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Category: Public health and safety

  • Gallery: Doctors, health workers challenge NZ government over national crisis

    Asia Pacific Report

    Thousands of senior hospital doctors and specialists walked off the job today for an unprecedented 24-hour strike in protest over stalled contract negotiations and thousands of other health workers protested across Aotearoa New Zealand against the coalition government’s cutbacks to the public health service Te Whatu Ora.

    In spite of the disruptive bad weather across the country, protesters were out in force expressing their concerns over a national health service in crisis.

    Among speakers criticising the government’s management of public health at a rally at the entrance to The Domain, near Auckland Hospital, many warned that the cutbacks were a prelude to “creeping privatisation”.

    “Health cuts hurt services, the patients who rely on them, and the workers who deliver them,” said health worker Jason Brooke.

    “Under this coalition government we’ve seen departments restructured, roles disestablished, change proposals enacted, and hiring freezes implemented.

    “Make no mistake. This is austerity. This is managed decline.

    “The coalition can talk all they like about spending more on healthcare, the reality for ‘those-of-us-on-the-ground’ is that we know that money is not being spent where it’s needed.”

    Placards said “Fight back together for the workers”, “Proud to be union”, “We’re fighting back for workers rights”, and one poster declared: “Don’t bite the hand that wipes your bum — safe staffing now”.

    Palestine supporters also carried a May Day message of solidarity from Palestinian Confederation of Trade Unions.

    Fighting back for NZ’s public health system
    1 of 18
    Fight back together for health workers
    TWO 1: Fight back together for health workers. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 2: Proud to be union. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 3: Support public health workers. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 4: Health worker Jason Brooke speaking. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 5: Fight back “together” is the theme. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 6: PSA “standing together for public health”. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 7: “Don’t bite the hand . . .” Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 8: An AUT student nurse speaking on the realities. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 9: “I’m fighting back for workers’ rights.” Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 10: A health aide speaking. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 11: Environmental filmmaker and storyteller Juan Parada at the rally. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 12: Fight back posters. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 13: Health = wealth. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 14: “Invest in health.” Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 15: “Tikanga mahi.” Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 16: “Free Dr Abu Safiya” – Kathy Ross. Image: David Robie
    TWO 17: Palestinian May Day solidarity pamphlets – Del Abcede. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 18: Palestinian May Day trade unions solidarity message. Image: David Robie/APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Food industry, lack of exercise key to childhood obesity, says Sir Collin

    A Pasifika health leader says high obesity rates in the Pacific are not new, but an increase in childhood obesity is concerning.

    A study on worldwide trends in underweight and obesity, just published in The Lancet medical journal showed that the highest rates of obesity for women were in Tonga and American Samoa, and Nauru and American Samoa for men.

    The report, spanning 1990 and 2022, found the rate of obesity quadrupled among children and adolescents.

    Sir Collin Tukuitonga — who is associate professor, associate dean Pacific and a research director at Auckland University’s medical school — said the results for children were especially concerning.

    “The local data here will show that two-thirds of young Pacific girls are obese, overweight. There’s increasing trends in childhood obesity.

    Sir Collin said obesity was a longstanding fight for Pacific nations.

    “The problem of course is that it’s so difficult to tackle, and it’s all to do with our food systems, how people are not as active as they used to be.”

    Zero hunger goal
    Zero Hunger is one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which deems both obesity and being underweight as forms of malnutrition.

    “There is a need throughout the world for social and agricultural policies and food programmes that address the remaining burden of underweight while curbing and reversing the rise in obesity by enhancing access to healthy and nutritious foods,” it said.

    The Lancet report said there was an urgent need for major changes in how obesity is tackled.

    Obesity can increase the risk of developing many serious health conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Port Moresby hospital morgue full – 257 bodies lie unclaimed

    By Claudia Tally in Port Moresby

    Sixty four compartments of Papua New Guinea’s main mortuary have been out of service since the festive season while a new refrigerated container has also broken down, leaving the hospital looking for room while another 257 dead bodies lie unclaimed.

    Port Moresby General Hospital Chief Executive Officer Dr Paki Molumi confirmed with the Post-Courier that the mortuary is full and that a mass burial is expected in the next three weeks.

    The storage issue at the country’s biggest hospital is recurrent despite promises and assistance from the national government, the National Capital District Commission, the NCD Provincial Health Authority, partner agencies and others.

    The hospital’s Director of Medical Services Dr Koni Sobi said due to the ageing infrastructure, repairing these compartments was an issue.

    “The cooling system of a particular container broke down last week,” he said.

    “A contractor was engaged last week but they are unable to get inside and do repair work until we empty that container of all human bodies and body parts.

    “The 64 compartments’ chiller in the main mortuary building have also been out of service since the festive season. There is a contractor working to repair it. However, it is a very old unit, needs replacing or a major rehabilitation work, which is undergoing this process at the moment,” Dr Sobi said.

    Seven bodies lying in open
    When the Post-Courier visited the mortuary on Wednesday, at least seven bodies were left lying outside in the open waiting for relatives to come forward.

    Meanwhile, the unpleasant smell from the morgue has affected residents nearby.

    Dr Sobi explained that the POMGEN mortuary workers had began shifting the bodies from the container where the cooling system had broken down to five other containers, however the other containers were also full.

    “We have bodies in the morgue since September 2023. Currently there are 257 bodies and body parts.

    “The smell is evident often when the container is opened to remove body or bodies.

    “Preparations for another mass burial have commenced and expected to take place within the next 3 weeks,” he said.

    The hospital is now appealing to relatives to come forward and collect bodies of their loved ones for burial.

    Claudia Tally is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ’s Stuff media group quits X (Twitter) over ‘disinformation’

    Pacific Media Watch

    Stuff, New Zealand’s biggest independently owned news business, today announced it will stop sharing content to X (formerly Twitter), effective immediately.

    A media statement said that decision followed Stuff’s increasing concerns about the volume of mis- and disinformation being shared, and the “damaging behaviour being exhibited on and enabled by the platform”.

    All Stuff brands including stuff.co.nz, and publishing mastheads brands The Post, The Press and Waikato Times will no longer post on X, with the exception of stories that are of urgent public interest — such as health and safety emergencies, said the statement.

    Stuff will also publish these stories on Neighbourly, to reach communities fast and with hyper-local information.

    The following message was sent to all staff from CEO Laura Maxwell:

    Trusted storytelling
    “When Stuff returned to New Zealand ownership in 2020, we set growth in public trust as a key measure of success. Three years on, our mission is to grow our business through trusted storytelling and experiences that make Aotearoa New Zealand a better place,” she said.

    “As a business we have made the decision that X, formerly known as Twitter, does not contribute to our mission.

    “We are increasingly concerned about the volume of mis- and dis-information being shared on the platform, and the damaging behaviours we have observed, and experienced.

    Stuff's CEO Laura Maxwell
    Stuff’s CEO Laura Maxwell . . . “We will also continue to assess our use of other social platforms.” Image: Linked-in/PMW

    “So, as of today, we will stop sharing our content on X. An exception to this will be stories that are of urgent public interest, such as health and safety emergencies. We will also publish these stories on Neighbourly.

    “We also encourage you all to consider how much you personally engage with X, if at all. The platform is diametrically opposed to our own values, as outlined in our Editorial Code of Practice and Ethics. It deliberately and actively seeks to undermine the value of our journalism.

    “We are aware many of you might use X for news gathering and as a way to share information with others. However, as a company that values truth and trust, this platform is no longer a tool for us.

    “As many of you know, this is not the first time Stuff has taken such a stance.

    “In July 2020, Stuff paused posting activity on Facebook. The move built on the decision to stop paid advertising on Facebook in 2019, following the live streaming and widespread dissemination of footage of the Christchurch mosque shootings on the platform. We will also continue to assess our use of other social platforms.

    “As New Zealand’s biggest news organisation, we benefit from a loyal audience, who engage with us every single day on our platforms, our papers, magazines and at our events.

    “As restless creators, our innovation mindset is enduring and so we’ll continue to innovate and invest in our platforms to deliver high-quality, trustworthy journalism that is relevant and reflective of Aotearoa.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • 1 in 50 Fijian children may have rheumatic heart disease, says health chief

    By Pauliasi Mateboto in Suva

    One in 50 Fijian children could have rheumatic heart disease and children between the ages of five to 15 years are the most at risk of rheumatic fever.

    While revealing these alarming statistics, Health Secretary Dr James Fong revealed the high figures indicated the high screening conducted by the ministry, which was a positive sign in terms of early detection and early mitigation.

    Speaking at the World Heart Day celebration in Suva yesterday, he said the ministry was focused on dedicating the best care to those diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease (RHD).

    It had been proven that with the best medical care, patients of the disease lived a long life.

    Dr Fong highlighted the ministry’s advocacy and early detection awareness in the community remained the focus of the ministry, as it saw an opportunity to reach many Fijians as possible.

    Meanwhile, Maca Tikoicina, the grandmother of young Jaydee Tikocina who was diagnosed with RHD last year, shared the painful experience their family had endured in the past 12 months.

    She stated Jaydee was diagnosed in September 2022 and had to drop out of school as he became too weak and unable to carry out normal duties.

    She highlighted that following through with doctors’ consultations, taking the prescribed medicines on time and following the strict injection schedule of one injection after every 21 days resulted in significant improvement in her grandchild’s life.

    “When the doctors screened him in March, they noted some improvements in his heart at the recent check earlier this month, we were told Jaydee can play sports again,” she said.

    According to Tikocina, sports and other physical activities were some of the many activities and joys that Jaydee was barred from when he was initially diagnosed.

    Tikocina urged parents and guidance to get their children checked early and if they are diagnosed, the key was following medical advice.

    She also encouraged Fijians to take advantage of the free screening programmes and outreaches organised by the Ministry of Health.

    Pauliasi Mateboto is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ’s covid-19 mandates end: GP group says some mask-wearing, self-isolation still important

    A GPs advocacy group says that practices learned from the covid-19 pandemic, like staying home when sick or wearing masks in health facilities, should remain in place to halt the spread of infectious diseases.

    As of August 15, the mandates ended for the seven-day isolation period and masks in health settings, with the Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall saying wastewater testing showed little trace of the virus.

    Dr Verrall acknowledged many would still feel vulnerable.

    “So it is on all of us to think well if we’re visiting an aged residential care home for example, that we do follow the recommended procedures there.

    “Te Whatu Ora will continue to encourage people to wear masks when they go to hospital — they won’t be mandated.”

    Covid cases accounted for just over 2 percent of hospital admissions, Dr Verrall said.

    Last step on wind down
    Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ Morning Report this was the last step in winding down covid-19 restrictions.

    “We waited until after the winter peak period. The health system overall, while it’s been under pressure and it’s still under pressure, had a much better winter this winter than last winter.”

    He said it was on the advice of the director-general of health and there was never a perfect time to make changes to health settings.

    General Practice New Zealand chair Dr Bryan Betty said practices like mask wearing and self-isolation should be encouraged for all viruses, not just Covid.

    He told Morning Report people needed to continue with the lessons that were learnt from covid but which were applicable to all viruses that were spread from person-to-person such as influenza and RSV.

    “Voluntarily staying at home if you do have a flu or a cold so you don’t spread it, and I think masking in public areas of health facilities voluntarily is something we should still keep in play.”

    Health providers should consider ensuring masks were worn in places where sick people gathered such as hospitals or GPs’ waiting areas, Dr Betty said.

    Vaccination still important
    Vaccination would still play an important part in reducing infection and re-infection, he said.

    “We do that every year for influenza, we are potentially going forward going to be recommending that for covid, especially for vulnerable populations.”

