Category: Public health

  • RNZ Pacific

    New Caledonia recorded 16 covid-19 deaths yesterday — the highest single day total since the delta strain of the virus arrived in the territory less than three weeks ago.

    A spokesperson for the territorial government, Gilbert Tyuienon, said the archipelago “is going through a crisis never seen in its entire history”.

    Fifty-two people are in intensive care and 323 hospitalised, while health authorities say the peak of the epidemic has yet to be reached.

    Seventy three people have died so far in the emergency.

    According to Medipole Noumea Hospital authorities, the territory is entering the hardest phase of the epidemic and it could last a long time despite measures to try and break chains of transmission.

    These include containment and a curfew that will stay in place until October 4.

    New Caledonians suffer from many co-morbidity factors, with 67 percent of adults obese and an estimated 10 percent who are diabetic.

    These health problems mainly concern the indigenous Kanak and Wallisian populations, which also have the highest mistrust of vaccination.

    A member of the government of Wallisian origin, Vaim’ua Muliava, begged his community to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

    The president of the custom Senate, Yvon Kona, called on the government to ban the sale of alcohol during the lockdown, reports Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes.

    “Too many victims linked to covid are recorded every day as well as the number of deaths,” he said.

    The territory has a population if 288,000.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RNZ News

    Papua New Guinea authorities are preparing for a four-week lockdown in at least three provinces at the end of the month.

    The move has been prompted by a spike in covid-19 infection rates in Eastern Highlands province as well as the two provinces which sit on the border with Indonesia, Western and West Sepik.

    While testing for covid-19 is limited in PNG, the delta variant was confirmed as being in the country in July, preceding a spike in patients at hospitals in these provinces.

    It is understood the lockdown would begin in a week’s time, and entail closure of businesses, schools and churches, and restrictions in movement.

    The cabinet and PNG’s pandemic advisory committee are also considering lockdowns in the National Capital District, Morobe Province, and other affected parts of the Highlands, including Enga.

    The containment move was hinted at by Prime Minister James Marape before he flew to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly this week.

    Marape told local media that they were seeing evidence of the delta variant spreading across the country, and people dying as a result.

    With Marape now abroad, it is expected that the acting Prime Minister, Soroi Eoe, will sign off on the lockdown measures before the weekend.

    Case numbers vague
    Since testing for covid in PNG was scaled back in June, the available data on this third wave of the pandemic in the country has been vague.

    As of Tuesday, the main agency overseeing PNG’s pandemic response, the National Control Centre, said the total number of confirmed covid cases in the country was 19,069, with the death toll at 212.

    However, the limited level of testing and habitual delays in reporting of case loads from the provinces suggest the true figure of those infected is far higher.

    Earlier, the Eastern Highlands Coronavirus Steering Committee enforced a blanket ban on all public gatherings due to a spike in infections and deaths.

    Also, West Sepik and Western continued to attempt to restrict movement of traditional border crossers back and forth to Indonesia, however capabilities to monitor the border are also limited.

    Around 2 percent of the country’s population have been vaccinated, according to the National Control Centre.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The recent outbreak of the Delta variant in China “shows that its strategy no longer fits. It is time for China to change tack.”

    So declared a lead essay atop the New York Times Opinion/Editorial section on Sept. 7 by Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

    The Delta outbreak that “changed the game” in Huang’s words emerged after an outbreak at Nanjing international airport in July traced to a flight from Russia.  Did this outbreak change anything in fact? 

    Let’s do the numbers. 

    Let’s do something that Huang did not; let’s look at the numbers from July 1 until Sept. 7 the date of the article, a period that brackets the Delta outbreak cited by Huang.

    During that period China experienced 273 new cases, about 4 per day, and no new deaths. That hardly seems like a failure.

    The post NY Times Advises China On Covid-19: Abandon Success, Try Failure appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.

    This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.

  • COMMENTARY: By Glen Johnson

    On August 17, a 58-year-old man from Auckland became symptomatic and tested positive for covid-19. It was New Zealand’s first community case of the coronavirus in almost six months.

    Within hours, the nation of five million moved into alert level four, part of its “go hard, go early” approach. All travel outside of people’s homes was forbidden, except to fetch supplies, visit pharmacies or exercise.

    The country largely ground to a halt.

    “We have seen the dire consequences of taking too long to act in other countries, not least our neighbours,” said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, while announcing the cabinet’s decision to impose a lockdown that evening.

    Within a few days, one case had grown to 21 cases. After a week, to 148 cases. By August 31, the cluster contained 612 cases.

    Snap lockdown
    One month after imposing the snap lockdown, New Zealand has bent the curve and may be able to eliminate an outbreak of the potent delta variant of COVID-19 – though it is no sure thing.

    As of September 20, some 1051 people in Auckland and 17 people in the capital city, Wellington, have been infected with the virus, of whom 694 have recovered.

    Contact tracers have methodically identified tens of thousands of contacts – and hundreds of locations of interest – part of an updated track-and-trace system repurposed to cast a much wider net around the far more transmissible delta variant.

    The outbreak, now spread across 20 subclusters, 10 of which have been epidemiologically linked, presents the most serious challenge to elimination that New Zealand has faced so far. With its fragmented public health system under intense strain from decades of under-funding, any unchecked spread of the delta variant would see hospitals rapidly overwhelmed.

    But New Zealanders rallied behind the restrictions, sticking to their “bubbles”, masking up and watching patiently as cases peaked, then began to decline – though the outbreak’s tail is proving persistent.

    If the country does eliminate this outbreak, it would once again validate the “go hard, go early” approach that officials have taken over the past 18 months.

    With Auckland moving yesterday to the more permissive alert level three, case numbers over the coming weeks will be closely watched for any sign of uncontained spread.

    Entitlement and denunciation
    Yet, as with previous outbreaks, the clamour from critics of the government started almost immediately, a chorus of whinge.

    Business special interests laundered their messaging through an uncritical media – “certainty” they chanted, while pressuring for a move down alert levels.

    “We also know that in lockdown Treasury has forecast it to cost the country NZ$1.45 billion per week – and that’s just the economic impact,” Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce chief executive Leeann Watson told broadcaster Newstalk ZB.

    Incredibly, less than a week into lockdown, Export New Zealand executive director Catherine Beard complained to Stuff, the country’s most popular news website, that the business environment was getting “tough” for exporters, while lobbying for more managed isolation spots for business travellers – or self-isolation.

    “Some of these are multimillion-dollar deals, so the situation is very stressful,” she said.

    Some in the hospitality sector complained about limits on gatherings and threatened to withhold tax, while demanding “targeted” assistance from the government.

    “Now it’s 100 percent [Ministry of] Health running the show,” said Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Julie White, according to Stuff. “No one is advising them commercially.”

    Most New Zealanders would, presumably, prefer that the Health Ministry – as opposed to hospitality interest groups – responds to the threat presented by a lethal, airborne pathogen.

    ‘Glacial’ pace criticised
    The “glacial” pace of the country’s vaccine rollout was also riffed off in headline after headline.

    Perhaps, as the political opposition and reporters contend, the rollout has been “sluggish”.

    Perhaps the government could have instructed the medical regulator Medsafe to conduct a less rigorous assessment of the Pfizer vaccine, under emergency protocols.

    “Another [possibility] is,” Craig McCulloch, Radio New Zealand’s deputy political editor speculated, “that the government’s negotiators came late to the party, did a poor job and got a raw deal.”

    Or perhaps soaring global demand amid the pandemic, Pfizer’s finite ability to supply vaccines to a vast suite of countries and New Zealand’s limited purchasing power and largely covid-free status explains the “delay”.

    Certainly, the World Health Organisation has described vaccine hoarding by wealthy nations as approaching a “catastrophic moral failure”.

    When Pfizer became able to deliver large shipments midway through July, New Zealand saw a dramatic scale-up in the vaccination programme, as officials had promised for months.

    Rollout a success story
    If anything, the nation’s rollout — a massive logistical undertaking — has largely been a success story, conducted in an environment of incredible uncertainty and reliant upon an already stretched workforce.

