Monthly Archives: September 2021

The Government revealed its plan in August for reopening to the world. A self-isolation pilot will soon get underway for 150 vaccinated arrivals, and next year returnees deemed "low-risk" won't need to spend two weeks in managed isolation.

"The difference between the Government's plan is that we have talked about high vaccination rates in the first quarter of 2022. We have also prioritised New Zealanders here not facing undue and unnecessary additional restrictions to manage what would inevitably be a rate of cases at the border," Ardern said.

"I refer them to Canada. They removed all border restrictions for citizens who are double vaccinated and in some cases they are facing a significant fourth wave and it has meant that they have domestic restrictions.

"There is no free lunch. You do have to make tradeoffs. We've decided to prioritise domestically trying to get the settings as low as possible for New Zealanders, and in time we will see changes at our border."

National leader Judith Collins asked how Ardern could reconcile with Kiwis overseas "being forced to watch dying family members take their final breaths by Zoom because her Government was so slow to get the vaccine rolled out".

Ardern acknowledged how "incredibly difficult" it is for people stuck overseas, and for Kiwis desperate to travel overseas to visit dying loved ones, for example, but haven't been able to secure a room upon their return.

Almost 4000 more rooms were released on Tuesday night but those desperate to book a space found themselves logging on to join an impossibly long queue of more than 30,000.

"Every member in this House will have sympathy for family members who have been separated by COVID the world over," Ardern said.

"We do have a process that enables, in those situations, New Zealanders to get to the top of any waitlist to be able to make it home to see their family members."

Ardern said it's important the Government is "ensuring you've got your domestic settings right and protecting New Zealanders at home. The member instead wants to open the floodgate without getting it right first. That is rushed and it is risky".

ACT leader David Seymour asked Ardern why domestic settings to control COVID-19 were still being worked on after 18 months since coronavirus emerged in the world.

Ardern said the Delta variant changed the game.

"If the member thinks domestic settings based on Alpha would be any good right now then obviously he hasn't looked at what's happening around the world. In fact, the settings for vaccines under Alpha are vastly different to now.

"You have to adapt and the benefit of the New Zealand approach is that we've done that and we've done it very successfully."

Seymour asked: "Has the Prime Minister only just realised that there are new variants of COVID, and if not, why is she so unprepared for them?"

Ardern wasn't impressed.

"Mr Speaker, do I even have to answer that?"

House Speaker Trevor Mallard said he could have ruled out Seymour's remarks as ironic, but he settled on Ardern being "absolutely capable of answering".

"Of course the entire global community is aware of the range of variants that exist," Ardern said. "But if the member is suggesting that we can base a research and evidence-based approach on a variant where most of the research around transmissibility, around infectivity, around hospitalisation, has only emerged since the latter part of the year."

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern fires up at 'rushed and risky' COVID-19 reopening proposals by National, ACT - Newshub

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's 1pm press conferences have become comforting and reassuring in uncertain times. Photo / Mark Mitchell

From the left: Jacinda Ardern's former chief of staff Mike Munro joins the Weekend Business Herald as a monthly columnist from today.

OPINION:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern offered another masterclass in crisis communications as she advised Aucklanders on Monday that they faced just two more days at level 4 lockdown. Or, more pertinently, two more days until they could enjoy a takeaways fix.

Her adroit performance at the post-Cabinet press conference was what we've come to expect. From the moment she reached the lectern, de-masked and apologised for being delayed by a frozen computer, it was textbook stuff.

Her trademark empathy and keen intuition were on show as she gently coaxed her million-plus audience to hang in there.

Aucklanders were applauded for their "tireless" work in the face of "strict and hard" lockdown rules. She beseeched everyone to be stay mindful of the seriousness of the current situation. Businesses resuming trade were urged to watch out for the welfare of staff. And throughout she kept beating the vaccination drum.