    Employers should be considering how to support workers so they do not come into work sick, he said.

    Employers should give people with colds, the flu or Covid the opportunity to work from home if they can to avoid spreading the illness around the workplace, he said.

    University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker also urged people to stay home when they were sick with covid-19, even though all of the health restrictions had been lifted.

    Professor Baker told Morning Report that covid had transitioned from a pandemic threat to an endemic infectious disease.

    “Unfortunately that means it’s there the whole time, it is still in New Zealand among the infectious diseases, the leading cause of death and hospitalisation and we know that those infections and reinfections are going to add to that burden of long covid.”

    Still vital to isolate
    People must remember that it was still vital to isolate when they were sick and not go to work or school or socialise which spread the virus, he said.

    People should also continue to wear masks in medical facilities and in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, he said.

    New Zealand had come through its fourth wave of infection for the Omicron variant, he said.

    “We are going to see new subvariants or lineage of the virus arrive, they will be better at escaping from our immunity, our immunity will wane of course unless you get boosted.”

    The government needed to look at how to reinforce those behaviours that prevented covid from spreading now that the mandates had been removed, he said.

    “I mean this could be running media campaigns or developing codes of practice say with employers, Business New Zealand, I mean this is a chance for them really to show leadership about how they’re going to support the workforce in New Zealand, self-isolating when they are sick.”

    Hospitilisations and mortality rates showed that covid-19 continued to have an impact and watching those rates would indicate whether the mandates had been removed too early, he said.

    Integrated approach needed
    New Zealand needed to develop a coherent, integrated approach to dealing with all respiratory infections which were the infectious diseases that had the biggest impact, he said.

    “They have a big drain on our health resources and so we do need to look at better surveillance for these infections that will tell us what’s happening and also really it’s just having a culture of limiting transmission of these infections.”

    That meant staying home when sick and using masks in indoor environments with poor ventilation, he said.

    Auckland Council disability strategic advisory group chair Dr Huhana Hickey said getting rid of masks at health care centres was extremely dangerous for immunocompromised people.

    “The problem for immune-compromised people is we’re frequent flyers, but we’re being asked to go into a situation that puts us all at risk of not just dealing with what’s making us sick but risking getting covid, which could kill us.”

    Hickey said scrapping the seven-day compulsory isolation period could result in more workers returning while still infectious, which she believed would mean immunocompromised people were likely to stay home.

    “If they cannot stay home and employers require them to work, they’re going to spread covid as well, so that means I don’t go to restaurants now because I don’t know if the waiter’s sick, I don’t know if the chef’s sick.”

    Minimal impact of numbers
    University of Auckland mathematics professor and covid-19 modeller Michael Plank expected the lack of mask and isolation requirements to have a minimal impact on case numbers.

    He said the main drivers of infection were people who were asymptomatic cases or had not tested yet.

    “I’m not sure than an isolation mandate is going to have a particularly large effect on infection rates in the long term.

    “If we look at other countries that removed isolation mandates, like Australia, there’s really no evidence of a surge in numbers.”

    Restaurant owners embraced the government’s decision.

    The Restaurant Association surveyed more than 200 of its members, and 84 percent said they supported the idea.

    But many planned to introduce their own requirements, chief executive Marisa Bidois said.

    “Thirty nine percent of the respondents said they intended to mandate a five day isolation period for their employees,” she said.

    “So that’s something they’re going to implement themselves as an internal policy.”

    Many hospitality workers would also be expected to test themselves proactively.

    “We also had 42 percent of respondents planning to require employees with any symptoms to undergo testing before returning to work.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Entire village tested as covid reaches third Tokelauan atoll

    By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist

    The number of covid-19 community cases in Tokelau has surpassed 50 and has now cropped up on all three atolls.

    The Ulu o Tokelau, or head of government in Tokelau, Kelihiano Kalolo, has announced the territory’s first community outbreak in Fakaofo atoll.

    An entire village has been tested after a man who visited Fanuafala hospital tested positive.

    After the positive test, the doctor there decided to conduct a screening of the whole village.

    The screening confirmed 15 community cases, as of July 11.

    The latest case tested positive after arriving in Nukunonu, the largest atoll in Tokelau.

    The latest Tokelau Health Department update shows 56 cases on Fakaofo, the second-largest atoll of the group.

    Atoll at outbreak centre
    This is the atoll at the centre of the first outbreak.

    There is currently one covid case in Nukunonu and none in Atafu, though there have been five cases at the border since the end of last year.

    There have been 80 cases in total in Tokelau since the virus arrived at the border in December last year.

    The government’s General Fono meeting is to be held over Zoom this month because of the outbreak.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    Tokelau Covid-19 Update July 14 2023.
    Tokelau Covid-19 Update July 14, 2023. Image: Tokelau Health Department/RNZ Pacific


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Indonesian critic condemns draft health law as based on ‘fake paper’

    By Singgih Wiryono in Jakarta

    Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) chair Muhammad Isnur has condemned the drafting of the Healthcare Bill (RUU Kesehatan) as “fake”, saying that the draft is almost the same as the Omnibus Law on Job Creation (Cipta Kerja).

    According to Isnur, the similarity can be seen from a test of the academic context, which like the Jobs Law is unable to be seen.

    “Should we say it’s a fake — yeah, the academic manuscript is fake,” he said.

    Isnur said that the initial study or academic manuscript used in the drafting the draft Health Law was written carelessly and it had no legitimacy.

    It could not be called an academic manuscript as the basis for drafting a law.

    “For example, in the research methodology it quotes several specialists or experts whose books are outdated, their books have even been revised by the authors themselves,” said Isnur.

    Isnur noted that the Health Bill would result in the reevaluation of policies in other laws, yet the references in the academic manuscript were unclear, including who did the research for it.

    Lack of accountability
    “We also do not know at all who drafted this. How can this be accountable as an academic manuscript if we don’t know who wrote it,” he said.

    The YLBHI along with 42 other civil society groups are asking that the ratification of the Health Bill be postponed.

    Aside from the fact that the academic manuscript was similar to Jobs Law, several concerns were raised by the Civil Society Coalition such as the deliberations on the law which were closed and without meaningful public participation.

    Another reason was the weakness of the argument that the Health Bill was urgent and therefore needed to use the omnibus law method.

    The law was also seen as tending to lead towards the liberalisation of the health system, expanding the privatisation of health services and would eliminate the minimum allocation for the health budget.

    The centralisation of healthcare management by the central government is also regarded as reducing independent learning and development in the health sector.

    Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “YLBHI: RUU Kesehatan Bodong Naskah Akademiknya, seperti UU Cipta Kerja”.

  • Bougainville leaders call on mining giant Rio Tinto to assist communities

    RNZ Pacific

    Community leaders around Panguna mine in the autonomous Papua New Guinea region of Bougainville want mining giant Rio Tinto to help out following recent flooding.

    Rio Tinto was the owner/operator of the mine which has laid derelict for more than 30 years.

    Fears of the threat from flooding in the river system near the mine have increased in recent years.

    Recent heavy rain has choked rivers with mine tailings waste, resulting in several communities being swamped.

    Residents have reported peoples’ homes have been inundated, water supplies and food crops compromised.

    The flooding risks were highlighted in an independent report by Tetra Tech Coffey published last year.

    This report was prepared as a baseline to inform an independent human rights and environmental impact assessment that launched in December 2022 and which Rio Tinto committed to fund in response to a human rights complaint by 156 local residents.

    Phase 1 of the assessment is due to report in mid-2024.

    Immediate funding call
    Community leaders are calling for immediate funding from Rio Tinto for tangible action to address urgent health and safety issues in their communities, as well as a commitment from the company now that it will fund long-term solutions after each phase of the impact assessment.

    To date, Rio Tinto has agreed to fund the human rights and environmental impact assessment only.

    The chairperson of the Lower Tailings Landowners Association, Bernardine Kiraa, said: “Our communities are drowning in mine tailings waste.”

    “The recent flooding damaged peoples’ houses, food crops and water sources. Women have been having trouble finding clean water to wash their babies.

    “We worry about the spread of mosquitoes and disease following the flooding.”

    Theonila Roka-Matbob, who is a local MP and local landowner, and who led the campaign for the environmental assessment said: “We have welcomed Rio Tinto’s commitment to assessing the impacts of the Panguna mine.”

    “We know the process will be a long one. But we have been dealing with the disaster caused by the mine for decades.”

    ‘Always worrying about food’
    “We are always worrying that the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe is not safe. We worry about levees collapsing and mine waste flooding our lands and communities,” she said.

    “We need tangible action now to address urgent health and safety issues. And we need to know what Rio’s intentions are after the impact assessment – that they will stick with us and fund the long-term solutions we need.”

    The legal director at Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre, Adrianne Walters, said: “Communities are being asked to be patient while the impact assessment progresses over a number of years.”

    “But they also need action now and a public commitment from Rio Tinto that it will actually remedy the devastating impacts of the mine.”

    “Rio Tinto’s commitment to assessing the impacts of its former mine is an important first step,” Walters said.

    “The company now needs to publicly reassure communities that it is firmly committed to funding the long-term solutions that will allow them to live safely on their land.”

    Rio Tinto gave away its shares in Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) in 2016 but it has subsequently agreed to the funding of the human rights and environmental assessment.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Bougainville leaders call on mining giant Rio Tinto to assist communities

    RNZ Pacific

    Community leaders around Panguna mine in the autonomous Papua New Guinea region of Bougainville want mining giant Rio Tinto to help out following recent flooding.

    Rio Tinto was the owner/operator of the mine which has laid derelict for more than 30 years.

    Fears of the threat from flooding in the river system near the mine have increased in recent years.

    Recent heavy rain has choked rivers with mine tailings waste, resulting in several communities being swamped.

    Residents have reported peoples’ homes have been inundated, water supplies and food crops compromised.

    The flooding risks were highlighted in an independent report by Tetra Tech Coffey published last year.

    This report was prepared as a baseline to inform an independent human rights and environmental impact assessment that launched in December 2022 and which Rio Tinto committed to fund in response to a human rights complaint by 156 local residents.

    Phase 1 of the assessment is due to report in mid-2024.

    Immediate funding call
    Community leaders are calling for immediate funding from Rio Tinto for tangible action to address urgent health and safety issues in their communities, as well as a commitment from the company now that it will fund long-term solutions after each phase of the impact assessment.

    To date, Rio Tinto has agreed to fund the human rights and environmental impact assessment only.

    The chairperson of the Lower Tailings Landowners Association, Bernardine Kiraa, said: “Our communities are drowning in mine tailings waste.”

    “The recent flooding damaged peoples’ houses, food crops and water sources. Women have been having trouble finding clean water to wash their babies.

    “We worry about the spread of mosquitoes and disease following the flooding.”

    Theonila Roka-Matbob, who is a local MP and local landowner, and who led the campaign for the environmental assessment said: “We have welcomed Rio Tinto’s commitment to assessing the impacts of the Panguna mine.”

    “We know the process will be a long one. But we have been dealing with the disaster caused by the mine for decades.”

    ‘Always worrying about food’
    “We are always worrying that the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe is not safe. We worry about levees collapsing and mine waste flooding our lands and communities,” she said.

    “We need tangible action now to address urgent health and safety issues. And we need to know what Rio’s intentions are after the impact assessment – that they will stick with us and fund the long-term solutions we need.”

    The legal director at Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre, Adrianne Walters, said: “Communities are being asked to be patient while the impact assessment progresses over a number of years.”

    “But they also need action now and a public commitment from Rio Tinto that it will actually remedy the devastating impacts of the mine.”

    “Rio Tinto’s commitment to assessing the impacts of its former mine is an important first step,” Walters said.