    It has additionally played a key role in supporting vaccination efforts in the Cook Islands.

    As of September 20, some 4,711,410 doses of the vaccine have been administered, tracking close to supply, with 1,618,673 people now fully vaccinated.

    Amid the rising racket, the entitlement and denunciation, even commentators from abroad got in on the act.

    Fox News host Tucker Carlson — agitating anti-lockdown sentiment — suggested that New Zealand provided a model for how his viewers would be subjugated by Joe Biden’s administration.

    “How far can they go? […] A single covid case in New Zealand, not a death from covid, but a case of covid has shut down the entire country.”

    Writing in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, one commentator called the outbreak “poetic justice” and claimed a “once-welcoming nation is turning into an isolated dystopia, where liberties are taken away in a heartbeat and outsiders are shunned”.

    While these criticisms are couched in the language of defending civil liberties, they reduce to variants of the “learn to live with covid” argument.

    Or put another way: “The cure cannot be worse than the disease”.

    The economy must reign supreme, after all.

    Sound familiar?

    ‘Needles in my eyes’
    New Zealand’s elimination strategy relies on public buy-in. Recent polling shows that some 84 percent of the public supports the latest lockdown.

    As with previous outbreaks, Ardern has used clear, empathetic language to reassure and unify an often politically divided nation. These briefings are held in Parliament’s theatrette and usually feature the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

    For many in New Zealand, the daily press briefings provide a detailed window into how authorities manage outbreaks and have been the most visible key to the elimination strategy’s success.

    “To all Aucklanders, you have done an amazing job so far protecting yourselves, your family and your community,” Ardern said on September 13, while announcing that Auckland would stay in alert level four for another week. “We owe you a huge debt of gratitude … but the cases are telling us we have additional work to do.”

    Voters rewarded Ardern’s Labour Party for this kind of humane approach and its exceptional management of the viral threat in the national elections last October, granting it an outright majority.

    The political opposition judges these briefings a political threat, and routinely denigrates them as Ardern speaking from “The Podium of Truth”.

    With the return of daily briefings on August 17, right-wing broadcasters and some journalists began to deride the briefings, at exactly the moment when trust in the authorities needed to be reinforced.

    Undermining public perceptions
    There is a difference between “holding power to account” and deliberately attempting, for purely partisan political reasons, to undermine public perceptions that the covid-19 response is being well managed.

    “I tried, I really did, but I wanted to stick needles in my eyes by about four minutes in,” said Newstalk ZB’s Kate Hawkesby, the day after the return of the 1pm press conferences. “I’d forgotten how soul-destroying it is to be spoken to like a three-year-old.”

    On the same station, Hawkesby’s husband, Mike Hosking, overdubbed turkey “gobbles” and truck horn sound effects onto an interview recorded with Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall.

    Newstalk ZB’s political editor, Barry Soper, in a report about an Auckland man whose kidney surgery was postponed due to staffing shortages, loaded his story’s preamble with phrases like “their altar” and “practise what they preach”.

    He also issued a remarkable dog-whistle to New Zealand’s far-right, the kind of people who believe Ardern – a fairly mild political centrist – is turning the country into a “communist dictatorship”.

    “If you have ever wondered what it must have been like to live in a totalitarian state, then perhaps wonder no more.”

    This nonsense went on and on.

    Moaning media
    Some press gallery reporters began to complain about the length of Ardern’s introductions, while Jason Walls, a political reporter with Newstalk ZB, took to Twitter to moan about Dr Bloomfield saying “finally” two times.

    This speaks to how the media has fundamentally misunderstood what the briefings are: public service announcements.

    They are for the public. Reporters are invited as a check and, as such, should resist the urge to demand a say in how these announcements are structured.

    Even The New York Times managed to launder messaging that targeted the briefings, quoting former National Party staffer and political commentator Ben Thomas – who appears fixated on denigrating Dr Bloomfield.

    “He [Dr Bloomfield] has … a cult-like following,” said Thomas. “The country has a huge kind of parasocial devotion to him, which is very new to New Zealand.”

    Apparently, Thomas has not heard of Michael Joseph Savage, who founded New Zealand’s welfare state in the 1930s and whose framed photo hung in homes throughout the country for decades.

    Regardless, all of this is a fairly obvious partisan political effort, driven by both ideology and market dynamics.

    Many reporters and commentators at New Zealand Media and Entertainment (NZME), which owns The New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB, seem unable to accept that their preferred political tribe is no longer in power.

    More critically, in an age where the news media increasingly attempts to attract subscribers by catering to their social and political values, NZME appears to be ring-fencing centre-to-far-right eyeballs.

    It is, essentially, becoming New Zealand’s Fox News.

    A brave new world
    The sense in New Zealand is that this may be the last of the nation’s sledgehammer-style lockdowns, though one hopes officials do not retire lockdowns altogether.

    The goal is to get as many people as possible vaccinated, assess the impact of opening up, and then tentatively start easing some border restrictions, if possible.

    No doubt, certain industries – tourism, hospitality, horticulture, media – will continue to apply relentless pressure.

    Yet, when the nation reconnects more fully to the networks of global trade and travel, the super-highways of hyper-globalisation that have spread disease and death around the world, when the inevitable outbreaks come, there will be a toll.

    Glen Johnson is an independent New Zealand journalist who worked as a foreign correspondent for 11 years, predominantly out of the Middle East and North Africa. His work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Seattle Times, Vice, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Reuters, Le Monde Diplomatique, Balkan Insight, Al Jazeera and The New Zealand Herald, among others. His article was first published by Al Jazeera English and is republished with the permission of the author.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    A Papua New Guinean doctor evacuated from Daru in Western Province to Port Moresby last Tuesday has died – the latest medical person to succumb to the covid-19 pandemic in the country, reports The National.

    The doctor was flown to Port Moresby after she suffered severe distress, according to Deputy Controller of the National Pandemic Response Dr Daoni Esorom.

    “Daru Hospital has lost three people to the covid-19 in less than two weeks,” he said.

    “These are people who are still in their prime age, but that is what the covid-19 does.”

    There are 18,808 confirmed cases of covid-19 in Papua New Guinea with health workers making up 9 percent, or 1705.

    A number of them have died.

    He said there was a possibility it could be the delta variant which was spreading in Western Province.

    “Unless it is proven otherwise, we can say that (her death) is due to the delta variant because the virus spreads fast and is deadlier for those with comorbidities and the elderly,” he said.

    Dr Esorom reminded people around the country to follow public health safety rules: washing of hands, covering of mouth when coughing, avoiding crowded places, and physical distancing by 1.5 metres in public places such as markets and shops.

    “When you protect yourself from diseases like covid-19 by following the health measures, you are not only looking after yourself and your loved ones but also protecting people who would look after you – the health workers,” Dr Esorom said.

    Daru Hospital chief executive officer Dr Niko Wuatai said the hospital was preparing wards in case of a large number of admissions.

    He said Daru was experiencing a third wave of the pandemic. As of Tuesday, the hospital had reported 89 positive cases in two weeks.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ANALYSIS: By Collin Tukuitonga, University of Auckland

    Auckland’s move to alert level 3 has also triggered speculation about whether the national covid-19 elimination strategy has failed or is even being abandoned. While the New Zealand government denies it, others clearly believe it is at least a possibility.

    The uncertainty is troubling. If elimination fails or is abandoned, it would suggest we have not learnt the lessons of history, particularly when it comes to our more vulnerable populations.

    In 1918, the mortality rate among Māori from the influenza pandemic was eight times that of Europeans. The avoidable introduction of influenza to Samoa from Aotearoa resulted in the deaths of about 22 percent of the population.

    Similar observations were seen in subsequent influenza outbreaks in Aotearoa in 1957 and 2009 for both Māori and Pasifika people. These trends are well known and documented.

    And yet, despite concerns we could see the same thing happen again, there have been repeated claims that an elimination strategy cannot succeed. Some business owners, politicians and media commentators have called for a change in approach that would see Aotearoa “learn to live with the virus”.