In these uncertain, Covid-19 times, the (mostly) 1pm press conferences have become the equivalent of Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats. Ninety years ago the US President introduced his radio broadcasts to calm national anxieties over the many issues vexing Americans at the time, in particular a banking crisis. He was able to reach out to voters directly, his words unfiltered by media. Roosevelt would be comforting and reassuring, praising the people for their fortitude in troubled times.

For Ardern and her Government, the daily briefings are serving the same purpose. Press conferences have long been an essential part of the communications mix in political life. But in the grip of this pandemic, with national life severely disrupted, anxiety levels rising and so many questions arising, they assume an even greater importance.

In the political domain, media scrutiny is but one of a suite of accountability mechanisms that also include the Opposition, the Official Information Act, judicial reviews and, most critically, elections.

Opposition MPs like to believe they're the ringmasters when it comes to keeping the Government honest. We saw this when Ardern citing reservations about the safety of MPs and parliamentary staff travelling during lockdown recently suspended Parliament for a week. Some reacted as if she was emulating Guy Fawkes and plotting to detonate the place.

24 Sep, 2021 05:00 PMQuick Read

24 Sep, 2021 05:00 PMQuick Read

The bellyaching included: the PM is stopping the Opposition from fulfilling its democratic function. We're not taking democracy as seriously as we should. A virtual sitting of Parliament is no substitute for the "real thing".

This flood of crocodile tears overlooked a stark reality. As the Government grapples with the pandemic, the most important accountability forum in town, by a wide margin, is the daily Covid-19 press conference in the Beehive theatrette. It is there, and not in Parliament's debating chamber, that the Government is being held to account, exhaustively and rigorously, over its pandemic decision-making.

Ardern and her able stand-ins, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins, are bombarded with journalists' questions on the whole gamut of pandemic-related topics: vaccines, the elimination strategy, mystery cases, lockdowns, alert levels, MIQ failings and much more. No Covid rock is left unturned.

What is noticeable when Parliament sits is that the Opposition is reduced to re-heating questions already asked by journalists at the 1pm briefings.

Not once in the nine parliamentary Question Times since the August 17 lockdown has the Opposition scored a hit on the Government. They are simply picking over the bones after the media has feasted.

The fact that massive audiences are tuning in to the daily briefings, and seeing Ardern and her lieutenants handle the crisis so adeptly, will be adding to the despair of a battered National Party.

It is possible as many as 2 million people were following the Government's briefings during the early weeks of the current outbreak. On August 20, TVNZ's peak day, it had an average audience of 908,000, while TV3 attracted 226,572 add to that the numbers watching the New Zealand Herald and Stuff livestreams, plus RNZ's radio and online audiences, and you have vast numbers tuning in.

The PM's media activity elsewhere also helps to deepen trust in the Government's ability to handle the pandemic. Her weekly appearances on the likes of breakfast television, RNZ's Morning Report, Maori TV and Mai FM means she is constantly answering for her Government's decisionmaking.

Recent polls illustrate the political upside that flows from Ardern's competent and calm leadership being perpetually on display. UMR, Labour's pollster, scored Ardern's preferred PM rating at 55 per cent, a rise of five points.

Curia, National's pollster, also had Ardern as the runaway leader in the preferred PM stakes, her rating nudging 51 per cent. Everyone else was in single figures. Curia's soundings also showed a chunk of the true-blue brigade has switched camps, with Ardern now the preferred PM of 7 per cent of National voters.

Governments instil voters with greater confidence when their approach to media scrutiny is "bring it on". With its most gifted communicator leading the charge, that formula is working for the government right now.

As Newshub's recently returned UK correspondent Lloyd Burr observed, 16 months of enduring Boris Johnson's blather at Covid-19 briefings made him realise how refreshing Ardern's communications approach is.

The latest polls tell us most New Zealanders are thinking the same thing.

- Mike Munro is a former chief of staff for Jacinda Ardern and served as chief press secretary for Helen Clark.

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Mike Munro: In Jacinda Ardern Kiwis trust as National left trailing - New Zealand Herald

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and National Party leader Judith Collins clashed in Parliament yesterday on the question of why Invercargill is at Alert Level 2.