    “The company now needs to publicly reassure communities that it is firmly committed to funding the long-term solutions that will allow them to live safely on their land.”

    Rio Tinto gave away its shares in Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) in 2016 but it has subsequently agreed to the funding of the human rights and environmental assessment.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Tokelau covid: Two new cases announced as lockdown ends

    By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Tokelau’s largest atoll, Nukunonu, is now out of lockdown after experiencing its first community cases of covid-19.

    In a statement, the government said Fakaofo Atoll has had two cases at the border and Nukunonu now has six positive community cases — all within the same household.

    This includes the two new community cases who are children from the same family who have been isolating together.

    The two kids were confirmed as covid-19 positive on Friday, May 26.

    Tokelau confirmed its first community case on May 21, becoming one of the last places in the world to record community transmission.

    Government spokesperson Aukusitino Vitale said they were all in good health and were being taken care of.

    Hospital staff continued to manage their situation daily.

    Meanwhile, the Council for the Ongoing Government, chaired by the Ulu o Tokelau (head of government), is set to meet on Friday to discuss the next official covid-19 update.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Covid-19: NZ ‘assessing health risk’ after Australia announces China traveller testing

    RNZ News

    Travellers from China to Australia will be required to have a negative pre-departure covid-19 test from January 5 — and New Zealand says it is now assessing the health risks.

    China has seen skyrocketing covid case numbers, and a range of other countries including the United Kingdom, the United States and France have also imposed testing requirements.

    NZ government duty minister Stuart Nash said tonight that New Zealand was currently assessing the situation.

    “I’ve been informed today that Australia has announced pre-departure testing for travellers arriving from China. This measure is being taken in response to the rapidly unfolding situation in China,” he said.

    “New Zealand has a public health risk assessment under way which will be completed in the next 24 hours.

    “Our response will remain proportionate to the potential risks posed by travellers and in the context of the international situation.”

    New Zealand, to date, had said it has no plans to introduce testing for Chinese visitors, the Ministry of Health said last week.

    An ‘abundance of caution’
    Australia’s Health Minister Mark Butler said this decision was taken out of an “abundance of caution” and a temporary measure due to the lack of detailed information about the epidemiological situation in China.

    “That lack of comprehensive information has led a number of countries in recent days to put in place various measures — not to restrict travel from China, it’s important to say — but to gather better information about what is happening epidemiologically in that country,” he said.

    Butler said the government warmly welcomed visitors from China, and Australia was “well positioned right now in the fight against covid”.

    “The resumption of travel between China and Australia poses no immediate public health threat to Australians,” he said.

    Butler said universities and the tourism industry would also welcome the resumption of travel from China, as would people who had long been separated from their family and friends.

    “We know there are many many hundreds of thousands of Chinese Australians who have been unable to see family and friends for months — and, in some cases, years — and their ability to do that over the coming period will be a matter of considerable joy for them, particularly as we head into the Lunar New Year period,” he said.

    Butler said that, although the subvariant that appeared to be driving the wave in China was already present in Australia, the situation was “developing very quickly”.

    Concerns over new variant
    “There are concerns, in an environment of cases spreading so quickly, about the possibility of the emergence of a new variant,” he said.

    “Now there’s no evidence of that right now.

    “This is a measure taken out of an abundance of caution to provide Australians and the Australian government with the best possible information about a fast-evolving situation.”

    Butler said the Chinese government was informed about the measures this morning.

    “It won’t come as any surprise to the Chinese government that Australia is putting this arrangement in place, I don’t think, given the broad range of countries that have taken similar steps over the last 48 to 72 hours,” he said.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

  • Thousands to miss Christmas thanks to covid-19 – how to avoid making it worse

    RNZ News

    Thousands of people will be cancelling their Christmas Day plans thanks to the invisible grinch, covid-19.

    Leading epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker estimates 85,000 people will be in isolation by then.

    He says gathering outdoors or in well-ventilated spaces is key to limiting the Christmas spread of covid — and testing beforehand.

    “No-one will thank you for turning up and infecting other people, particularly if there are vulnerable people there. This is a time to be responsible and test if you have got symptoms, and then act accordingly.”

    Crunching the numbers, Professor Baker said we could expect about 12,000 new infections on Christmas Day, based on the daily average of reported cases, plus the same number again of unreported ones.

    Covid Modelling Aotearoa programme co-leader Dion O’Neale agreed.

    “We’re sitting at the peak of a relatively decent-sized wave at the moment, so definitely lots of people will end up missing Christmas because they’re a confirmed case and will have to isolate.”

    He expected reported case numbers to decrease, but reminded people not to rely on that as a signal the wave is over.

    “They just don’t report a case when they’re having a fun time, that’s almost certainly happened this week with schools knocking off and a bunch of people leaving work.”

    ‘We have had to actually cancel Christmas’
    One Auckland man, who wished to remain anonymous, said Covid had slipped through the chimney at his house – he had two family members who tested positive this week.

    “Sadly we have had to actually cancel Christmas. We had been really looking forward to getting together with my sister and her kids for a big family get-together… and I had to phone her yesterday and say, ‘Look, I’m really sorry we can’t do it, it’s all off’.”

    They would take Christmas Day as it came and delay their family gathering.

    “We’re just going to have to try and make it as nice as we possibly can, depending how people are feeling. It could be that some people are feeling unwell.”

    Auckland woman Melanie Bruges will get out of isolation in time to celebrate Christmas Day with family.

    “We’re having family over on Christmas Day on Sunday, so I’m going to keep a really low-profile until then. We’ll probably test on Christmas Day before everybody comes over.”

    If her husband or their seven-year-old tested positive, they would postpone.

    “We’ve got five grandparents around for Christmas Day and we wouldn’t want them to be exposed to anything just for the sake of a meal. We can always put it off.”

    Free biscuit not worth the risk
    For the thousands who were flying to their Christmas Day destination, O’Neale said it paid to be cautious and mask-up.

    “Is it really diminishing your travel experience if you don’t get your free glass of water and a dry biscuit on the plane? Would you rather have a dry biscuit or covid?”

    Professor Michael Baker
    Professor Michael Baker . . . “A matter of making small changes in how you do things just to make it a lot safer for everyone.” Image: RNZ News

    He and Professor Baker did not want the grinch to steal Christmas.

    “It’s absolutely essential for your health, wellbeing and enjoyment of life to get out and reconnect with your family and friends and have an enjoyable summer, that is so important,” Professor Baker said.

    “Covid should not get in your way at all, and it’s a matter of making small changes in how you do things just to make it a lot safer for everyone.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • American Samoan nurses strike over failure to honour promised pay rises

    RNZ Pacific

    About 50 striking nurses have held a protest in American Samoa over their employment conditions.

    The protest yesterday follows some nurses at the LBJ Hospital who walked off the job on Friday after discovering their pay was lower than they expected it to be.

    The striking nurses protested near the hospital about unpaid overtime and the hospital’s failure to pay them wage increments promised last week.

    One senior nurse told RNZ Pacific that with the LBJ Hospital hiring unlicensed nurses from Fiji, and accommodating them in hotels to await nursing school in January, it must be able to afford wage commitments to its current staff.

    Two nurses who spoke on condition of anonymity to KHJ News said they were promised increases in their latest pay cheques, which were credited to bank accounts last Friday.

    They said what they were promised and what was in their accounts did not match.

    Those nurses who did receive pay increases are said to have received hikes ranging from 18 cents an hour to $1 an hour, but it is believed that some did not receive a pay rise at all.

    KHJ News reports the nurses saying they work a minimum of 12 hours and the ratio is sometimes one nurse to 12 patients because of the acute nursing shortage.

    They said this is against regulations and puts patients’ lives at risk.

    Since Friday, contract nurses have been manning the wards and clinics, including newly hired ones from Fiji who have yet to undergo certification under US standards.

    A meeting between the nurses and the board of directors and CEO of the hospital is due to take place.

    Hospital management has yet to respond to media questions about the nurses’ action.

    The CEO of the LBJ Hospital, Moefaauo William Emmsley, announced a week ago that the hospital had completed a salary reclassification for nurses which would bump up the entry rates for nurses and all salary levels.

    LBJ hospital, American Samoa
    LBJ Hospital in American Samoa . . . an acute nursing shortage. Image: RNZ Pacific

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Long covid, long tail – long summer of infection concerns in NZ

    RNZ News

    With restrictions eased, public health warnings muted and mask wearing now almost non-existent, the risk of contracting covid-19 is still very real, particularly as people come together for Christmas parties and family gatherings.

    Daily covid-19 numbers are the highest they have been for four-and-a-half months.

    Immunologist Dr Anna Brooks of the University of Auckland says she is gravely concerned at the cavalier approach hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders are now taking to covid, particularly thinking that if they have already had it, they are not at risk of reinfection.

    Dr Brooks tells Kathryn Ryan about how New Zealand is coping with the pandemic’s enduring impact and looks ahead to what could be a deadly summer of reinfection.

    Kathryn Ryan: What is going on at the moment with this rise in reported cases? Are we in another surge of covid? 

    Dr Anna Brooks: Yes, that absolutely seems to be the case.

    These variants that are circulating have a better chance of infecting us because they’re evading our immune defences and so reinfections are going to be far more common than we’ve experienced for example, in the second wave.

    So, there might be a bit more complacency because we’ve had two waves and people may have thought, “Well, I had it once I didn’t get it again,” and that’s really just not the case.

    These variants, there’s a whole bunch of them out there and many of them we actually won’t even know exist because of the low level of data collection and variant tracking.

    New subvariants
    KR: We’re getting new subvariants; just explain what that means for your existing level of protection, either from previous infection and/or from vaccination — these subvariants will be better at evading than what we had before. 

    AB: Exactly. What’s happening is as each new variant or subvariant is evolving, it’s doing so to evade our immune protection.

    So absolutely, that can be from the vaccinations and/or previous infection.

    What we’ve sort of had in our country, is we had that really large first wave, which was the BA.1 and [BA.2]… then the next wave we had was BA.4 and [BA.5], so we’ve got some what we call hybrid immunity within the community, absolutely. But it’s not enough to stop reinfection when the subvariants are still able to skip round our antibody response and infect us.

    And as we know, our vaccinations are a great starting point for preventing severe illness but they’re not great at preventing infection. So, if these variants are capable of infecting any of us, regardless of our baseline immunity, then we’re going to see cases rise, we’re going to see severe illness and hospitalisations and deaths again — that’s the facts.

    Impact of reinfection
    KR:     Can we talk about reinfection? Because I think people have had that sense of, ‘I’ve had it, so I’ve got a few months free now.’ But is there also a sense of, ‘I’ve had it and I didn’t have any major issues, so I’ll be fine next time too.’ Can you explain what we’re learning about the impact of reinfection and what to assume, or rather not to assume? 

    AB: I think that’s exactly right. I think there’s a general feel that if you’ve had covid, you survived it perfectly fine, that if you get it again, it’ll be the same.

    But what we’re seeing coming through the literature — and these are really large-scale studies that have been tracking reinfections — is that each infection or reinfection is increasing your health harms or your risk of health harms.

    So, that’s where we really want to raise awareness right now, that people aren’t complacent about the fact that just because they’ve had at once, they’re not at risk, because everyone is at risk.

    What we don’t understand is how long the body takes to get back to what I call a baseline level of [recovery in the body] and you won’t necessarily feel that. You may have had your infection, it may have been very mild and you’re like, ‘Yeah, that was nothing.’ But it’s not really nothing if you then go and get another reinfection, and then another one on top of that.

    We don’t really know, especially now there are so many variants circulating, we just don’t know what the risk factors are and even the ability… to get exposure to multiple variants over a short period of time.