    This is premature and likely to expose vulnerable members of our communities to the disease. Abandoning the elimination strategy while vaccine coverage rates remain low among the most vulnerable people would be reckless and irresponsible.

    In short, more Māori and Pasifika people would die.

    Far better will be to stick to the original plan that has served the country well, lift vaccination coverage rates with more urgency, and revise the strategy when vaccination rates among Māori and Pasifika people are as high as possible — no less than 90 percent.

    Least worst options
    After 18 months of dealing with the pandemic, it’s important to remember that Aotearoa’s response has been based on sound science and strong political leadership. The elimination strategy has proved effective at home and been admired internationally.

    Of course, it has come with a price. In particular, the restrictions have had a major impact on small businesses and personal incomes, student life and learning, and well-being in general.

    Many families have needed additional food parcels and social support, and there are reports of an increasing incidence of family harm.

    The latest delta outbreak has also seen the longest level 4 lockdown in Auckland, with at least two further weeks at level 3, and there is no doubt many people are struggling to cope with the restrictions. The “long tail” of infections will test everyone further.

    There is no easy way to protect the most vulnerable people from the life-threatening risk of covid-19, and the likely impact on the public health system if it were to get out of control. The alternative, however, is worse.

    We know Māori and Pasifika people are most at risk of infection from covid-19, of being hospitalised and of dying from the disease.

    Various studies have confirmed this, but we also must acknowledge why — entrenched socioeconomic disadvantage, overcrowded housing and higher prevalence of underlying health conditions.

    More than 50 percent of all new cases in the current outbreak are among Pasifika people and the number of new cases among Māori is increasing. If and when the pandemic is over, the implications of these socioeconomic factors must be part of any review of the pandemic strategy.

    Lowest vaccination rates, highest risk
    Furthermore, the national vaccination rollout has again shown up the chronic entrenched inequities in the health system. While the rollout is finally gaining momentum, with more and better options offered by and for Māori and Pasifika people, their comparative vaccination rates have lagged significantly.

    Community leaders and health professionals have long called for Māori and Pasifika vaccination to be prioritised. But the official rhetoric has not been matched by the reality, as evidenced by our most at-risk communities still having the lowest vaccination coverage rates in the country.

    Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā (the National Māori Pandemic Group) and the Pasifika Medical Association have repeatedly called for their communities to be empowered and resourced to own, lead and deliver vaccination rollouts in ways that work for their communities.

    Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā have also said Auckland should have remained at level 4, with the border extended to include the areas of concern in the Waikato.

    As has been pointed out by those closest to those communities, however, their advice has consistently not been heeded. The resulting delays only risk increasing the need for the kinds of lockdowns and restrictions everyone must endure until vaccination rates are higher.

    There is a reason we do not hear many voices in Māori and Pasifika communities asking for an end to elimination. Left unchecked, covid-19 disproportionately affects minority communities and the most vulnerable.

    “Living with the virus” effectively means some people dying with it. We know who many of them would be.The Conversation

    Dr Collin Tukuitonga is associate dean Pacific and associate professor of public health, University of Auckland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • By Rowan Quinn, RNZ News health correspondent

    Alert level 3 is being called a roll of the dice that could either eliminate delta or send the country back into level 4.

    From tomorrow, Auckland will make the move after five weeks at alert level 4.

    Covid-19 modeller – and Aucklander – professor Shaun Hendy said the greater freedoms allowed at level 3 were a risk.

    “Part of me is … thinking about takeaways but I am also concerned about what we will see over the next couple of weeks. I think now we have moved to level 3, the next two weeks are crucial,” Dr Hendy said.

    Modelling the latest situation had been tricky because of the small number of cases left and the unknown quantity of how delta behaved in New Zealand, he said.

    In one scenario contact tracers could beat the outbreak in a couple of weeks

    But in another, case numbers could steadily rise — like in Victoria and New South Wales — and Auckland would have to go back to alert level 4.

    Dragging on for weeks
    That could then lead to an outbreak which dragged on for weeks – or months, Dr Hendy said.

    Te Ropu Whakakaupapa Uruta, the National Māori Pandemic Group, called for alert level 4 to stay in place.

    Co-leader Dr Sue Crengle said they were disappointed in yesterday’s decision.

    They worried that a big outbreak was brewing — and also looked to New South Wales where cases had been low for weeks then started to go up and down, she said.

    “And then they lost control and we’re really fearful that in six or seven weeks we may see that,” she said.

    Professor Crengle hoped her group would be proven wrong but worried that the stakes were too high — especially for more vulnerable, and less vaccinated, Māori populations.

    Most experts agreed the move to alert level 3 was a risk.

    Success depends on keeping to rules
    Its success was partly dependent on how well Aucklanders stuck to the rules.

    Epidemiologist Dr Rod Jackson said most had done a great job so far and any rule breakers at alert level 3 were probably the same people who would break them at level 4.

    He backed the move to alert level 3

    That was because the source of most infections was known and there has been little transition outside of homes, he said.

    Alert level 3 was still very restrictive but struck a balance by allowing more businesses to open and a few more freedoms.

    “It’s good for our psyche and good for the economy but still designed to stamp out covid,” he said.

    Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Aucklanders had done the hard work at alert level 4 when there was uncertainty about the outbreak but now health authorities had a much greater understanding of the situation.

    The virus could again be eliminated under alert level 3, she said.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • People line up to recieve the covid-19 vaccine

    A new analysis projecting that 100 million Covid-19 vaccines stockpiled by rich nations and set to expire by the end of the year could be left to waste is prompting an outcry from social justice campaigners who warn of a potential “atrocity” as poor nations are refused access to doses.

    The estimate released Sunday by science analytics company Airfinity came as tracking by Our World in Data showed that just 1.9% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. By contrast, 63% of people in the U.S. and 71% of those in the U.K. have received at least one jab.

    Out of the 100 million vaccines set to expire by the end of the year, the European Union holds 41% and the United States 32%, Airfinity found.

    According to Global Justice Now, the potential for the huge quantity of expired and unused doses is more damning evidence of vaccine inequity and underscores the need for governments do much more to get doses in the hands of lower-income countries including by supporting a waiver of intellectual property rules related to Covid-19 vaccines and technology.

    “Rich countries like the U.K. are hoarding vaccines that are desperately needed in low- and middle-income countries. We should immediately hand doses over to Global South nations. But that alone will not be enough,” Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden said in a statement Sunday.

    “Wasting millions of doses that could be used to save lives would be an atrocity,” he said, “but it’s almost inevitable when a handful of rich country companies monopolize vaccine production.”

    “Poorer countries shouldn’t have to wait until our doses are about to expire to vaccinate their populations,” Dearden continued. “Many are capable of safely manufacturing vaccines if only we would waive intellectual property so vaccines can be produced patent-free in the countries that need them most.”

    That capability is clear, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said in a statement last month.

    “Setting up mRNA vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa is absolutely possible,” said Lara Dovifat, campaign manager with MSF’s Access Campaign. She pointed to MSF’s analysis demonstrating “that at least seven manufacturers in African countries currently meet the prerequisites to produce mRNA vaccines, if all necessary technology and training were openly shared.”

    Airfinity’s projection came ahead of a Covid-19 virtual summit this week convened by U.S. President Joe Biden as member states gather for the United Nations General Assembly.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    Papua New Guinea’s Department of Labour has broken its silence over the government’s stance on covid-19 testing requirements in the “no jab no jobs” controversy, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

    It has called on employers and employees to exercise common sense and ensure that businesses are allowed to continue and embrace workplace safety rules.

    Labour and Industrial Relations Minister Tomait Kapili said at the weekend that the department, working with workers’ unions and employer representatives, had issued a joint communiqué that would support business continuity and protect employees during the ongoing isolation strategy period and beyond.

    He said any new workplace policies developed by employers on covid-19 vaccinations must comply with the provisions of the National Pandemic Act.

    Kapili also announced that the department was dealing with the controversial “no-jab-no-job” stance adopted by some businesses on a case-by-case basis.