During question time, as usual, Ms Collins asked Ms Ardern a range of Covid-related questions.

Things got feisty when she asked if there was a plan to keep the Delta outbreak in Auckland away from Invercargill which did not involve the South Island being at Level 2.

Ms Ardern replied yes, and hopefully it involves that member being regularly tested.

Ms Collins lives in Auckland but has been out of the city for several weeks so she can attend Parliament; while Parliament was in recess she visited several southern cities, including Dunedin and Queenstown.

Ms Ardern had to defend her comment, calling out to barracking National MPs that she was not being nasty.

Ms Collins asked if the prime minister thought South Islanders would think she was being funny, when they are stuck at Alert Level 2 and they havent seen Covid-19 for almost a year.

The prime minister replied her comment was a reference to the need for Aucklanders who might have essential worker exemptions to be regularly tested.

They may have the ability to move about to other parts of the country, and to reduce the risks to other parts of the country they have a seven-day testing cycle.

If we do have the emergence of a case, rather than having to put that area, be it Invercargill or anywhere else, into a higher alert level, we give ourselves a better chance to be able to contact trace without heightened restrictions.

Ms Collins told the Otago Daily Times Ms Arderns comment was flippant and suggested she was under pressure.

Im sure there are plenty of South Islanders writing in and telling her what they think about still being at Alert Level 2.

A lot of people are certainly contacting me about it and I am going to keep on standing up for South Islanders.

All eight South Island National MPs signed a letter to Ms Ardern last week, calling for the island to revert to Level 1 immediately.

Ms Ardern said she thought most people understood why the Government was keeping the South Island at Level 2.

If you ask, Would you rather be in Level 2 and be cautious, or run the risk of a case and going into a lockdown?, I suspect many would opt for that cautious approach.

Excerpt from:

Invercargill invoked to question Govt's plan - Otago Daily Times

In the Love Island-esque sketch, ScoMo & Jacinda, along with other G20 world leaders such as Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China), Emmanuel Macron (France) and Boris Johnson (United Kingdom) are relocated to a 2.5 star resort in Ibiza, where they are depicted to be having a drunken time, to ensure global financial stability, form trade alliances and, most importantly, find love.

In the scene opener, the Morrison and Ardern puppets toast each other with champagne, closely followed by the pair sharing a steamy passionate open mouthed kiss.

The 3:58 second clip ensures ScoMo and his policy decisions arent spared by the masterful writers ofSpittingImage;his puppet is seen looking awkwardly away while the gathering of worldleaders are set a challenge to negotiate a 3% reduction in carbon emissions.

An appearance by Joe Biden sees the AUKUS alliance announced to other key leaders, taking many (including Macrons puppet) by surprise. Chinas Jinping is spotted mercilessly mocking the three nations calling Australia and the UK Americas two chickennuggets. This is the first major appearance for Morrison onSpittingImagewith ScoMo making his fleeting debut in puppet form at the end of the first season.

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ScoMo and Jacinda share a steamy kiss on the latest episode of SPITTING IMAGE - TV Blackbox

Home detention-style GPS tracking bracelets, facial recognition check-ins, building a virtual fence around your home. Nikki Macdonald investigates the alternatives to MIQ.

Remember the time before MIQ.

It was March 2020, two weeks before Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sent the country into lockdown.

A time when shutting out the world seemed inconceivable. To reduce the risk of travellers bringing in the dreaded virus, without barring the borders altogether, the Government introduced self-isolation.

Ricky Wilson/Stuff

Self-isolation and shorter stays are possible alternatives to the current 14-day quarantine in an MIQ hotel.

Arriving travellers had to spend 14 days at home, so they couldnt spread Covid if they happened to be infected. They could go running alone and could share a house with others, but were supposed to shut themselves off as much as possible.

As pressure mounts to let more Kiwis in and out of Fortress Aotearoa, were now considering the same process in reverse as a pathway to reopen.