    The literature is telling us each infection is risky, and reinfections increase that risk. Some of the publications are suggesting that that risk lasts for at least six months and that those are risks of heart attacks, strokes, clotting events, all those things that nobody wants as a risk factor.

    Inflammation risk
    KR:     Just explain again why inflammation, that elevated immune response and why inflammation associated with it is a risk factor for long covid? 

    AB: What we understand from all the research that’s going on is that, first of all, this virus is not just a respiratory virus.

    That was where the first level of complacency crept in, when we started to see less respiratory failure, and the lung issues, and kicked off with Omicron.

    But essentially, Omicron has been a different beast, and remains that way. What we do know is that it still has the ability to impact our blood vessels, our blood vessels feed all our organs.

    Part of the immune response when we get infected, we know that the virus can cause clotting issues, and that probably happens in all of us. It’s part of an immune response to form clots to get the infection under control and perhaps what’s going on is that some of us resolve that inflammation and that clotting, and we all go back to normal, and in others, that doesn’t happen.

    And that’s just one part of the picture. What I believe a lot of the literature is pointing towards — and it is one of the hypotheses we’re chasing down — is also that your immune system has had a hammering to a certain extent and we don’t know how to actually detect that, we don’t know how long it takes to resolve, but it kind of puts us all in a slightly vulnerable position.

    What we are starting to see more coming through, and again, as I say, as part of the research we’re looking into, is that it disrupts our immune control of what we are wandering around with every day and that’s all our microbiome, and including latent or dormant viruses that we got in childhood, that live with us for life.

    Some of the research is indicating that we get a reawakening of our viruses and some of the ones that are well known are chickenpox. Many of us get chickenpox, and then we get shingles. When our immune system — our immune control — breaks down, we get an outbreak of shingles because the shingles presentation, if you like, indicated that you had chickenpox as a child.

    Epstein-Barr virus
    That’s one virus we know, the other one that is kind of front and centre that everyone’s chasing down a bit more is Epstein-Barr virus. So this is EBV, or what we know of as glandular fever, and most of us are exposed to this.

    The numbers are around at least 90 percent of us wander around controlling EBV dormantly… but at the same time, we know that not everyone gets severely impacted by EBV.

    We’re starting to wonder whether it’s viruses like that, that inhibit us all, that are getting reawakened through a loss of immune control. And that could be contributing to what we now know as post-viral illnesses because, obviously, long covid is front and centre because this pandemic is uncovering that, but it also loops into myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome.

    EBV has been a strong contender as being a cause of that illness too, so it’s really showing us that we haven’t done enough research into understanding how our immune systems wonderfully control latent viruses or dormant viruses that we contract as youth, as children, and maybe that’s part of the picture here.

    KR: So the question now is, what is it you can do to go forth and have a fabulous Christmas, a good holiday, enjoy life as fully as possible but still manage this continuing risk?  

    AB: We all want to have fun in summer and gatherings and all the rest of it. My main message at the moment is that I want to make sure people understand that there is a risk… and we want people to manage their own risk, but not just their own risk, because vulnerable people are getting more and more shut away, because they no longer feel safe to be anywhere because they’re vulnerable to infection.

    Those two things coming together, we’re basically in a position where we’re now essentially being told to look out for our own selves, because there’s very little public health messaging about the risks.

    It’s two things here. It’s education that the risk isn’t going away, you want to protect yourself and understand those risks, and know that… any infection comes with a risk and there are people out there that are getting more and more concerned about their health not being taken seriously, because people around them don’t care anymore…

    Keeping businesses open
    I think some simple measures will keep businesses open too… You know, quite often when we’re raising awareness you feel like it’s the economy or businesses that are like, ‘Oh, make covid go away.’ We’re actually raising this awareness to keep businesses open. We want businesses to thrive over summer, but if there are no health protections in place, and you have customers in enclosed spaces, and your staff are getting infected, you’ll have no staff, you can’t open and so on and so forth.

    I think the most obvious one is flying and public transport… if we’re not masking on planes, is that a ticking time bomb before there are no staff and you can’t get to your holiday destination?

    KR: Back to your other key point, which is that reinfection being the trend possibly of the summer, those rates are getting quite high… are they getting close to a third of new cases being reinfections? 

    AB: Yeah, it looks that way. We have to remember that without a surveillance programme of you know, random testing, we have actually very little intel on what that number is going to be.

    [If] we’re not collecting random data, then we have no idea how much asymptomatic spreads happening or how many people are getting infections.

    We can’t forget about that. We need to remember that that is why we RAT before an event, that is why we RAT before we go to a Christmas function. It’s not just because you’ve got symptoms — we don’t know how many people are getting asymptomatic infections.

    That’s now become an individual choice, whether you do that, because it’s not part of any public health messaging that you should check to make sure you’re not asymptomatic.

    So, if we don’t know how many people are out there asymptomatic, they’re not going to be testing, they’re not going to be reporting, and then they won’t even know if in a month, two months’ time they get an infection, whether that’s a reinfection.

    That’s what we would love to see from a scientific position, and, you know, safety and understanding all of our risks, is actually gathering data so we can understand this and that includes knowing what variants are out there.

    Every time around immune system is waning, depending on how long ago we were infected, or boosted or vaccinated, then the chances of our illness…being worse is going to increase as well. So severity, risks increase the further ago your immune response was.

    RAT tests and variants
    KR: Are the RAT tests just as effective with the new variants? 

    AB: We’ve heard that the RATs are picking up the variants. It’s only as good as how good the person is testing as well.

    KR: Are the boosters keeping up with the variants? 

    AR: Boosting revives your immune system… the data showed any boost is going to give you that little bit more protection, because what it’s doing is training the immune system, and it’s reviving it, it’s waking it up, and you’ve got more circulating antibodies. They might not be perfect at shutting down the variant that you get infected with, but it’s going to do a better job than being completely non-boosted.

    But what we’d like see is, there are the bivalent vaccination boosters that will protect you more against the BA.4 and [BA.5] strains. And essentially what we really need is a new generation of vaccines that sterilises and stops infections.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • No appeal against ruling in NZ baby blood case, surgery to go ahead

    RNZ News

    The parents of a New Zealand baby at the centre of a legal dispute that has made global headlines will not be appealing against a judge’s decision to hand guardianship of the child to the High Court.

    The four-month-old — known only as Baby W — requires urgent open heart surgery, with both blood and blood products required for the operation and potentially its aftermath.

    Te Whatu Ora/Health New Zealand took the case to court because the parents refused to allow blood transfusions from anyone who might have had the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine.

    The NZ Blood Service does not differentiate between blood from vaccinated and non-vaccinated people, saying there was “no evidence that previous vaccination affects the quality of blood for transfusion”.

    A judge on Wednesday ruled in favour of Te Whatu Ora, allowing the surgery to go ahead with whatever product the NZ Blood Service provides. Doctors, having been made agents of the court for the surgery, said on Wednesday afternoon they would be ready to operate within 48 hours.

    The family’s lawyer Sue Grey and high-profile media supporter Liz Gunn said this morning there was no time to appeal against the court’s decision, but they had confidence the child would “get the best possible care with the best, safest blood” because “the government cannot afford anything to go wrong for Baby W as the world is watching”.

    “The priority for the family is to enjoy a peaceful time with their baby until the operation, and to support him through the operation,” the pair said in a post on the New Zealand Outdoors and Freedom Party Facebook page.

    Grey co-leads the party.

    The baby will be in intensive care for up to a week and under Te Whatu Ora’s guardianship possibly until the end of January, allowing time for their recovery. The doctors were told to keep the parents “informed at all reasonable times of the nature and progress of [the baby’s] condition and treatment”.

    Te Whatu Ora has been approached for comment.

    Judge’s ruling expected
    The ruling should not have come as a surprise, University of Otago bioethics lecturer  Josephine Johnstone told Morning Report on Thursday.

    “This may seem like a very 2022 case and it is in many ways, but it connects to lines of decision over time where there have been disputes about what’s in the best interests of a child that has very serious medical needs,” she said.

    “So this is consistent with previous cases around the refusal of blood products for children whose parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses… or refusal of medical care for cancer treatment for children whose parents have alternative health and science[ views, which is sort of similar to this. In many ways it’s consistent with those decisions. It’s not really a break in that way.”

    Johnstone said the parents’ authority over their child’s health and upbringing was being limited in only a very minor way.

    “The parents still have all of the other decision-making authority that parents have. And parents do have enormous latitude to make decisions about how to raise their children — what religion to raise them, what kinds of beliefs, what kinds of home to create, what kind of traditions, they have enormous decision-making power about children’s [medical treatment], but it’s not unlimited.

    “In very rare cases where it’s a life-and-death situation, we can expect the courts to step in — and that’s exactly what happened.”

    Johnstone’s view was backed up by Rebecca Keenan, a former nurse who now works as a barrister, specialising in medical law.

    Put child ‘firmly first’
    “[The court has] put the child firmly first and have gone by the evidence and supported the health board,” she told Morning Report.

    “From reading the judgment, you can see that the parents have been taking their baby out of hospital, against medical opinion, and there’s obviously been a real breakdown in the relationship between the parents and the medical staff.”

    Wednesday’s judgment outlined a meeting in late November during which the parents’ support person “proceeded to pressurise the specialists with her theory about conspiracies in New Zealand and even said that deaths in infants getting transfusions were occurring in Starship Hospital”.

    Johnstone said while having a support person in meetings with medical staff was a right, it was clear in this case they were not helpful.

    “One has to imagine that the involvement of some of the anti-vaccine campaigners has escalated not just this case at the national level, but even the discussions between the family and their medical team, so that’s explicitly mentioned in the case and is definitely a factor in how things must have got to the point where a court order would be needed.”

    While not an unexpected ruling, Johnstone fears it might further strain the relationship between parents with alternative views on medical matters and their doctors.

    “Any family who has these views and has a very sick child, their healthcare providers are going to have to work that much harder to keep them engaged and keep their trust … a big challenge,” she said.

    Pleased over care
    Speaking to RNZ’s First Up earlier on Thursday morning, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said he was “pleased” Baby W would soon be getting the care he needs.

    “Nobody underestimates the emotion and the challenge and the difficulty here, but we have to do what’s right for the child.”

    The case has made headlines globally, with coverage on BBC News, CNN and The Guardian.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

  • NZ announces Royal Commission into government’s covid-19 response

    RNZ News

    The New Zealand government has announced a Royal Commission into its covid-19 response.

    The Commission will be chaired by Australia-based epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, former Cabinet minister Hekia Parata, and former Treasury Secretary John Whitehead.

    It will start considering evidence from February 1 next year, concluding in mid-2024.

    The Royal Commission will look into the overall covid-19 response, including the economic response, and find what could be learned from it.

    Some things — like particular decisions taken by the Reserve Bank’s independent monetary policy committee, and the specific epidemiology of the virus and its variants — will be excluded.

    Announcing the moves, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a Royal Commission was the highest form of public inquiry in New Zealand and was the right thing to do given covid-19 was the most significant threat to New Zealanders’ health and the economy since the Second World War.

    “It had been over 100 years since we experienced a pandemic of this scale, so it’s critical we compile what worked and what we can learn from it should it ever happen again,” she said.

    Fewer cases, deaths
    “New Zealand experienced fewer cases, hospitalisations and deaths than nearly any other country in the first two years of the pandemic but there has undoubtedly been a huge impact on New Zealanders both here and abroad.”


    The Royal Commission of Inquiry announcement. Video: RNZ News

    Ardern said Professor Blakely had the knowledge and experience necessary to lead the work, and Parata and Whitehead would add expertise and perspectives on the economic response and the effects on Māori.