    He said covid-19 was not an outcome of work-related issues, so employees and employers should not be disadvantaged during the isolation period.

    “This situation is not brought about by the employers or the workers, so neither party should be disadvantaged during this isolation period,” Kapili said in a statement.

    Safe work practices
    “All employers and employees are encouraged to embrace safe work practices. Employers are further encouraged to make arrangements to maintain normal services under the New Normal as provided for under the New Normal protocols and in compliance with the national isolation strategy being imposed.

    “All employers are encouraged to maintain the salaries, wages and employment contracts of all their employees.”

    He said that while vaccination was voluntary, employers were encouraged to implement their basic occupational health and safety (OHS) policies, as first-up measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace.

    “Employers should not encourage redundancy exercises during the period. As workers are the front-liners and their exposure to covid-19 will be deemed high, it is important that safety measures, either temporary or permanent, are built into the workplaces to minimise the spread of the virus.

    “Discriminative practices requiring testing, isolation, quarantine, and monitoring should be avoided.

    “Where an employee is aggrieved by the actions of an employer, the employee can formally lodge a complaint with the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations.”

    Awareness of two laws
    Kapili said the legal context to deal with covid-19 at the workplace must take into consideration two laws that should govern covid-19 workplace-related activities.

    These are the COVID-19 National Pandemic Act 2020 and the Industrial Safety, Health, and Welfare Act (Chapter 175) of 1961 and Regulations 1965, in administering the Occupational Safety, Health and Welfare Act.

    The administration of covid-19 vaccination falls within the ambit of the National Pandemic Act 2020 for any interpretation such that we cannot use the duty of care concept as a reason for compulsory vaccination on workers.

    “Any workplace policies developed by employers on the covid-19 vaccination, must be consistent with and adhere to the provisions of the National Pandemic Act 2020,” he said.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RNZ News

    Auckland will move to alert level 3 from 11.59pm on Tuesday night, and stay in level 3 for at least two weeks, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.

    The rest of New Zealand will remain in level 2, but will move from gatherings of 50 up to gatherings of 100.

    Meanwhile, part of northern Waikato has been issued a section 70 order, requiring people who live or work there to stay at home.

    “We are not stepping out of level 4 because the job is done, but nor are we moving because we don’t think we can achieve the goal of stamping out covid-19 – we are moving because level 3 still provides a cautious approach while we continue to stamp out covid-19,” Ardern said.

    “It means staying in your bubble, it means contactless transactions and keeping your distance. It means we say thank you to Auckland for their tireless work, and we collectively keep going.”

    Twenty two new cases were reported today, the majority of them household or known contacts. Five were unlinked, and three of those were within one family, and there was a tentative link for that family, Ardern said.

    Three of the new cases are in Whakatīwai near Kaiaua in the Firth of Thames, northern Waikato, but are being counted in the Auckland total.

    300 swabs
    Ardern said testing so far had included household contacts, corrections staff, police staff, court staff, and 300 swabs had already been taken in the small community.

    “We do want to make sure we are keeping the community safe,” she said.

    Watch the PM’s live announcement here

    Director of General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said he was issuing a section 70 order requiring people who live or work in the area around Mangatangi, in northern Waikato, to stay at home. Ardern said it was effectively a “bespoke level 4”.

    Dr Bloomfield said the order was for people living in an area north of SH2 centred on Mangatangi.

    “That will effectively extend the road boundary to the east of Maramarua … and also to the southeast of Miranda on the Firth of Thames.”

    Ardern said level 4 had been tough but it had also made a difference.

    Almost all cases of the last 14 days had either been household or known contacts, and wastewater testing suggested there was no significant undetected transmission.

    No widespread clusters
    There had not been widespread clusters around workplaces, and of the cases where a link had been established, none had resulted from people accessing essential services.

    Protections were still in place in level 3, she said.

    “That remains critical and we ask everyone to play their part… we’re moving now because the advice we have is we don’t have widespread transmission across Auckland, if everyone continues to play their part we can stamp it out,” she said.

    Dr Bloomfield said the ministry was confident there was not widespread undetected transmission. The difference with level 3 this time was it came with high and increasing levels of vaccination, he said.

    Ardern reminded people that in level 3 they could make minor changes to bubbles such as bringing in an elderly relative who was not part of another bubble, but should not visit friends or break bubbles.

    “Once in a household everyone is at risk of getting delta, so if you break your bubble, know that the consequence may be spreading covid back into your house to your loved ones,” Ardern said.

    Masks mandatory at high schools
    Schools in level 3 would be largely closed. Cabinet had made the decision to make masks mandatory at high schools at alert level 3, Ardern said.

    People attending an essential service must also wear a mask, and people were encouraged to do so whenever they leave their home.

    People over 65 in Auckland should stay home until they had been vaccinated, she said.

    “We have been doing direct outreach to all our over-65s who haven’t had their first dose yet in Auckland. That amounts to about 23,000 people.

    “Last week a letter was sent to those over-65s who we had details for. Today we’re commencing an outbound call campaign… these will average about 8000 calls a day.”

    People with a booking in the future could bring it forward, she said, adding pharmacies were offering delivery services, as were supermarkets.

    People travelling over the boundary for personal reasons were now being required to carry evidence of having taken a test within the last seven days.

    Exemptions were available through the Ministry of Health.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RNZ News

    A testing centre is being set up at a marae in New Zealand’s Waikato settlement of Kaiaua today after three community cases of covid-19 were confirmed in the region.

    They are household members of a man with the virus who is in remand at Mount Eden prison in Auckland.

    The Ministry of Health said two of the cases went to Mangatangi School and one had symptoms while there.

    The National Māori Pandemic Group says the new cases mean Cabinet must keep Auckland at level 4 and include Waikato, and wants the upper North Island in level 3 as a precaution.

    Te Korowai Hauora o Hauraki says drive-in swabbing will be done at Wharekawa Marae in Whakatīwai.

    The government is due to announce any possible alert level changes this afternoon and it is unclear how the development in Waikato will affect its decision.

    ‘Irresponsible,’ says mayor
    Waikato District Mayor Allan Sanson said the prisoner should never have been bailed outside Auckland to the area where cases of covid-19 have now been discovered.

    The prisoner spent more than a week there on electronically-monitored bail.

    The infections were discovered after the man returned to prison in Auckland and tested positive for the virus.

    Sanson told RNZ Morning Report it was “totally irresponsible” to send a prisoner on bail outside the lockdown boundary and into the small community.

    “There needs to be questions asked as to why it actually happened,” he said.

    “I would have thought if you were bailing somebody you would have bailed them into Auckland, and not out of the Auckland area.

    “They don’t let anyone else out of Auckland into a level 2 area without them having tests now, so what’s the difference with this? This person’s been in the community for well over a week.”

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


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • RNZ News

    As Auckland waits to hear if it will move down an alert level this week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has assured New Zealand the level four lockdown is having an impact, even with a small rise in case numbers in the past two days.

    Ardern and Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay gave today’s covid-19 update from the Beehive.

    There were 24 new cases reported in New Zealand today.

    Yesterday the Ministry of Health reported 20 new community cases of the virus, all in Auckland. The figure was a spike after several days of lower numbers, with 11 cases reported on Friday and 13 on Thursday.

    The government is set to announce on Monday whether the country’s alert levels will be changed.

    Dr McElnay said the ministry would be preparing advice ahead of the decision.

    “We’re still cautiously optimistic that the vast bulk of this outbreak is under control, we’re just dealing with a long tail.”

    Still a risk
    Ardern said level 4 was working and the whole country could see this, but as long as there is a level 3 or 4 situation in Auckland, there is risk.

    “Delta’s tail is long and it is hard.

    “The one thing I would say to Aucklanders: your work has paid off, as you’ve heard from our public health advisors, they consider that we do not have large scale community transmission in Auckland, and that has been because of level 4 and the work that people have done,” she said.

    “So level 4 has played an incredibly important role of getting that outbreak under control. Yes, we still have cases popping up, there’s still work for us to do. But we absolutely factor in how Aucklanders are coping with some of the restrictions we’ve had to date, but also the best way for us to get back to normal as quickly as we can.”

