Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 26, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.15pm: The day in sum … Read more
Compliance has dropped compared with the last time New Zealand was in a lockdown, a new Stickybeak poll for The Spinoff shows. Plus: how many people have taken a financial hit? Around the world, regions or nations that have exited then returned to lockdown have faced what has been called “lockdown fatigue”. It was certainly … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 25, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. Get me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.00pm: The day in sum There … Read more
A man in his 30s turned up at hospital on Friday with symptoms. He’s now in ICU. Nobody knows how he contracted the virus. Amid the daily rush of numbers as Auckland’s tally of active Covid-19 tops 110, one new infection has given Ashley Bloomfield particular pause for concern. It’s another indication that the growing … Read more
Different countries are pursuing different strategies for taking on Covid-19. Despite the re-emergence of the virus, and the sacrifices our response demands, it remains absolutely the best approach for us, writes Siouxsie Wiles. Here in Aotearoa, we’re playing Covid-19 in “elimination” mode. Some countries are trying “suppression” mode, while others are running with what seems … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 24, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. Get me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.30pm: The day in sum … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 23, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. 6.00pm: The day in sum There was only one … Read more
A range of new measures are under consideration, covering the border, isolation and testing. Siouxsie Wiles assesses the options, and the opposition proposals. Because we don’t have widespread community transmission of Covid-19 in New Zealand, our response managing our border and responding to any outbreaks will also help the rest of the world understand more … Read more
The seventh in a series of polls by Stickybeak for The Spinoff reveals how support for government measures have changed – and views on the National response. Twelve days ago New Zealand’s post-Covid honeymoon came to a sudden halt. The detection of Covid-19 in several members of an Auckland family, and cases in a number … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 21, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at aliceneville@thespinoff.co.nz 6.00pm: The day in sum … Read more
How do the youngest members of our team of five million feel about the Covid-19 resurgence? When photographer Sonya Nagels had to explain to her kids that they were back in lockdown, she was struck by how much they understood. Lockdown, social distancing, masks, outbreaks, viruses – they knew all the jargon. Sonya asked a … Read more
With the re-emergence of Covid-19 in Aotearoa, here’s a reminder of what some of the most important epidemiology terms we’re hearing actually mean. Contacts Let’s start with close and casual contacts. A contact is basically a person who has had some kind of encounter with someone who has or is suspected of having Covid-19. People … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 21, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.00pm: The day in sum … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 20, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.15pm: The day in sum … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 19, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ is in level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7.30pm: The day in sum … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 18, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 6.45pm: The day in sum There were … Read more
The racist and untrue rumour about the source of the latest Covid-19 outbreak in New Zealand began life as a much less inflammatory post on Reddit. It was deleted after a few hours, but the damage was done. Here, the man who started the rumour speaks for the first time. Last week, when a cluster … Read more
Immigration NZ has deemed a golf course designer and three ‘shapers’ to be critical workers, approving their entry to work on an American billionaire’s two courses in Northland. Rebecca Stevenson of BusinessDesk reports. A golf course designer and three “shapers” have been approved entry to New Zealand as critical workers for US billionaire Ric Kayne’s … Read more
New Zealand has opted for an elimination strategy, but a vocal minority is calling for an alternative approach that would see an end to lockdowns and borders loosened. Dr Siouxsie Wiles explains why that would be a bad idea. Around the world, different countries are taking different approaches to dealing with the global pandemic. Here … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 17, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact me at stewart@thespinoff.co.nz 7pm: The day in sum There are … Read more
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for August 16, bringing you the latest on New Zealand news and Covid-19 as it returns to the community. Auckland is now in alert level three and the rest of NZ level two. More details here. Official information here. Contact us at info@thespinoff.co.nz. 7.00pm: The day in sum There were … Read more
Jacinda Ardern and her cabinet yesterday chose the middle and least bad option. The next week will be critical in assessing whether the right choice was made, writes Justin Giovannetti from parliament. The sense of relief in the basement of the Beehive was unspoken but plain yesterday as Jacinda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield took their … Read more
A new New Zealand-made drama about life in lockdown was dropped from Prime’s schedule, just days before it was due to start. What’s going on? Peter Salmon reckons the perfect time to watch a New Zealand drama about a second-wave Covid lockdown is during a second-wave Covid lockdown. Prime disagrees, having removed new short drama … Read more
The novel coronavirus mutates as it travels between people and around the world. By sequencing the genome, we can try to work out which case is linked with another. As Aotearoa confronted its first cases of Covid-19 community transmission in more than 100 days, the director general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, raised genome sequencing – … Read more
Justin Latif takes the temperature of his community in South Auckland, ground zero for the latest Covid-19 outbreak. Following the prime minister’s announcement on Tuesday evening, my messenger app began pinging with pictures and videos of people at the supermarket. But it wasn’t panic buying that I was seeing, rather there was a sense of … Read more
Last night Jacinda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield announced four cases of Covid-19 in the community. Within hours the online community transmission of dumb takes was going like wildfire. It didn’t take long did it? Before the anti-Covid God squad shit the bed and started screeching about how they’ll never wear a mask because, ah, freedom? … Read more
Aotearoa surpassed 100 days without a case of community transmission of Covid-19. Last night that virus-free streak ended and we’re moving back up the alert levels. Siouxsie Wiles explains why that has to happen. For months now, we’ve been intercepting cases of Covid-19 at the border. But just as has happened in many other countries, … Read more
The confirmation of community transmission has prompted a swift move up the alert level ladder. Here are the critical questions about Auckland’s move to Covid-19 level three lockdown, answered. What are the new alert levels – and where do they apply? Auckland enters alert level three at midday today, Wednesday August 12. At the same … Read more
After initial concerns about low testing rates in South Auckland, Counties Manukau DHB has the second-highest testing rate in the country. Ōtara Health chief executive Sosefina Paletaoga explains her organisation’s role in achieving this. Covid-19 has affected us all in different ways, and for us in Ōtara, it has highlighted existing issues, but also reinforced … Read more