The Government will today announce details of its self-isolation trial, which will allow 150 New Zealanders to quit the country on a work trip and quarantine at home on their return.

But youll remember something else about that early self-isolation some returnees abused the countrys trust.

As Sir David Skegg put it in his Reconnecting New Zealanders report, returning travellers who were required to quarantine at home did not do so consistently, and measures to check on their adherence turned out to be largely ineffective.

KEVIN STENT/Stuff

Stuff journalist Lucy Craymer was among the first in the world to try digitally monitored Covid home quarantine, while living in Hong Kong in March 2020.

Around the same time as New Zealand introduced self-isolation, Kiwi journalist Lucy Craymer flew back into Hong Kong, where she worked, at the time, for The Wall Street Journal.

In her absence, the business hub had introduced one of the worlds first digitally-monitored Covid home quarantine schemes.

At the airport, she was fitted with a hospital-style bracelet printed with a unique QR code. On arriving home, she had to download an app, scan the QR code and walk the perimeter of her apartment with her phone.

The app used her phone's GPS to draw a virtual fence that became her confinement area for two weeks.

At random times, someone could call, and shed have to take a photo on her phone showing the QR code band on her wrist. They already knew from GPS tracking that her phone was within the geofence, and the photo showed she was still with her phone.

Over the following months, Hong Kong upgraded the papery band to a bracelet with its own GPS tracking.

Since then, many countries have adopted cellphone tracking for home quarantine, to stop returnees breaking the rules.

Its not yet clear what monitoring the New Zealand pilot will include, although the requirement for cellphone coverage suggests some digital surveillance.

Skeggs report suggested anyone travelling quarantine free, or with a shorter quarantine period, could be monitored with mobile phone tracking.

Australia is trialling 7-day home quarantine using controversial facial recognition software. Users download an app that tracks the phone through geolocation. It includes random check-ins, where the user has to upload a selfie within 5-30 minutes (it varies by state). That image is checked against the file photo using facial recognition software.

Supplied

Dr Andrew Chen, researcher at the University of Aucklands Centre for Informed Futures, favours human monitoring of home quarantine, with some GPS phone tracking if absolutely necessary.

Andrew Chen, a research fellow at the University of Auckland's Centre for Informed Futures, says Poland was actually the first country to use facial recognition software for home quarantine, way back in 2020. Hed be pretty wary if the New Zealand government took that option, mostly because the technology is inaccurate.

Any monitoring technology comes with ethical questions and the potential for backlash, Chen says. Before you advocate a parole-style GPS monitoring bracelet, consider if youd wear one yourself, he says.

And any digital surveillance comes with privacy and security risks.

It doesnt really matter which of these technologies it is, it needs to be governed with the right rules and processes.

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards was not available for an interview, but said in a statement his office would ensure any innovations minimise impacts on privacy.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Sir David Skeggs report, Reconnecting New Zealanders, found Deltas greater infectiousness made self-isolation less attractive because of the likelihood of spread within households. He also noted that, last time around, returning travellers did not all obey the self-isolation rules.

Theres also the practical problem that most people live with others. Skegg pointed out Deltas increased infectiousness meant the virus tended to infect everyone in a household, making self-isolation with others implausible. The New Zealand trial is limited to people who can quarantine alone, or with others from the same travel group.

Chens preference would be to trust people, then back that up with human monitoring and maybe some GPS phone tracking, but thered have to be a very good case for that.

Britain has used human monitoring only (daily check-ins and random visits, backed up by police visits if necessary), but Imperial College London epidemiology professor Neil Ferguson questioned its effectiveness.

Home quarantine for travellers just doesnt work, he told The Guardian in June. Everybody coming in from India in April of this year was meant to quarantine at home, but it [Delta] has still established itself.

Supplied

The Singapore home quarantine scheme includes a plug-in "gateway" and watch-like electronic bracelet which connects to the gateway via bluetooth.