    Ardern said that despite larger case numbers, they continued to be dominated by household contacts.

    “We have had unlinked cases over the course of this week, but many have been subsequently linked over the days that followed.

    “That does still however present some challenges for us — while it means that we can join the dots, those dots do still produce more cases with more household contacts. It means that the tail produced by delta is long, and it is tough, and people will have seen that in our case numbers.

    “But it doesn’t change what we need to do, and that continues to stay at home and get vaccinated.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RNZ Pacific

    The New Caledonian government has extended the current lockdown as well as the curfew, until October as the covid-19 pandemic worsens.

    On Thursday, seven deaths from covid-19 were recorded, the heaviest daily toll since the discovery of the first indigenous cases of the disease on September 6.

    It brings the death toll to 24 since September 6, announced by President Louis Mapou, during a joint speech with the French High Commissioner, Patrice Faure.

    NZ President Louis Mapou
    President Louis Mapou … announced New Caledonia’s 24th covid-19 death. Image: Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes

    A total of 211 people are in hospital, including 29 in intensive care.

    Authorities are extremely worried by the current situation which is why lockdown has been extended until October 4.

    The 9 pm to 5 am curfew has also been extended until the same date.

    President Mapou said: “We must not relax our efforts … to gradually recover a social life that would allow New Caledonia to relaunch itself from October 4.

    “This fight is the fight for life. It requires a lot of sacrifices.”

    Due in particular to the “risk of spreading the virus”, the representative of France “refuses to take the risk of endangering the population.”

    High Commissioner in New Caledonia, Patrice Faure
    French High Commissioner in New Caledonia Patrice Faure … refusing to take the “risk of endangering the population”. Image: RNZ/The Pacific Journal

    Faure also stressed that “given the violence of comments observed on social networks”, this ban also aims to “avoid excesses that could endanger the organisers, participants or passers-by”.

    The public prosecutor had indicated earlier in the day that prosecution would be initiated — especially for death threats made online against doctors publicly supporting vaccination.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Somebody's forgotten nalgene lies on the ground

    As evidence mounts that hamburger wrappers and other kinds of grease-proof packaging contaminate food with PFAS, states have started banning the toxic chemicals from food packaging.

    Now, a new report provides yet another reason to remove PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, from food wrappers: climate and ozone pollution.

    PFAS exposure is linked to immune and developmental system effects, increased risk of preeclampsia in pregnant women, increased risk of kidney and testicular cancers, and higher cholesterol, among other health effects. The Daikin America plant in Decatur, Alabama, which manufactures PFAS used to coat food packaging and textiles, released 240,584 pounds of the ozone-depleting chemical Chlorodifluoromethane (HCFC-22) — the global warming equivalent of one billion pounds of carbon dioxide — in 2019, according to a new report out Thursday from the nonprofit Toxic-Free Future.

    While HCFC-22, used in refrigeration, was banned at the start of last year under the Montreal Protocol, companies are still allowed to produce the compound as a byproduct of making other substances. Advocates say the new report highlights the need to close that loophole — and to use PFAS-free food packaging alternatives.

    “The entire world is scrambling to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before their damage to our climate is beyond repair, yet we are letting a company dump hundreds of thousands of pounds of hydrochlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere so that it can produce ‘forever chemicals’ that poison our communities?” Peggy Shepard, executive director of the nonprofit WE ACT for Environmental Justice, who was not involved in the report, said in a prepared statement. “Where is the justice in that?”

    Far-reaching Impacts of PFAS Production

    The impetus for the study was to learn more about the impacts of PFAS-containing products before they get to consumers or end up in landfills, Erika Schreder, science director of Toxic-Free Future, told EHN. The researchers found that there appears to be only one plant in the U.S. that makes PFAS for fast food packaging coating.

    Daikin America, which also emits 55,000 pounds a year of the carcinogen tetrafluoroethylene, is the number two emitter in the country of HCFC-22 after the Chemours chemical manufacturing plant in Louisville, Kentucky, according to the report.

    The authors also looked at the upstream pollution from the paper mills that coat food packaging with Daikin’s PFAS product, estimating that each mill releases around 180 pounds of PFAS a day into waterways, with an additional 1,260 pounds ending up in sludge at wastewater treatment plants. “We have to remember that whenever PFAS is used, it’s part of the drinking water contamination problem,” said Schreder, noting that landfills have been a major source of PFAS pollution around the country.

    Health Problems Near PFAS Plant

    Decatur’s PFAS manufacturing plant was originally built in 1961 by 3M, which sold the facility to Daikin America in 2014. Concerns about the plant, and other factories in the industrial area, have been around for decades, Brenda Hampton, a local resident and founder of Concerned Citizens of WMEL Water Authority, told EHN. Hampton and her mother both experienced kidney failure, and residents have come down with unusual forms of cancer and respiratory problems, she said.

    Federal health authorities have tied elevated levels of PFAS in residents’ blood to drinking water contamination downstream of that and another area plant, with Daikin agreeing to pay the local water authority $5 million in 2017 to help pay for a water filtration system, according to the report.

    Last month, an employee at the Daikin America plant died after being exposed to dangerous chemicals on the job, local TV station WAFF-48 reported. Last year, OSHA fined the company $40,482 for alleged hazardous chemical management and respiratory protection violations, according to the new report.

    “In this day and time, we should have [jobs and food] out there that won’t be as toxic to people,” said Hampton.

    The report authors issue a number of recommendations, such as manufacturers paying for PFAS cleanup in affected communities, the EPA banning the production of HCFC-22 as an intermediary in PFAS manufacturing, and restaurant chains removing PFAS from food wrappers. With PFAS already banned from food packaging in states including Washington and Connecticut, some chains, like McDonald’s, have recently agreed to phase out PFAS-coated packaging.

    EHN has reached out to Daikin for comment on the new report.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby

    Ten people have died from Papua New Guinea’s covid-19 pandemic and 203 new cases were reported in five days from September 9 as National Pandemic Response Deputy Controller Dr Daoni Esorom made a red alert call on Independence Day “super spreader”  events.

    “Papua New Guineans are just not heeding our calls to adhere strictly to public health protocols like masking up and keeping social distancing at the mass events,” he said.

    “There is a high risk of a surge in infections in the coming weeks and months.”

    Esorom urged provinces to be proactive in their covid-19 response.

    “There were shows in Goroka, Enga, Western Highlands and other provinces despite the National Control Centre advice not to proceed.

    “If the events result in a surge of covid-19 cases, the provincial health authorities and administration must be fully responsible. These are super-spreader events,” he said.

    “Money will not run away. At this time [in the face of the Delta variant threat] gatherings should be limited.”

    Appeal to the people
    He appealed to the people — whether they believed that covid-19 was there or not, believed in conspiracy theories or in not being vaccinated — there were two strategies needed to prevent a big surge in the country.

    “The first is observing strictly to the Niupela Pasin (New Normal) which was nothing more than listen and follow.

    “Niupela Pasin is a public health and social intervention that in the long-term will definitely reduce the number of cases.

    “At the same time they are cost effective strategies.

    “It will not cause a lot of money but in the event that we do not follow them,there will definitely be a big surge of the covid-19 infections in Papua New Guinea.

    “If we have to get ourselves out of the epidemic, we need to vaccinate ourselves, and everyone.”

    In an update on Wednesday, NCC Incident Manager Dr Melinda Susapu said two covid-19 deaths were reported on Monday on the back of 130 new cases (120 in Western, three in Hela, two in the National Capital District (NCD) and one each in Morebe, Eastern Highlands, New Ireland, Madang and Jiwaka).

    Deaths now 204
    She said the two deaths were from Western Province which brought the total cumulative deaths to 204.

    The total number of covid-19 cases in the country was 18,542 of which 17,892 had recovered and 448 cases still active.

