. As the Prime Minister indicated this would be spot checks and checking everybody but people will need to provide evidence they have been tested in the last seven days over the next few days.

>> It is a parliamentary sitting day and I need to stretch my legs before parliamentary question time but one last question up the back.

>> (Inaudible) is urgently seeking more (inaudible) needles and syringes for vaccination. How widespread and how long has this problem been of not having the right equipment, five doses per vial instead of six?

>> At the moment still we are getting somewhere between six and seven doses per vial routinely across the country which is fantastic. There was a particular issue around one type of syringe and one type of needle and we still have plenty of supplies, however. We are going back out to get more to support the vaccination that needs to happen. We have done 4 million, would like to do another 4 million over the coming three months, so it is to support that next round of vaccinations.

>> Thank you very much, everybody.

>> (Inaudible) past few months has been somewhere between six and seven doses per vial.

>> That is my understanding but we will come back to you.

>> Private function attached to a pub, for example, holding private functions, can they operate under the private social gathering or do they have to operate under the hospitality bars, clubs etc?

>> I don't know off the top of my head. I will come back and give a clear answer. thanks, everybody. I better.

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