    The terms of reference had been approved and the scope will be wide-ranging, covering specific aspects including the health response, the border, community care, isolation, quarantine, and the economic response including monetary policy.

    Ardern said monetary policy broadly was included in the review, but “what is excluded is the Reserve Bank’s independent Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and those individual decisions that would have been made by that committee”.

    However, it “will not consider individual decisions such as how a policy is applied to an individual case or circumstance”.

    “We do need to make sure we learn broadly from the tools that we used for our response so that we make sure we have the most useful lessons possible going forward. Individual decisions don’t necessarily teach us that.

    “What we want to be careful about is that … we draw a distinction between individual decisions on any given day made by, indeed, officials within MBIE or the independent monetary policy committee given the role that they have and the independence of that committee, but broadly speaking monetary policy is included.”

    This was because the review needed to be mindful of the independence of the MPC, Ardern said.

    Impacts on Māori
    Terms of reference also included specific consideration of the impacts on Māori in the context of a pandemic consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi relationships, she said.

    Things like lockdowns and the length of them in general will be in scope, but for instance whether a specific lockdown should have ended one day or three days earlier would not be, Ardern said.

    Covid-19 Response Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said the vaccine mandates were in scope, along with communication with communities, and this would be able to include looking at matters of social licence.

    The inquiry will cover the period from February 2020, to October 2022.

    Ardern was confident the inquiry would be able to be resourced appropriately.

    So far 75 reviews of New Zealand’s response had been carried out within Aotearoa since 2020, and internationally New Zealand had been named as having the fewest cases and deaths in the OECD for two years in a row, Ardern said.

    “However, we said from the outset there would be an appropriate time to review our response, to learn from it, and with the emergency over and our primary focus on our strong economic recovery — that time is now.

    ‘Our next pandemic’
    “Our next pandemic will not be for instance necessarily just a new iteration of covid-19 … one of the shortcomings we had coming into covid-19 was that our pandemic plan was based on influenza and because it was so specific to that illness there wasn’t enough in that framework that could help us with the very particular issues of this respiratory disease.”

    It would be an exercise in ensuring Aotearoa had the strongest possible playbook for a future pandemic, Ardern said.

    She expected the inquiry will cost about $15 million — similar to others, with the 2019 mosque attacks inquiry costing about $14 million.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

  • Mediawatch: Anti-vax parents create media conundrum and criticism

    MEDIAWATCH: By Hayden Donnell, RNZ Mediawatch producer

    One press conference question at a Prime Ministerial summit in Aotearoa New Zealand kicked off a wave of social media scorn this week — and even criticism and international headlines about sexism. But media made a better fist of the awkward questions thrown up by parents withholding consent for the treatment of their sick baby and their supporters.

    At a press conference involving Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her Finnish counterpart Sanna Marin on Wednesday, November 30, a Newstalk ZB journalist unloaded a question which generated an immediate tsunami of criticism.

    “A lot of people will be wondering are you two meeting because you’re similar in age and you’ve got a lot of common stuff there, when you got into politics and stuff. Or can Kiwis actually expect to see more deals between our two countries down the line?”

    First the journalist was rebuffed by Ardern.

    “I wonder whether or not anyone ever asked Barack Obama and John Key whether they met because they’re of similar age. We of course have a higher proportion of men in politics, it’s reality. Because two women meet it’s not simply because of their gender,” she said.

    Marin was even more succinct.

    “We are meeting because we are both prime ministers,” she said.

    After that the criticism started flooding in on social media.

    Then it came from those in the wider New Zealand media.

    Question’s premise
    On Today FM, Lloyd Burr took aim at the question’s premise.

    “Just because they’re both young women Prime Ministers? You think that’s why they’re meeting?

    “Do you think she’s come all the way to New Zealand to talk fashion and beauty tips, childbearing, menstruation, maybe anti-aging tips,” he asked, sarcastically.

    The criticism continued in the international media.

    CBS News in the US took aim at the reporter’s “sexist question” in a headline, while videos of the exchange posted by organisations like SBS News and The Washington Post garnered millions of views.

    There are questions on why Marin is here, given our two countries are not huge trading partners.

    Thankfully she kindly pointed some of those reasons out, saying she was worried about countries becoming dependent on trading with authoritarian regimes and wanted to establish closer ties with democratic allies.

    Angle covered
    Other reporters, including TVNZ’s Katie Bradford on 1News, covered that angle.

    A simple “What are you here to achieve?” would have got a similar response without generating any international headlines about sexism.

    Newstalk ZB may have produced a near-global consensus on that poor question to Marin and Ardern, but it did a lot better covering the bulletin-leading case of two parents who had refused to consent to their sick child getting a desperately-needed operation.

    They were afraid the baby might receive a transfusion of blood from a donor who hd been vaccinated against covid-19.

    Lawyer and Outdoors Party leader Sue Grey is representing the family in court — and in the media.

    That was awkward for media wary of giving their platforms to her anti-vax views and it resulted in some on-air flare-ups.

    Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan cut Grey off when she started airing anti-vax talking points.

    “I don’t want to go into your beliefs on this,” du Plessis-Allan told Grey.

    “I’ve got to be honest with you, I just can’t go there. I just cannot be bothered with this.”

    Similar scenario
    A similar scenario played out the following day on RNZ’s Morning Report when Corin Dann interviewed Grey.

    That devolved into a lengthy oscillation between Grey’s attempts to recite anti-vax talking points and Dann’s increasingly exasperated interruptions.

    Predictably, Grey’s supporters have taken this treatment as evidence of a vast media cover-up.

    Meanwhile, the out-of-context or inaccurate claims about vaccines she did get to broadcast might have worried some listeners.

    But having told listeners to trust experts, and not laypeople, Morning Report and other media also allowed experts airtime.

    Dann talked to haematologist Jim Faed later on Morning Report the same day and immunology professor Nikki Turner appeared on Heather du Plessis-Allan’s ZB show and on Three’s The Project. Experts like her provided a useful corrective, but another way to avoid broadcasting misinformation is to just not book people who spread it.

    Dann sounded a little agonised over interviewing Grey while previewing Morning Report on RNZ’s First Up with Nathan Rarere.

    “We’ll talk to the lawyer of the mother about this,” he said. “This is obviously a very tricky story, a very sensitive story, but nonetheless one that is in the court.”

    Led news bulletins
    Not only was it a matter before the court — it was a story that led news bulletins and filled front pages, including that of the New Zealand Herald on Thursday.

    Sue Grey and conspiracy theorist Liz Gunn featured in the front page photo along with the child in question — all under the headline “We’re not prisoners”.

    It was probably not realistic to ban Grey from media appearances under those circumstances.

    In The Spinoff, Stewart Sowman-Lund recognised those factors compelling the media coverage, before suggesting an approach for reporters interviewing Grey.

    “Those interviewing her should either be fully prepared to counter — in detail — her anti-vaccination rhetoric or — given the likelihood it will quickly descend into conspiracy territory — cut it off early.”

    Maybe Dann and Du Plessis-Allan could have been better served committing to one of those two roads.

    But at least their questions were incisive and on-topic, even if they weren’t met with useful responses.

    If this week’s prime ministerial press conference showed us anything, it is that it is less embarrassing for our journalists to have it that way round than the opposite.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • France ‘must pay’ for study on genetic impact of its Pacific nuclear tests

    RNZ Pacific

    The French state should pay for a study on the genetic impact of its nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific, says French Polynesian territorial President Édouard Fritch.

    Fritch was responding to a renewed call by the pro-independence opposition Tavini Huiraatira party to follow up on reports dating back to 2016 that radiation caused disabilities in the atolls near the blast zones.

    The president confirmed that since 2017 there had been a budget allocation of US$17,000 for such a study but said after careful consideration he considered that it should be funded by the French state.

    Fritch added that the opposition’s French National Assembly members could raise the issue in Paris.

    In 2018, the former head of child psychiatry in Tahiti, Dr Christian Sueur, reported pervasive developmental disorders in areas close to the Morurua test site.

    The findings caused an uproar in French Polynesia and Fritch accused Dr Sueur of causing panic.

    Fritch then approached a Japanese geneticist Katsumi Furitsu to establish if the weapons tests had caused genetic mutations.

    Declined invitation
    However, she declined the invitation, with press reports suggesting she was dissuaded by the controversy surrounding the subject.

    In his assessment, Dr Sueur noted that of the 271 children he treated for pervasive developmental disorders, 69 had intellectual disabilities or deformities which he attributed to genetic mutations.

    French Polynesia President Edouard Fritch
    French Polynesian President Édouard Fritch . . . up to the opposition’s French National Assembly members to raise the issue in Paris. Image: RNZ Pacific

    He also reported that on Tureia atoll, a quarter of the children present during the 1971 blast had developed thyroid cancer.

    Dr Sueur said in 2012 among the atoll’s 300 residents there were about 20 conditions believed to be radiation-induced.

    He said the genetic conditions were found mainly in children whose parents and grandparents had been exposed to radiation from the atmospheric weapons tests in Moruroa between 1966 and 1974.

    However, a French military doctor said his team had found nothing out of the ordinary.

    He told the newspaper Le Parisien that the behavioural and developmental problems in children were linked to high levels of lead from car batteries used in fishing.

    Until 2010, France said its tests were clean and had no effect on human health, but Paris has since adopted a law offering compensation for victims suffering poor health because of exposure to radiation.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • UNHRC adopts resolution to help Marshall Islands over nuclear legacy

    RNZ Pacific

    The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution aimed at assisting the Marshall Islands to get justice in the aftermath of the United States nuclear testing.

    “We have suffered the cancer of the nuclear legacy for far too long and we need to find a way forward to a better future for our people,” says Samuel Lanwi, deputy permanent representative of the Marshall Islands to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

    The Marshallese people are still struggling with the health and environmental consequences of nuclear tests, including higher cancer rates.

    Many people displaced due to the tests are still unable to return home.

    The US conducted 67 US nuclear tests from 1946-1958 and a settlement was reached in 1986 with the United States, a Compact of Free Association, which fell short of addressing the extensive environmental and health damage that resulted from the tests.

    The U.S government asserts the bilateral agreement settled “all claims, past, present and future”, including nuclear compensation.

    The new text tabled by five Pacific Island states called on the UN rights chief to submit a report in September 2024 on the challenges to the enjoyment of human rights by the Marshallese people, stemming from the nuclear legacy.

    It called on the UN rights chief to submit a report in September 2024 on the challenges to the enjoyment of human rights by the Marshallese people stemming from the nuclear legacy.

    The US as well as other nuclear weapons states such as Britain, India and Pakistan expressed concern about some aspects of the text but did not ask for a vote on the motion.

    Japan did not speak at the meeting.

    Runeit Dome, built by the US on Enewetak Atoll to hold radioactive waste from nuclear tests.
    Runeit Dome, built by the US on Enewetak Atoll to store radioactive waste from nuclear tests. Image: Tom Vance/RNZ

    Observers say some nuclear states fear the initiative for the Marshall Islands could open the door to other countries bringing similar issues to the rights body.

    A concrete dome on Runit Island containing radioactive waste is of concern, especially about rising sea levels as a result of climate change, according to the countries that drafted the resolution.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. Reporting also by Kyodo News/Pacnews.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Tunoa – house arrest – on Tokelau family ends after more than a year

    RNZ Pacific

    The Taupulega, or council, on the Tokelau atoll of Nukunonu, has lifted a house arrest order on a family which had refused to get vaccinated against covid-19.

    The family was placed under tunoa in August 2021.

    A council meeting on Wednesday told family member Mahelino Patelesio that the tunoa was being lifted. However, the family would be updated on restrictions that might apply when a cargo ship drops off supplies.