    “NCC had yet to receive the samples that were sent to the Doherty Institute in Melbourne, Australia, to confirm whether the covid-19 cases reported were of the delta variant because the institute was not able to run tests for the samples (Australia is also experiencing a surge in cases).

    “Of the 130 new cases, 24 were re-infection cases (22 in Western and two in NCD which means these people had contracted covid-19 some five or more months ago and these data will help in understanding the transmission dynamics of covid-19 and whether it was characteristic of Delta.

    “Only eight of the 22 provinces are reporting regularly,” she said.

    Susapa said due to delays in the reports the actual situation in provinces could be grossly underestimated.

    Reporting gaps
    “The surveillance teams are constantly identifying reporting gaps and are working with provinces to ensuring the discrepancies are minimised,” she added.

    Susapu said the total number of covid-19 tests done to date in the country was 182,403 “which is very low”.

    Esorom said it was important that health facilities were conducting testing and people should go for testing because testing was necessary “for us to understand the extent of the spread and for us to respond appropriately”.

    “It is taking too long for the genome sequencing of samples sent to Australia,” he said.

    “Hence, the NCC is working with partners to enable the PNG Institute of Medical Research (IMR) to do that by next month.”

    Lulu Mark is a reporter for The National. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Thailand’s experience with the COVID-19 pandemic presents a useful case for students and practitioners of politics and public services management to analyse how we have arrived at the predicaments we are now facing. Early in the pandemic, Thailand was seen as having one of the most successful responses to the pandemic in the world.  Moreover, the country has a proven record of achievement in population and public health development. Now, however, the country has been facing a massive COVID-19 surge for several months, and the health system is under enormous strain.

    Soon after the first COVID-19 outbreak hit Thailand in January 2020, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha established the Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration (CCSA), headed by the Prime Minister himself. Formed in March 2020, initially, the centre did only what it was supposed to do, i.e., disseminated information to citizens through multiple channels and raised awareness of the dangers posed by the virus and the methods people should use to protect themselves. The responsibility, authority and decision-making power of managing the overall COVID response was delegated to provincial authorities such as governors (who also headed the provincial communicable disease committees), local government organisations, local business leaders and citizen volunteers. They all worked and cooperated as de facto local leaders in Thailand’s initially highly effective response to the pandemic.

    Historically, the success of public health services in Thailand is attributed to a decentralized management approach. However, after the early phases of the pandemic, the central government concentrated the power of issuing directives pertaining to measures regarding COVID solely to the CCSA, centralising the country’s entire antivirus program and overriding the decision power of even the Ministry of Public Health. To make matters worse, the CCSA has often issued what seem to be more like public relations statements in reaction to the latest crisis, rather than policies in anticipation of the next. This has weakened Thailand’s ability to respond effectively, and the number of deaths and new infections have risen to new extremes.

    Moral economies: the politics of donation in Thailand under COVID-19

    During the pandemic, “immodest” or ungrateful receiving by the poor has been strongly denounced both by the state and middle-class donors.

    In April 2021, as the third wave of the pandemic hit, the cabinet granted Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha sweeping powers over the management of the pandemic. Since then, the government has come been criticised for limiting vaccinations to Sinovac and AstraZeneca and faced demands to reveal the details of the contracts between the government and vaccine suppliers of the vaccines. In response, the government first attempted to pacify the public by releasing an unofficial message that it had also approved the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but anticipated difficulty in securing these vaccines due to surges in worldwide demand. Recently, we have seen more confusion with the announcement that there will be a policy of mixing Sinovac and AstraZeneca jabs despite the WHO’s concerns over the lack of trials of such a mixed approach.

    Citizen trust in Thailand’s political system has been seriously affected by the problems in the handling of the pandemic. This specifically pertains to the CCSA, which is headed by the Prime Minister and comprised almost exclusively of ministers and heads of departmental level bureaucratic agency. They all must act properly to redeem public faith.

    They also should not be pretending that what they are doing and how they are doing it can lead the country out of the disaster just by virtue of their saying it is so. They need to be honest with citizens and they must realise that they are not superhuman.

    They must also be cognisant of the importance of delegating responsibility, authority, and decision-making power to all stakeholders. They must create synergies between society, economy, and democracy. As noted earlier, Thailand was quite successful during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic when the national government essentially left the response to the local and provincial levels and took more of a facilitating role, supporting these local efforts. It should be left to provincial governors to work with local authorities to develop a strategy that works for their areas.

    In addition, they should understand, appreciate, and foster positive relationships with, and shared values of, different actors for the common goal of dealing with the physical, psychological, spiritual, and economic wellbeing of the citizens. The CCSA must rely on scientific facts and research findings in formulating their policy guidelines, which has not been apparent in the past. This will justify their decisions and remove politics from the equation, at least as far as that is possible in Thailand.

    The CCSA must be courageous enough to experiment or embrace new ways of operating while basing these policies on accepted research and scientific findings. They must recognise that there are a wider variety of vaccines that should be offered to the people and make a serious effort to acquire enough of these vaccines and to distribute them fairly. It is time to stop serving the patrons who put them in power and start attending to the betterment of all the citizens of Thailand. It is time to be responsive to the needs of the constituents and be true leaders rather than run-of-the-mill politicians. It is time to give up being in control and to return autonomy to the local administrative organizations to deal with the pandemic as they have proven they can. Support them and get out of their way.

    The post Leadership does matter: Thailand’s COVID-19 response appeared first on New Mandala.

    This post was originally published on New Mandala.

  • By Timoci Vula in Suva

    Fiji will lift the covid-19 pandemic containment borders everywhere on the main island of Viti Levu from 4am tomorrow, Friday, September 17.

    Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama announced this tonight, fulfilling what he had declared earlier last month that the borders on Viti Levu would be lifted once 60 percent of the targeted Fijian population was fully vaccinated.

    He said domestic travel would be open everywhere on Viti Levu.

    “Inter-island travel, however, will remain highly controlled, including to Vanua Levu, until we achieve higher vaccination coverage in Vanua Levu and our outer islands,” Bainimarama said.

    “With domestic travel open, public service vehicles will be able to operate at 70 percent capacity.”

    Bainimarama said employers who were required under covid-safe measures to transport staff to and from work would no longer need to do so.

    The curfew hours for Viti Levu will be from 9pm until 4am.

    The PM announced tonight that 62 percent of all adults in the country were fully vaccinated and more than 97 percent had received their first dose.

    He said this meant Fiji was “quickly becoming one of the safest countries in the world”.

    “With well over half of adults in Fiji fully vaccinated, our Covid-19 Risk Mitigation Taskforce — which includes our top medical and policy experts — has developed a careful framework that details the next phase of our response.”

    Timoci Vula is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • By Grace Auka Salmang in Port Moresby

    Police Commissioner and Controller of the PNG National Pandemic Response David Manning has authorised the release of new measures to address the covid-19 pandemic in the country on the eve of the 46th Independence Day.

    Manning said these new measures, which came into effect yesterday, September 15, 2021, had been made in response to the continued threat of covid-19 while “ensuring continuity and normalcy” in life.

    The ban on alcohol sales on Friday, Saturday or Sunday nationwide still remains in force.

    The key changes are to international and domestic travel as well as social and business.