Craymer reckons her phones GPS accuracy was affected by Hong Kongs cityscape, which meant she could probably have sneaked into a neighbouring apartment or even the supermarket in the next door building, if shed wanted to.

The GPS I dont think was 100 per cent accurate ... When I went for a run I would often look like I was running faster than I was, because my phone couldn't geolocate me specifically, because it would bounce off the tall buildings.

However, fear of getting caught with penalties of hefty fines or even jail time was an effective deterrent.

Chen says GPS or cellphone tower monitoring is accurate to 10-20m.

These technologies are not perfect. There are always some errors. If you rely on bracelets, people might be able to take the bracelet off and leave it at home. If you rely on geolocation, there might be accuracy issues, particularly in rural areas.

So whatever the monitoring setup, home quarantine will be easier to break than military-controlled MIQ hotels.

Ross Giblin

Otago University epidemiologist, Professor Michael Baker, says how acceptable the risk of home quarantine is depends on whether were still trying to eliminate Covid-19.

Otago University epidemiologist, Professor Michael Baker, says the new trial should be low risk youve got fully vaccinated New Zealand residents probably visiting lower risk countries, in an employer-sponsored scheme where people face employment consequences rather than just a fine if they break the rules.

But as you broaden the scheme, and open it to returning New Zealanders, the risk will increase.

If you want to scale this up hugely, whatever you do is going to result in quite a significant risk over time of reintroducing the virus. Just simply because of the numbers involved.

Unfortunately, it takes very few human errors. Once you move into tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, that's when things will go wrong.

Some countries reduce the risk, by only allowing home quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers from countries where Delta is not rampant.

Singapore still mandates managed quarantine for higher risk countries, but allows monitored home quarantine for fully vaccinated people coming from nations with less circulating virus.

Supplied

Singapore-based Australian Ruth Haller found Singapore's home quarantine system easy to use and a welcome alternative to hotel quarantine with a 6-month-old baby.

Singapore-based Australian Ruth Haller has just returned home, after visiting her husbands family in Switzerland.

Because they were fully vaccinated and had visited a medium-risk country, the couple was able to spend their two-week quarantine in their apartment. With a 6-month-old baby, that made the process more bearable.

I just cant imagine being in a hotel with a baby ... I cannot imagine spending two weeks in that one room with her. That would have been terrible.

The Singapore system involves an electronic bracelet like a watch with a QR code instead of a face and a gateway that you plug in at home. The two devices are paired and your movements monitored via an app, with regular monitoring calls to ensure you're with your phone.

Hong Kong, however, has ditched the home quarantine and now requires all travellers to quarantine in an approved hotel at their own cost. The timeframe ranges from three weeks for arrivals from high risk countries to seven days for fully-vaccinated travellers from low risk countries such as New Zealand.

Paul Kane/Getty Images

The acceptability of home quarantine will depend on how aggressively were trying to keep Covid out at the point were considering opening up.

Whether the greater risk of home quarantine is acceptable will depend on New Zealands overall strategy, Baker says. If we lose control of the Auckland outbreak and have to switch from elimination to suppression, the tolerance for risk will change.

If you already have virus spreading in the community, a bit of leakage from returned travellers would be less disastrous. As one modelling paper put it, keeping out 95 per cent of infections would be a win in England, but a failure in New Zealand.

But even then, you would want to limit the number of infected people arriving, through pre-departure testing, vaccination and risk profiling, Baker says.

As soon as an infected person arrives in New Zealand, whatever you do, the risk of outbreaks increases.

Chen agrees home quarantine is unlikely to be a free-for-all, especially if the country still has an elimination goal.

It seems likely the Government will still restrict the number who can come into the country, because it's all risk. I don't think that adding GPS suddenly makes home isolation viable. Whether youve got GPS or not, somebody coming into the country is still risk that has to be accounted for.

ERIC GAILLARD

The Government is exploring alternative ways to welcome Kiwis home.

Skeggs Reconnecting New Zealanders advice found a shorter managed quarantine stay, coupled with week two testing, might be a better option than quarantine-free travel or home quarantine, at least to start with.