    At the meeting, Patelesio sought forgiveness from the community for any hurt arising from the family’s refusal to be vaccinated and the resulting social media dispute.

    He also said he felt sorry about what he claimed was a lack of information that the Taupulega and atolls had about the Pfizer vaccine and felt worse about the children in the community who had had to get the vaccine, again citing claims of lack of information.

    RNZ Pacific’s correspondent on Nukunonu said members of the public and Taupulega expressed sadness and disappointment at the meeting over how the family handled this situation on such a public platform — social media — where the depth of the culture was not taken into consideration and was instead damaged.

    The general manager for the office of the council of Nukunonu, Asi Pasilio, explained to RNZ Pacific in July why the council of 36 heads of extended families who serve the atoll’s community had decided to impose tunoa.

    Decision of local council
    “This is a village rule, this is the decision of the local council which runs the island and the community. We have the laws of Tokelau but we also have the local council which has the authority over their village,” Pasilio said.

    Asi Pasilio
    Nukunonu Council general manager Asi Pasilio … “This is a village rule.” Image: RNZ Pacific

    She said there were no jails in Tokelau, but when there was a serious offence the council could just ask people to stay at home.

    Tunoa took the place of jail.

    While under tunoa, family members provided shopping for them.

    The New Zealand dependency with a population of about 1500 has had no cases of covid-19 since the global pandemic began in early 2020, according to the World Health Organisation.

    New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) said in July the former Administrator, Ross Ardern, had no say in the implementation of tunoa, and that mandatory vaccination was a decision taken by Tokelau’s village leaders.

    At the time about 99 percent of Tokelau’s eligible population aged 12 and over were fully vaccinated.

    • Tokelau is a New Zealand dependency.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • NZ covid-19 traffic light system scrapped from midnight, says PM Jacinda Ardern

    RNZ News

    All mask wearing requirements in Aotearoa New Zealand — except in healthcare and aged care — will be scrapped, and household contacts will no longer need to isolate, the government confirmed today.

    Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Covid-19 Response Dr Ayesha Verrall confirmed cabinet’s decision to scrap the Covid-19 Protection Framework — known as the “traffic light” system — and the majority of related public health restrictions.

    The traffic light system will end tonight at 11.59pm.


    Today’s media briefing.    Video: RNZ News

    They said the changes would include:

    • Mask-wearing only required in healthcare and aged care: including hospitals, pharmacies, primary care, aged residential and disability-related residential care
    • People who test positive for covid-19 must still isolate for seven days, but household contacts no longer required to provided they take a RAT test every day
    • All government vaccine mandates to end on 26 September 26
    • Removal of all vaccine requirements for incoming travellers and air crew
    • Leave support payments to continue
    • All New Zealanders over age 65, and Māori over age 50, to get automatic access to covid-19 antiviral drugs if they test positive for Covid-19
    • From Tuesday, case and hospitalisation number reporting becomes weekly, not daily

    Ardern said it marked a milestone in New Zealand’s response to the virus.

    She said people may still be asked to wear a mask in some places but it would be at the discretion of those managing the location, not a government requirement. Vaccination requirements would also be at the discretion of employers.

    ‘Claim back certainty’
    “Cabinet has determined that based on public health advice we are able to remove the traffic light system and with that decision claim back the certainty we have all lost over the last three years,” she said.

    “For the first time in two years we can approach summer with the much needed certainty New Zealanders and business need, helping to drive greater economic activity critical to our economic recovery.

    She said there was no question the actions of New Zealanders had saved thousands of lives, but the risks were changing.

    “When we moved into our first lockdown the objective was simple: To save lives and livelihoods,” Ardern said.

    “I’m sure there will be many who over the years will pore over the details of every nation’s response including ours. They’ll certainly measure the outcomes in different ways but when you look at countries of our size and compare them, they’ll find the tragic loss for instance of 15,500 people in Scotland and less than 2000 in New Zealand.

    “The most recent health advice now tells us that with the lowest cases and hospitalisations since February, our population well vaccinated, and expanded access to anti-viral medicines, New Zealand is in a position to move forward.”

    New Zealand could move on with confidence that its actions had successfully managed cases down, she said.

    ‘Never to be taken alone’
    “This pandemic was never one to be taken on alone, and it never was. And so today I say again to everyone from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

    “I know there will be those concerned by the changes made today. I can assure you that we would not make them if we did not believe we were ready but we also need to remember that not everybody experiences covid or its risk — including to our disability community — in the same way.

    “That’s why isolating covid cases to protect our most vulnerable is important, and why treatment is too.”

    She said she hoped it would be the first summer where the “covid-19 anxiety can start to heal”.

    “As a nation, covid has hurt us in many ways but perhaps the one we talk about less than others is the toll it’s taken on everyone’s mental health. I see that toll — I see it in my colleagues, in my community in Tāmaki Makaurau, and especially I see it in our kids.

    “I don’t want people’s wellbeing to be the price of covid, but it is going to take a concerted effort from us as government and others for that not to be the case.”

    Ardern said one of the byproducts of the pandemic had been that New Zealand now have some of the most advanced mental health tools in the world, and the government had taken a number of steps to improve mental wellbeing support.

    Two apps a highlight
    This included two apps she highlighted for anyone who may need them: Groove and Habits.

    Ardern finished her statement with a line from when New Zealand first went into lockdown: “‘For the next wee while, things will look worse before they look better’. It turned out to be true, things did get worse, things did get hard, but it’s also true that finally they will and can be better”.

    Ardern said looking back, decisions were often being made with imperfect information but the decisions were made with the best intentions and she stood by it.

    She said the government had been open to the idea of an independent inquiry into the response but was still getting advice about what that would look like.

    “We do want to learn from this period and I think you’ll see that we’ve been taking that approach all the way through.”

    Asked if it was the end of the covid response, Ardern said she hoped the change would give people huge confidence and optimism.

    “We are moving on because this pandemic has moved on.”

    The traffic light system used things like gathering limits but that was no longer fit for purpose, she said.

    “We don’t need those extraordinary measures, so we won’t use them.”

    Right time to remove ‘traffic lights’
    Dr Verrall said New Zealand had succeeded in avoiding the devastation caused by the pandemic overseas, and now was the right time to remove the traffic light framework and begin a new approach to managing the virus.

    “Together we have got through this with one of the lowest cumulative mortality rates in the world.”

    She announced another 40,000 courses of antiviral medication had also been purchased and would be freely available to older New Zealanders.

    “Anyone over the age of 65, and Māori and Pacific people over the age of 50, or anyone who meets Pharmac requirements, can access the treatment in the early stages of contracting the virus,” she said.

    “This means more than double the number of New Zealanders will be able to access these medicines if they need them than previously.

    She acknowledged that lessening the restrictions caused concern to disabled and immune-compromised people.

    “I want to reassure those Kiwis that we are making these changes because risks are lower, in fact cases are more than 10 times lower than what they were earlier in the year and we now have layers of protections in place.”

    She said the support was not ending and hoped that removing the remaining vaccine mandates would ease the staffing pressures disability services have been under.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • The merger of TVNZ and RNZ needs to build trust in public media – 3 things the law change must get right

    ANALYSIS: By Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Claire Breen, University of Waikato

    With only six days left for submissions to the select committee examining the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill, it is becoming clear this crucial piece of legislation has some significant shortcomings. These will need attention before it passes into law.

    The eventual act of Parliament will officially merge Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and Television New Zealand (TVNZ) into a new non-profit, autonomous Crown entity.

    Supporters, including Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson, argue the new organisation will help strengthen public media. Others have expressed concerns about the new entity’s likely independence, given its reliance on government funding.

    TVNZ chief executive Simon Power echoed those concerns earlier this week. He strongly criticised the bill’s current provisions for statutory and editorial independence:

    I am not worried about that kind of influence from this government or the next government. I just think if the legislation is to endure it has to be robust enough to withstand different types of governments over time.

    Power is right to warn against complacency about media freedom. While New Zealand still ranks highly in the World Press Freedom Index (11th out of 180 countries), there have been times in the past when governments have manipulated or directly censored local news media to suit their own political agendas.

    In the current age of “fake news” and disinformation, we need to be especially vigilant. While there are good aspects to the proposed law, it fails to adequately deal with several pressing contemporary issues.

    Trust in government and media
    As last year’s Sustaining Aotearoa as a Cohesive Society report highlighted, trust in government and media, and the social cohesion it creates, is a fragile thing. What can take decades to build can fragment if it isn’t nurtured.

    Willie Jackson speaking into a microphone
    Broadcasting and Media Minister Willie Jackson says the Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill will strengthen public media. Image: The Conversation/Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

    According to some global measures, this trust is declining. New Zealand still ranks higher than the OECD average, but distrust is growing here.

    The Auckland University of Technology’s Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD) research centre reports that people’s trust in the news they consume dropped by 10% between 2020 and 2022.

    At the same time, the speed and reach of propaganda, misinformation and disinformation have increased dramatically, as witnessed during the covid pandemic.

    New Zealand was not immune, as the Disinformation Project has shown. Unreliable and untrustworthy information spread almost as quickly as the virus itself, with an unprecedented spike during the protest at Parliament earlier this year.

    Finally, journalism continues to be a dangerous profession. Over 1200 media professionals worldwide were killed for doing their jobs between 2006 and 2020. Online violence against women journalists in particular is on the rise.

    New Zealand journalists have also found themselves the target of increased levels of animosity.

    What the new law needs
    Rebuilding trust in the public media starts with firmly enshrining their independence in law. The proposed charter promises the new entity will demonstrate editorial independence, impartiality and balance. This is a good start, but it is only one of 10 principles.

    This key principle (and ways to measure it) should stand alone in the new law to create a bulwark against any rising fear that governments, either directly or by manipulating budgets and appointments, have undue influence.

    The commitment to independence should also be reinforced by ensuring some seats on the proposed entity’s board are reserved for representatives of parliamentary opposition parties. Independent annual review of the entity’s independence and integrity should also be required.

    Second, there needs to be a clearer commitment to integrity of information, beyond the existing standards of the news being reliable, accurate, comprehensive, balanced and impartial. Recognising the threat of misinformation and disinformation, and developing ways to counter it, should be a core part of the new entity’s remit.

    As the bill stands, it is only part of four considerations related to one of several “objectives”.

    And thirdly, the law must recognise the independence of journalists and the need to protect them. It’s something of an anomaly that a bill to protect journalists’ sources was put before Parliament (although subsequently withdrawn), while journalists themselves don’t enjoy similar protections.

    The new public media entity could lead the way in lobbying on behalf of all journalists to ensure those protections, and the tools journalists require to be an effective Fourth Estate, are consistent with best international practice.

    If the law in its final form reflects these fundamental principles, it will go a long way to allaying legitimate concerns about the future independence and integrity of public media in Aotearoa New Zealand.The Conversation

    Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of law at the University of Waikato and Dr Claire Breen, is professor of Law at the University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

  • As covid cases drop, Marshall Islands praised for ‘unprecedented’ response

    By Giff Johnson, editor of the Marshall Islands Journal and RNZ Pacific correspondent in Majuro

    United States-based medical doctors have praised the Marshall Islands for an “unprecedented” response to its first covid outbreak, as the positive case numbers declined dramatically this week after a record-setting first two weeks.

    “The Marshall Islands has exceeded most expectations to deliver testing and treatment for large numbers of people, and to provide care for those with covid,” said Dr Richard Brostrom, the US Centers for Disease Control Field Medical Officer who arrived in Marshall Islands last week to assist the Ministry of Health and Human Services.