    For international travel, the new measures are:

    • New Quarantine periods: Seven days quarantine for incoming persons who are fully vaccinated and 14 days quarantine for partially vaccinated persons. PNG citizens and permanent residents who are unvaccinated are to be quarantined for 21 days. Any foreign national who is unvaccinated will not be allowed entry into PNG. Children under the age of 18 years who travel with a parent or guardian will be quarantined for the same period as their parent or guardian. Children under the age of 18 who are unaccompanied will be assessed and quarantined on a case-by-case basis. Children under five years are exempted.
    • These new quarantine periods do not apply to all persons currently in quarantine – unless provided an exception which will continue to apply.
    • Approvals to arrive in PNG are valid for 60 days rather than the previous 90 days;
    • Approvals to enter PNG shall not be provided to persons travelling to PNG for the principal purpose of holidaying, vacationing or similar activity.
    • All persons travelling to PNG must have a valid covid-19 test 72 hours prior to their original port of departure, rather than 7-days prior to departing for Port Moresby. For clarity and as an example, if a person initiated their travel in the United States of America and their flight transited through Singapore to Port Moresby, they would need to be tested 72 hours prior to their flight departing the United States of America, not the flight departing from Singapore. Children aged five years and under are exempted from being tested.
    • All people arriving into PNG must be tested upon arrival and while in quarantine. This is the responsibility of the facility hosting quarantined persons. The cost may be passed onto the individual by the facility, but it is the responsibility of the quarantine facility to organise the tests and pass the test results onto the NCC.
    • If an individual refuses to be tested, they will be quarantined for an additional 14 days.
    • There is no restriction on which medical providers may conduct these tests, except that the medical providers and their staff must be properly licensed. The NCC will accept results from all such medical testing provider.
    • Tracking of individuals for the purposes of quarantine is now only for home quarantine. Persons quarantining in scheduled quarantine facilities are not required to be tracked.
    • All Charter Flights must – in addition to the normal approvals – have the Controller’s written approval. This power has not been delegated.

    Domestic travel and social measures have been merged into Measure No. 3 “Domestic Measures”.

    Other domestic restrictions continue to apply, including:

    • No person may fly if they are symptomatic for COVID-19; and
    • All travellers must have their temperature checked by airline staff and no person may travel if their temperature registers at or over 37.5C (except for medivac and emergency flights).

    Grace Auka Salmang is a PNG Post-Courier reporter.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RNZ News

    Three more covid-19 deaths have been recorded in New Caledonia eight days after it was plunged sharply into the pandemic.

    Official government figures as of today show 4 deaths and 1150 confirmed cases of covid-19 recorded since the delta variant outbreak began on September 6.

    Until then there had been no covid-19 deaths in the French Pacific territory and only 136 infections recorded during two previous outbreaks.

    There were 329 new cases reported in the 24 hours leading up to Tuesday and 15 people with the virus are in intensive care.

    A curfew between 9 pm and 5 am has been put in place until midnight on Monday, September 27.

    The government of New Caledonia has put out a public appeal for assistance to all medical personnel in the country, including retirees.

    So far 112,334 people in New Caledonia have had their first covid-19 vaccination jab and 77,109 people have had both doses. The territory has a population of 288,000.

    Borders closed
    According to the government, this translates to 28.45 percent of the population who have so far been fully vaccinated against covid-19.

    UC appeal for people to be vaccinated
    Daniel Goa of the Caledonian Union at an independence referendum meeting last month … appeal for people to get quickly vaccinated and to respect the lockdown rules. Image: Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes

    Following the outbreak, New Caledonia Tourism has been advising travellers that the territory’s borders have been closed off until December 31 and entry by plane or by boat remains strictly controlled.

    It said all international passenger flights have been suspended, except for the transport of medical workers.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Mark Micale and Hans Pols, eds. Traumatic Pasts in Asia: History, Psychiatry, and Trauma, 1930 to the Present. New York: Berghahn, 2021.

    How did this book come about? Both of us are historians of psychiatry, and we frequently met at conferences when Hans was living in North America. One of most fascinating topics in the history of psychiatry is the appearance, increasing popularity, and disappearance of psychiatric diagnoses over time. Mark has written about the history of hysteria —once commonly diagnosed, now rarely identified. After moving to Sydney, Australia, some 20 years ago, Hans became interested in [link] psychiatry and mental health care in Indonesia—its past, present state, and future. In Indonesia, not surprisingly, psychiatry looks somewhat different. It is not possible to transplant North American theories and treatments to clinical presentations in other parts of the world without modification and adaptation.

    Today, one of the most widely used diagnostic categories in psychiatry is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It was officially recognised by the American Psychiatric Association in 1980, when it was included in the third edition of its authoritative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III), nicknamed the “Bible of Psychiatry.” PTSD captures the psychological after-effects experienced by individuals who have been exposed to extreme violence or catastrophic events “outside the realm of normal human experience.” These include bombing, torture, death camps, military combat, physical or sexual assault, and natural disasters. Initially, the PTSD diagnosis was primarily applied to Vietnam veterans, Holocaust survivors, and women who had suffered domestic and sexual abuse.

    The concept of PTSD has various uses within psychiatry. But trauma and PTSD often appear in discussions of non-psychiatrists and non-physicians as well. As historians, we view debates about trauma as ways to cast light on violence and horrific experiences—how they come about, their nature, and what can be done about them. These debates are socially, culturally, and politically highly significant.

    Before the publication of DSM-III, psychiatrists and others used a range of terms to describe the psychological effects of war and severe accidents. These included shellshock, war neurosis, railway spine, combat fatigue, and combat stress. In 2001, Mark co-edited an influential volume on this topic with Paul Lerner and noted that many of these diagnostic categories fell in and out of favour over time. In contrast, PTSD’s popularity in the Western world has steadily increased. According to some critics, PTSD is now ubiquitous in Western society. According to these critics, the condition is increasingly diagnosed in individuals who have experienced less severe traumas, thereby potentially trivialising the diagnosis.

    Hans and Mark met again in 2017, when Mark was invited by the University of Newcastle, Australia, for a 2-month visit. Over several beers, Hans convinced Mark that Traumatic Pasts deserved a sequel focusing on the non-Western world. Because of Hans’ work in Indonesia and his familiarity with the history of psychiatry and mental health in Asia, he suggested co-editing a volume focusing on Asia. Traumatic Pasts in Asia is the outcome.

    Traumatising events are not unique to the West. People in Asia have been repeatedly exposed to deeply traumatic events including military violence and occupation, civil war, torture, terrorism, and acts of genocide, as well as natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, tropical storms, floods (including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami), earthquakes, and prolonged droughts. Critics of Western and global psychiatry have argued that Western diagnostic categories, in particular PTSD, do not adequately capture the way people in the rest of the world react to severe trauma.

    The contributors to Traumatic Pasts in Asia investigate how people in Asia have reacted to traumatising events by rebuilding their communities and by developing individual and collective repertoires to overcome trauma, regain a sense of equilibrium, and foster resilience. They focus on how they found ways of rebuilding their communities and their sense of self. Some contributors have focused on the extent to which Western diagnostic categories have influenced the ideas and approaches of local health personnel. Others analyse the way people in Asia have dealt with traumatic events without resorting to medical theories and approaches.

    The chapters in the book are written by historians and anthropologists—a fruitful combination, because combining approaches from both disciplines leads to unusually good insights. The volume’s historians have analysed trauma-related diagnostic categories over time, while its anthropologists have investigated the unique features of how people in various Asian contexts react to traumatic events.

    Mental health care in Indonesia: short on supply, short on demand

    If he’s serious about building Indonesia’s “human capital”, Jokowi should make mental health a policy priority.

    Traumatic Pasts in Asia contains historical chapters on Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam. Eri Nakamura analyses how German ideas on trauma influenced Japanese military psychiatry during World War II. Even though psychiatrists publicly denied that soldiers of the Imperial Army could succumb to trauma, they still identified soldiers who had broken down. Before World War II, as Harry Wu describes, Japanese physicians investigated the psychological after-effects of a volcanic eruption in Taiwan—long before natural disasters became of interest of psychiatrists elsewhere. Ran Zwigenberg investigates the complete absence of research on the trauma among atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in post-war Japan. Even though these individuals were obvious candidates for this kind of research, it was never conducted, for various political reasons.

    Jennifer Yum-Park analyses the enthusiastic reception of American approaches to war neurosis and combat stress (“Yankee-style trauma”) among Korean physicians during the Korean war. In a path-breaking essay, Narquis Barak investigates the reactions of Vietnamese psychiatrists and physicians during the Vietnamese War (called the American war in Vietnam). Up to this day, Vietnamese psychiatrists argue that there is no PTSD in Vietnam. Neither the Korean nor the Vietnamese story have been told before.