In the early phases of re-opening, a reduced time in an MIQ facility, say for 5 to 7 days, would seem more realistic.

Ardern this week announced the government is also investigating this option. Halving the MIQ stay would double the systems capacity overnight.

An April paper by the Te Pnaha Matatini modelling team estimated the effectiveness of 5-day managed quarantine. They found that, with low-moderate transmission within MIQ, about 25 per cent of infected travellers would still be infectious on leaving.

Thats much better than relying on pre-departure and arrival tests, which would weed out only about half of infections. But much worse than 14-day MIQ, from which only about 2 per cent of people would leave infectious, with moderate transmission within MIQ.

This still poses a very high risk to the community, the authors conclude.

iStock

Every traveller arriving in New Zealand from overseas brings risk.

Covid modeller and Canterbury University mathematics professor, Michael Plank, says since February about 100 Covid cases have been detected in the second week of MIQ. Thats about 15 per cent of all MIQ cases.

However, those numbers might exaggerate the risk of shorter stays, as they would include people infected by family members, whose disease was detected in the first seven days. They could still be captured by 7-day MIQ, if the whole family bubble was transferred to 14-day quarantine when the first person tested positive.

Having returned to New Zealand to work for Stuff, Craymer has experienced both monitored home quarantine and New Zealands MIQ. While she appreciated MIQs access to an exercise yard, sleeping in her own bed and having her own stuff made the two-week home quarantine easier. The best thing was not being reliant on hotel food a source of many MIQ complaints. Cooking helped pass time, and you can eat what you want. (Though she still needed a day 10 emergency chocolate delivery).

Theres something in it, particularly for someone like me who is single and lives by myself ... I think the biggest problem is, everyone in the house has to quarantine.

The question will be how to manage the process while minimising the risk.

Originally posted here:

MIQueue: What are the alternatives to two weeks in a hotel? - Stuff.co.nz

This content was published on September 29, 2021 - 05:43September 29, 2021 - 05:43

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand said on Wednesday it will put a virtual halt to the practice of taking at-risk children away from their families, a care policy that has long angered its indigenous Maori community.

Children deemed to be facing harm have been moved into state care for decades despite Maori criticism that the process is racially skewed and a legacy of colonisation. A vast majority of the children taken, a process known locally as uplifting, are Maori.

Thousands of Maori took to the streets in 2019 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-politics-idUSKCN1UP0PA in protest after media reports that the children's ministry tried to take a newnew-born baby away from her mother in hospital.

Children's Minister Kelvin Davis said on Wednesday the government has accepted all recommendations of a ministerial advisory board on how to fix the child care and the protection system. The ministry had been told that removing children should be used only as a last resort.

"This report will end uplifts as we have known them," Davis said in a statement, adding that future efforts would focus on community-led prevention.

In 2019-2020, 1,334 children entered state care, according to documents on the ministry's website, of which about 60% were Maori.

Maori have called children taken into state care as New Zealand's "stolen generation" - a reference to indigenous Australians forcibly taken from their families as children under an official policy of assimilation.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, seen as a global figure on issues of woman's rights and social justice, launched a Royal Commission of Inquiry in 2018 into the abuse of young people in state care, saying the country needed to confront "a dark chapter" in its history.

The inquiry revealed in December https://www.reuters.com/article/newzealand-abuse-idINKBN28Q0DY that up to a quarter of a million children, young people and vulnerable adults were physically and sexually abused in faith-based and state care institutions from the 1960s to the early 2000s.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon; editing by Richard Pullin)

Link:

New Zealand to halt removal of 'at risk' children from families - swissinfo.ch

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Speaking to the Weekend Herald about the hopes of getting at least 90 per cent of the country vaccinated, Ardern said 90 per cent plus was a promise of a life that was more normal. Full story: https://bit.ly/3ujdH0R

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Jacinda Ardern: Why I got vaccinated | nzherald.co.nz - The Global Herald - The Global Herald