    Brostrom has been engaged in the US response in all US-affiliated islands, including most recently in the Micronesian states of Pohnpei and Kosrae.

    The Marshall Islands was seeing above 1000 positive cases daily last week, but those numbers dropped to the low hundreds by Monday this week as the omicron BA.5 variant appeared to peak and drop off quickly.

    Last week, Johns Hopkins University, which tracks covid cases globally, reported that the Marshall Islands set a seven-day all-time record for the rate of positive cases of covid.

    “But what the data also shows is a jurisdiction that is able to test, treat and provide access to healthcare,” said Dr Brostrom.

    “BA.5 will behave the same everywhere,” he said. “The Marshall Islands had access points for people to get tested and treated, it was prepared and it handled thousands of people in a short period of time.”

    14 died in two weeks
    No deaths have been reported since last Friday. During the first two weeks, 14 people died of covid. The majority of the deaths were among people who were not vaccinated or partially vaccinated, the ministry reported.

    Health authorities put the low number of deaths down to widespread use of PaxLovid, a five-day treatment that Dr Brostrom said was 90 percent effective in reducing symptoms of covid.

    “The use of PaxLovid in Marshall Islands is appropriate, by the book, and unprecedented,” Brostrom said.

    He said PaxLovid had been well used in all US-affiliated islands with covid. But uniquely in the Marshall Islands, more people sought healthcare and didn’t stay home when they got covid, he said.

    “It was an opportunity for the Ministry of Health to deliver PaxLovid,” he said.

    ‘One of the best responses to this pandemic the world has seen’
    Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal praised health workers and community volunteers for their response under pressure when more than 200 were initially sidelined by covid in the early days of the outbreak.

    “As this current outbreak of covid-19 begins to lessen, the facts say, even with the complicated logistical issues and limited resources that we have in the Marshall Islands, and even though we have a very immuno-compromised population, we have had one of the best responses to this pandemic the world has seen,” said Niedenthal.

    “Our goal from the beginning has been resolute: Let the science catch up to the virus, and now we are seeing the result of over two years of diligent prevention and preparation.”

    Among unprecedented events in the Marshall Islands, Niedenthal said the nation was the “only country in the world to have been able to offer people of all ages vaccines before we had community spread of the virus”.

    He added: “Our current fatality rate of 0.1 percent of covid-19 cases ranks as among the best in the world with only Palau having a similar fatality rate for this virus.”

    Dr Brostrom was part of a “surge support medical team” involving CDC, WHO, Taiwan and other medical officials that arrived during the second week of the outbreak.

    What the visiting doctors have seen in the first two weeks of the outbreak was “an amazing delivery (of services) that we haven’t seen elsewhere,” Dr Brostrom said.

    Speed in setting up care sites
    Dr Brostrom said the Ministry of Health’s speed in setting up the alternative care sites in the community was key to dealing with the BA.5 variant that is in Marshall Islands. BA.5 is milder in its effect than earlier variants but much more contagious.

    “It is so fast that if you spend a week to get sites set up, you missed the boat.”

    He said the country had seen a five-day surge in cases, a further five days at the peak number, and now five days of numbers dropping down.

    “It is most certainly going down,” he said.

    “It’s amazing to see how the Ministry of Health has responded — not just now, but for two and a half years,” said Dr Sheldon Riklon, one of two Marshallese US-trained medical doctors working at rural clinic in Majuro.

    “The Marshall Islands has done well. The Ministry of Health leadership prepared the Marshall Islands for this.”

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • ‘Omicron’s not done with us’: A year on from NZ’s longest covid-19 lockdown

    By Rowan Quinn, RNZ News health correspondent

    One year on from Aotearoa New Zealand’s longest covid-19 lockdown, an epidemiologist says further lockdowns cannot be ruled out, instead preparing to do them better.

    On 17 August 2021, New Zealand went to alert level 4 because the deadly delta variant had arrived.

    Aucklanders had no idea that day that they would still be in lockdown until December, and that after 18 months of trying to keep covid-19 out, it would be here to stay.

    The city was asked to hold the line so the country could get vaccinated, something critics said should have happened much earlier.

    Auckland University epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson was vocal in urging the country to aim high and vaccinate more than 95 percent of eligible people.

    Reflecting back, he said New Zealanders responded well, with most areas hitting that mark or higher by the measurements at the time.

    Much had been learnt about the virus — and how to respond to it — since then, with the highly contagious but less harmful omicron variant changing everything at the start of this year, he said.

    But the danger was not over.

    Random severity of variants
    “I think there are a lot of people who think, ‘oh look, it’s getting less severe over time so we’re fine,’ but it’s pretty random whether the next variant is going to be less severe or not,” he said.

    Either way, it would need to be at least as spreadable as omicron to take over, he said.

    Traffic on the Auckland motorway near the central city at 11.30am on an atypical Thursday morning.
    Empty … an Auckland motorway near the city centre, mid-morning on 19 August 2021. By 7 September 2021 the rest of New Zealand had moved to level 2, but Auckland stayed in alert level 3 restrictions until December 2. Image: Robert Smith/RNZ

    The government has said lockdowns are not part of any future covid-19 plans, with the traffic light system taking its place.

    But Professor Jackson said that may not “cut the mustard” if the worst happened.

    “If we get a new mutation that is more severe, that kills more people, then we’ve got something huge to worry about,” he said.

    “If that happens, if people start dropping dead in the street like the original version of covid, we will have little choice but to lock down.”

    That was why the country still needed to be prepared for the worst, he said.

    Frontline of delta outbreak
    As an Auckland GP and co-leader of Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā, Dr Rawiri McKree-Jansen was at the frontline of the delta outbreak and lockdown and the vaccine rollout.

    Some Māori and Pacific health teams had initially struggled to be given the resources they needed, or to be listened to.

    The work they were able to do for their communities and the country showed what they were capable of and should be a lasting legacy, Dr McKree-Jansen said.

    They were crucial to the vaccine roll out and helped the most vulnerable, especially those isolating.

    “The mobilisation was impressive, relentless and co-ordinated,” he said.

    “Those features are remarkable and give us a great sense of optimism about the contribution that Māori communities and Māori health professionals can make and I hope that is enduring.”

    When it came to new variants, he said while it was important to be vigilant about what may come next, it was also important to focus on what was happening now.

    “Omicron’s not done with us yet … I’m keen that we don’t forget the lessons we’ve learnt from the Delta and Omicron outbreaks – and supporting communities is fundamental to that.”

    Both Professor Jackson and Dr McKree-Jansen acknowledged the people who had died since pandemic began, many more since the omicron outbreak that reached so many people.

    But they said they were also grateful that many were protected by the lockdown and the vaccine rollout.

    16 more people die
    RNZ News reports that another 16 people with covid-19 have died and there are 4489 new community cases today, according to the Ministry of Health.

    There are 496 people in hospital, 13 of them are in a high dependency unit

    Yesterday the ministry reported another 21 people with covid-19 had died and there were 533 people in hospital, including 12 in intensive care or a high dependency unit.

    Deputy Director-General and Public Health Agency head Dr Andrew Old told media this afternoon that modelling from Covid Modelling Aotearoa showed New Zealand was continuing to track at the lower end of what was expected in terms of a second wave this winter.

    “We passed a peak in cases earlier that the modelling suggested and now hospitalisations are also declining suggesting these too have peaked. It’s sitting somewhere between 800 and 850 occupied beds across the country in late July,” he said.

    Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand interim national medical director Dr Pete Watson said the recent drop in covid-19 cases was an encouraging trend.

    “By each one of us sticking to public health measures we are making a difference,” he said.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • NZ’s Ashley Bloomfield bows out – a look at his key moments as health chief

    RNZ News

    After guiding New Zealand through two and a half years of a pandemic, Dr Ashley Bloomfield’s time as Director-General of Health has come to an end.

    We look back on some of the key moments during his time in the role:

    22 May 2018
    Dr Ashley Bloomfield was named as the new Director-General of Health while he was serving as the acting chief executive of Capital and Coast District Health Board.

    2019
    The health system faced some big challenges in 2019. Dr Bloomfield fronted health responses to both a measles outbreak and the Whakaari/White Island disaster.

    27 January 2020
    “Kia ora koutou katoa, welcome to the Ministry of Health, thank you very much attending this briefing this afternoon. My name is Dr Ashley Bloomfield, I’m the Director-General of Health.”

    After two and a half years of a pandemic, it is probably hard to remember a time when Dr Ashley Bloomfield needed to introduce himself.

    Before New Zealand had its first case of covid-19, back when it was referred to simply as a coronavirus (WHO would name it covid-19 on 12 February 2020), Dr Ashley Bloomfield and Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay held a media stand-up.

    Like most of the early briefings, it was held at the Ministry of Health.

    It was two weeks after the first confirmed case outside of China had been identified and across the ditch, Australia had four cases. There had been 56 deaths worldwide.

    28 February 2020
    Almost exactly one month later, New Zealand’s first covid-19 case was confirmed in someone that had returned from overseas.

    Reminiscent of a format we would come to know more intimately as time went on, the evening news would cut to a live press conference where Dr Bloomfield and then-Health Minister David Clark would provide more details of New Zealand’s first case. (Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was in Australia at the time.)

    The following day, supermarkets would see a rush of customers buying up toilet paper, hand sanitiser and tinned food.

    March 2020
    We would start to hear a lot more from Dr Bloomfield as the second, third and fourth (who had been at a Tool concert) cases of covid-19 were confirmed in early March.

    By the end of the month New Zealand would be in lockdown and Dr Bloomfield had become a daily part of our lives.

    “It did feel a little bit like I was having a performance review at one o’clock every day, broadcast live on television. But that’s as it should be — your job is to ensure that we’re being held accountable for our response,” he said.

    Jainda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield, as made by Scott Savage and Colleen Pugh.
    PM Jacinda Ardern and Dr Ashley Bloomfield … creatively captured from a daily 1pm update fan. Image: RNZ

    Daily cases had jumped to numbers in the eighties and the briefings had shifted to the Beehive, against a backdrop of yellow and white striped Unite Against Covid-19 branding.

    On 29 March, during the 1pm briefing, Bloomfield would announce New Zealand’s first covid-19 death.

    4 May 2020
    “No new cases”. For the first time since New Zealand went into level 4 lockdown on 25 March, Dr Bloomfield announced there were no new cases of covid-19. It would be a phrase we would hear more of as the first community outbreak would start to slow.

    And it evoked such emotion that “There are no new cases of covid-19 to report in New Zealand today” came second place in Massey University’s Quote of the Year.

    August 2020
    In an effort to encourage people to test for covid-19, Dr Bloomfield had his first covid-19 PCR test while filmed at a community testing site.

    “It was much less painful than tackling Billy Weepu on the rugby field a couple of weeks ago.”

    *Raises eyebrows
    With millions of people stuck at home in isolation watching daily media briefings, it was no surprise that Dr Bloomfield would find himself in meme-territory.

    This was Dr Bloomfield’s response when he was asked about 5G in 2020:

    Ashley Bloomfield being asked about 5G conspiracy theories on April 8 vs Ashley Bloomfield being asked about bleach injections on April 26.
    Dr Ashley Bloomfield being asked about 5G conspiracy theories on April 8 vs Ashley Bloomfield being asked about bleach injections on April 26. Image: RNZ

    And a year later when Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said people should go outside and “spread your legs”.


    The Guardian on the Hipkins quote.


    Festival debut
    Who would have thought Dr Bloomfield would grace the main stage at Rhythm and Vines festival?

    Unstoppable summer video.

    December 2020
    Dr Bloomfield was awarded the New Zealand Medical Association’s highest accolade — The Chair’s Award

    A lot of fan-art for Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield was produced as a result of the Covid crisis.
    Fan art for Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Image: Sam Rillstone/RNZ

    17 August 2021
    The prime minister announced another nationwide lockdown after a case, assumed to be the delta variant, was detected. That meant the 1pm briefings, and daily doses of Dr Bloomfield, were back too.

    22 September 2021
    As New Zealand tackled the delta outbreak, Dr Bloomfield broke the news that we may never get to zero cases of covid-19.

    A portrait pie of Dr. Ashley Bloomfield.
    A portrait pie of Dr Ashley Bloomfield. Image: Devoney Scarfe/RNZ

    A portrait pie of Dr. Ashley Bloomfield. Photo: Supplied / Devoney Scarfe

    October 2021
    During Super Saturday, Dr Bloomfield was caught on camera busting a move at one of the community events.

    Dr Ashley Bloomfield’s dance moves.

    6 April 2022
    Announced he was stepping down.

    “It seems we’re at a good point in terms of the pandemic, the response is shifting, I’m also confident that the system is in good hands with the changes that are afoot, and most certainly my family will be very pleased to have a little more of my time,” he said.

    May 2022
    Dr Bloomfield tested positive for covid-19 while he was at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland.

    Professional history

    • In May 2018, Dr Bloomfield was appointed the new Director-General of Health.
    • Dr Bloomfield was the acting Chief Executive for Capital & Coast District Health Board from 1 January 2018.
    • From 2015-2017, he was chief executive of the Hutt Valley District Health Board – the first clinician to lead the Hutt Valley District Health Board.
    • In 2017 Dr Bloomfield attended the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme.
    • Prior to becoming chief executive at the Hutt Valley DHB, Dr Bloomfield held a number of senior leadership roles within the Ministry of Health, including, in 2012, acting Deputy Director-General, sector capability and implementation.
    • From 2012-15 he was Director of Service, Integration and Development and General Manager Population Health at Capital & Coast, Hutt and Wairarapa District Health Boards.
    • From 1999-2008 he was a Fellow of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine. Since 2008 he has been a Fellow of the NZ College of Public Health Medicine.
    • In 2010-2011 he was Partnerships Adviser, Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health at the World Health Organisation, Geneva.
    • Dr Bloomfield obtained a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at the University of Auckland in 1990.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

  • Covid and reality: Do we care enough about the common good?

    ANALYSIS: By Frank Bongiorno, Australian National University

    The covid-19 pandemic has already generated its own mythology. In Britain, they talk of the “myth of the blitz” – the idea of a society that pulled together in the Second World War to withstand the bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe with pluck, bravery and humour.

    In Australia, our covid-19 myth is about a cohesive and caring society that patiently endured lockdowns, border closures and other ordeals. Like many myths, ours has some foundation in reality.

    It might be a poor thing when considered alongside wartime Britain’s wartime sacrifices, and you have to ignore the empty toilet paper shelves in the local supermarket, but it still has its own force. It might be especially potent in Melbourne, where the restrictions were most severe and prolonged.

    The covid-19 myth is now presenting its puzzles to true believers. If you imagined we all pulled together for the common good, and because we have the good sense to look after our own health, you are likely to find it strange that we are now apparently prepared to tolerate dozens of deaths in a day.

    Australia’s total covid death toll is now above 11,000 – New Zealand’s has topped 2000.

    More than tolerate: there has been a preparedness to pretend nothing out of the ordinary is happening.

    All of this seems a far cry from those days when we hung on the daily premiers’ media conferences and experienced horror as the number of new infections rose above a few dozen a day, a few hundred, and then a thousand or so. Have our senses been blunted, our consciences tamed?

    A product of power
    Public discourse is never neutral. It is always a product of power. Some people are good at making their voices heard and ensuring their interests are looked after.

    Others are in a weak position to frame the terms of debate or to have media or government take their concerns seriously.

    The elderly — especially the elderly in aged-care facilities — have carried a much larger burden of sacrifice than most of us during 2020 and 2021. They often endured isolation, loneliness and anxiety.

    They were the most vulnerable to losing their lives — because of the nature of the virus itself, but also due to regulatory failure and, in a few places, gross mismanagement.

    Casual and gig economy workers, too, struggle to have their voices heard. On his short journey to an about-face over the question of paid pandemic leave, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at first said the payment was unnecessary because employers were allowing their staff to work from home.

    Yet the conditions of those in poorly paid and insecure work have been repeatedly identified as a problem for them as well as for the wider community, because they are unable easily to isolate.

    Up to his point, however, our democracy has spoken: we want our pizzas delivered and we want to be able to head for the pub and the restaurant. And we are prepared to accept a number of casualties along the way to have lives that bear some resemblance to those of the pre-covid era.

    The “we” in this statement is doing a lot of heavy lifting. There is a fierce debate going on about whether governments — and by extension, the rest of us — are doing enough to counter the spread of the virus.

    Political leadership matters
    Political leadership matters enormously in these things.

    In the years following the Second World War, Australia’s roads became places of carnage, as car ownership increased and provision for road safety was exposed as inadequate. It peaked around 1970, with almost 3800 deaths — more than 30 for every 100,000 people.

    Road fatalities touched the lives of many Australians. If not for the death of my father’s first wife in a vehicle accident on New Year’s Day in 1954, I would not be around to write this article today.

    In the 1960s and 1970s, the coming of mandatory seatbelt wearing and random breath-testing helped bring the numbers down. Manufacturers made their cars safer.

    Public campaigns urged drivers to slow down and stay sober. These were decisions aimed at avoiding avoidable deaths, despite the curtailment of freedom involved.


    A British seat belt advertisement from the 1970s.

    These decisions were also in the Australian utilitarian tradition of government, “whose duty it is to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number” – as the historian W.K. Hancock famously explained in 1930.

    The citizen claimed not “natural rights”, but rights received “from the State and through the State”. Governments made decisions about how their authority could be deployed to preserve the common good and protect individuals — from themselves as well as from others.

    Pragmatic position
    Governments have during the present surge so far been willing to take what they regard as a pragmatic position that the number of infections and fatalities is acceptable to “the greatest number”, so long as “the greatest number” can continue to go about something like their normal lives.

    But this utilitarian political culture also has its dark side. It has been revealed persistently throughout the history of this country — and long before anyone had heard of covid-19 — as poorly equipped to look after the most vulnerable.

    The casualties of the current policy are those who have consistently had their voices muted and their interests set aside during this pandemic — and often before it, as well.

    These are difficult matters for governments that would much prefer to get on with something other than boring old pandemic management. The issue is entangled in electoral politics — we have just had a federal contest in which major party leaders studiously ignored the issue, and the nation’s two most populous states are to hold elections in the next few months.

    Governments also realise that restrictions and mandates will meet civil disobedience.

    But covid cannot be wished away. At a minimum, governments need to show they are serious about it to the extent of spending serious money on a campaign of public information and advice on issues like mask-wearing and staying home when ill.

    They usually manage to find a sufficient stash of public money ahead of each election when they want to tell us what a beaut job they’ve been doing. They might now consider whether something similar might help to save lives.The Conversation

    Dr Frank Bongiorno is professor of history, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • NZ covid deaths top 1000 with 9570 new community cases reported

    RNZ News

    Aotearoa New Zealand has reported 9570 new community cases of covid-19 and a further 32 deaths today, bringing total publicly recorded deaths with the coronavirus 1017.

    In a statement, the Ministry of Health said the total number of deaths was up by 31 from yesterday as they had removed a case which had been previously reported twice.

    “This case was initially reported on March 10. The deaths being reported today include people who have died over the previous six weeks, since April 5.”

    The seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 17.

    “Of the people whose deaths we are reporting today; two people were from Northland; nine from the Auckland region; two from Bay of Plenty; two from Taranaki; one from Tairawhiti; four from MidCentral; two from Hawke’s Bay; three from the Wellington region; one from Nelson-Marlborough; four from Canterbury and two from Southern.

    “One person was in their 20s; four people were in their 40s; two in their 50s; four in their sixties; nine in their 70s; nine in their 80s and three were aged over 90.

    “Of these people, 10 were women and 22 were men.”

    The seven-day rolling average of community case numbers is 8024 — last Wednesday it was 7533, the ministry said.

    It said there are 425 people in hospital, including nine in ICU.

    Yesterday, the ministry reported 9843 cases and eight deaths.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘We’re not paid fairly for the work we do’, say striking NZ health workers

    By Rowan Quinn, RNZ News health correspondent

    Striking New Zealand health workers have picketed around the country, saying they are fed up with being underpaid and undervalued.

    About 10,000 allied health staff who work at district health boards have walked off the job for 24 hours, with rolling demonstrations.

    They are health workers who are not doctors or nurses.

    One of the first pickets has been outside Hutt Hospital, with workers chanting and holding signs, and getting lots of beeps of support from passing cars.

    Social worker Lorraine Tetley said her team was losing social workers to higher paid jobs in the public sector.

    Those left behind felt undervalued, she said.

    “They’re essential workers who work on the frontline during the pandemic. Every day we work with risk and we work with vulnerable families and we’re not paid fairly for the work we do,” she said.

    Working hard under covid
    Dental therapist Char Blake said they had been working really hard, especially after the lockdown and covid restrictions.

    “We love caring for patients but is just really hard to pay for things with the price of things going up and we’ve waited 18 months for a pay rise,” Blake said.


    Today’s allied health workers strike. Video: RNZ News

     

    Dental assistant for the School Dental Service Faye Brown said she was paid just over the minimum wage.

    Her service was six people short, and in danger of losing more.

    “It can be quite stressful at times — we have to do more than we are supposed to at times. We don’t want to let our patients down,” she said.

    Jane McWhirter tests newborn babies’ hearing and says she is earning the same amount as her 16-year-old daughter who works at Dominoes Pizza.

    She says even though she is training on the job, she is doing important, skilled work and she and her colleagues deserves better.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PM Jacinda Ardern tests positive for covid-19 – NZ cases rising

    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has confirmed that she has tested positive for covid-19.

    Her daughter Neve tested positive on Wednesday, she added in the post. Her partner Clarke Gayford tested positive on Sunday.

    “Despite best efforts, unfortunately I’ve joined the rest of my family and tested positive for covid-19,” Ardern wrote on social media.

    Reports of her covid status follow a statement yesterday by Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield that thousands of new cases of covid-19 were being reported every day in New Zealand, but this was likely to be half of the number of actual cases.

    With a further 29 deaths with covid-19 and 7441 new cases yesterday, Dr Bloomfield said the impact of the severity of omicron was still visible.

    Prime Minister Ardern has been symptomatic since Friday night, according to a statement, and has “moderate” symptoms. She returned a weak positive Friday night and a clear positive this morning on a RAT test.

    Ardern will be required to isolate until the morning of Saturday May 21.

    Missing the Budget
    Ardern, who has been isolating since Gayford tested positive, will now have to miss the Budget announcement on Thursday and the release of the government’s Emissions Reduction Plan on Monday.

    “There are so many important things happening for the government this week,” she wrote.

    “I’m gutted to miss being there in person, but will be staying in close touch with the team and sharing some reckons from here.

    “To anyone else out there isolating or dealing with covid, I hope you take good care of yourselves!”

    Ardern’s upcoming travel to the United States, scheduled for late May, will go ahead as planned at this stage. She is scheduled to give the commencement speech at Harvard University on May 26.

    Former Labour Party president Mike Williams hopes she will be well enough to travel.

    “After two years of isolation, internationally she’s a rock star attraction, and it does the country a hell of a lot of good to get her out and about.”

    Williams said Ardern, 41, was young and fit, so should be fine.

    Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson will take the post-cabinet press conference on Monday.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.