    Vannessa Hearman focuses on the exchange of letters between a female political prisoner in Suharto’s Indonesia and a British woman Quaker. These letters provided the only source of contact with the outside world for this prisoner and helped her to survive. Dyah Pitaloka and Mohan J. Dutta investigate the performances of the Indonesian Dialita choir. Its members are women who survived the horrors of the aftermath of Suharto’s coup in 1965. In their performances, they sing songs of hope and resilience, and thereby connect to younger audiences. Neither chapter focuses on medical or psychiatric conceptions of trauma. Instead, it focuses on rituals and practices people use to deal with traumatic pasts and presents.

    Jakub Hałun, Skulls at the stupa on the Choeung Ek Killing Field in Phnom Penh. Source: Wikimedia Commons

    Anthropologist Hua Wu reports on the experiences of a group visiting the rural farm to which they were banished during China’s cultural revolution. Revisiting this site evoked various reactions in the participants. Caroline Bennett analyses haunting in Cambodia after the defeat of the Khmer Rouge by investigating how people re-established relationships with the death. The death remained a social presence, to which their surviving relatives reacted through funerary rituals and building shrines. It is exceedingly difficult to interpret these rituals as culturally specific expressions of psychological trauma.

    Saiba Varma focuses on conditions in Kashmir, which is still occupied by the Indian army. Because the occupation is ongoing, Kashmiris are currently not post-trauma. Their trauma continues in the present; it is not relegated to the past. Seinenu Lemelson-Thein analyses the remarkable resilience of Myanmar’s freedom fighters, which is based on a cultural system of rites, rituals, and moral beliefs based on the concept of sacrifice (anitnah). Sadly, the situation in Myanmar has deteriorated dramatically over the past year.

    In the final chapter, Maki Kimura describes how sculptures are used in the ongoing political battle of the so-called “comfort women,” women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial forces during World War II. Japan still refuses to acknowledge the experiences of these women. By placing sculptures in strategic places, activists around the world highlight their plight.

    We see discussions about trauma and PTSD as ways of dealing with violence and horror—or, at times, to obfuscate both. The case studies in this volume analyse both the psychological and communal effects of violence and natural disasters and how communities attempt to overcome their effects. At times, people in Asia incorporate and transform Western medicalised ideas, at other times transcend them and rely on local spiritual healing traditions, or even creatively combine both.

    This volume transcends the traditional Western focus of trauma studies by highlighting Asia. We hope that this volume will inspire a shift in perspective for other scholars in this field.

    The post Traumatic Pasts in Asia: The editors’ account appeared first on New Mandala.

    This post was originally published on New Mandala.

  • By Christine Rovoi, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Fiji’s opposition Social Democratic Liberal Party is calling on the government to boost its covid-19 vaccination programmes in the remote areas amid a surge in infections.

    More than 700 people in the outer islands have been infected with the delta variant virus, figures from the Health Ministry last weekend showed.

    There were 271 new cases and one death confirmed since Saturday.

    Kadavu also recorded two new cases last weekend, bringing the total number of cases on the eastern island to 465.

    SODELPA leader Bill Gavoka said the increasing number of infections on Kadavu alone was concerning.

    He said the vaccination rollout on Kadavu should be sped up and he urged villagers to get the vaccine.

    Eight covid-19 patients on Kadavu have been admitted at Vunisea Hospital, five are in stable condition and three positive cases had returned negative results.

    Beqa Island area of interest
    Meanwhile, Beqa Island is now an area of interest after covid-19 cases were recorded on the island last week.

    This involved an elderly man who died from the virus on the island, which has a total of 48 cases.

    The 70-year-old died at his home in Dakuni village and was diagnosed with covid-19, the ministry said.

    It said the vaccination coverage for Beqa stood at 75 percent for the first dose and 23 percent for the second dose.

    “A health team, comprising personnel from the Serua/Namosi medical subdivision and the CWM Hospital was dispatched to the island on Friday 10 September 2021 to undertake awareness, contact tracing, outbreak assessment, testing, risk assessment for positive cases, vaccination, and delivery of clinical care,” the ministry said in a statement.

    “Two cases have since been identified at Dakuibeqa village, bringing the total number of cases there to three.

    “Rations have been provided to affected families in Dakuni village, and movement restriction is now in place for the whole island.”

    People lining up to get food supplied from Save the Children on the main island Viti Levu.
    People lining up to get food supplied from Save the Children on the main island Viti Levu. Image: RNZ/Save the Children

    The Fiji Council of Social Services is hoping infection rates in the remote communities drop given there have not been reports from its officials there on vaccine hesitancy, said FCOSS chief executive Vani Catanasiga.

    She said FCOSS officers in the outer islands had reported almost a sense of relief when the government medical teams arrived for vaccination drives.

    “The big issue has been, however, on supplies – food mostly and communication networks which we have alerted the various divisional commissioners’ offices about.”

    NGOs yet to get to remote areas
    The restrictions have seen fewer or no presence at all of NGOs on the ground, the child rights organisation Save the Children said.

    Its chief executive Shairana Ali told RNZ Pacific that while covid-19 infections had soared in remote Fiji, some NGOs had yet to get their people across from the mainland Viti Levu to these outer islands.

    Save the Children organisation is one of them and Ali said this was mainly due to the movement restrictions imposed by the Health Ministry.

    “We have not been able to go to these areas because of the containment measures that have been put in place by the Ministry of Health.

    “We do have an officer on Kadavu but we are not able to go there. We also haven’t been able to go to the other main island, Vanua Levu, since the outbreak in April.

    “These outer islands are off-limits. We are not able to deploy teams. Other NGOs are in a similar situation as us.”

    Shairana Ali is the chief executive of Fiji NGO Save the Children.
    Fiji NGO Save the Children’s chief executive Shairana Ali … “stretched to the limits”. Image: RNZ/Save the Children

    Ali said the government is trying to contain the outbreak in the remote areas, and priority has been given to medical teams.

    Cleared for humanitarian work
    She said Save the Children had been cleared by the authorities to carry out humanitarian work in the central and western divisions where the outbreak is centred.

    Since Sunday, there are 12,517 active cases on the main island Viti Levu with 1474 of these reported in the central division and 11,043 in the west.

    Ali said they are “stretched to the limits” in their response efforts on the mainland.

    “We have been able to provide grocery packs to families, 1800 families who need the support since April,” she said.

    “We believe that families in the remote islands are better off food security wise, than those on the mainland, because they have the land to plant, fish etc.

    “We have not received any request for assistance from communities in the outer islands but we are working closely with the Council of Social Services who have people on the ground in these areas.”

    As of 11th September, the Health Ministry said 97.1 percent of the target population had received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine while 58.2 were fully-vaccinated.

    Fiji has 12,814 active cases in isolation and the death toll is at 535, with 533 of these from the latest outbreak that began in April this year.

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


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • RNZ News

    New Zealand has reported 15 new cases of covid-19 in the community, the Ministry of Health has announced.

    Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said there were no unlinked cases today.

    The one case from yesterday that was not linked to the outbreak, had now been linked, Dr Bloomfield said.

    He said 10 cases in the outbreak were yet to be epidemiologically linked.

    Dr Bloomfield said the focus for testing was in the following suburbs – Massey, Māngere, Favona, Papatoetoe, Manurewa and Ōtara.

    Anyone with cold and flu symptoms was urged to get a test.

    He said families with children were urged to get tested together.

    15,685 essential workers tested
    So far this month, 15,685 essential workers in the Auckland region have been tested with no positive cases identified.

    “On contact tracing we’re now focusing our efforts on 1242 contacts that are under active management. This is a change to the reporting total context for the whole outbreak,” he said.

    “The number of contacts under active management is now down to a much smaller number as … majority of our contacts have now either returned negative tests or have had exposures more than 18 days ago and we’re not generating significant numbers of new contacts outside of households.

    “There was a positive wastewater result received from a sample taken last week in Pukekohe.”

    Dr Bloomfield said Public Health had advised there were four cases in the area who were in quarantine but had now returned home.

    “This could explain the result. But anyone in the Pukekohe area, who has symptoms, please go and get tested.”

    There were no other “unexpected detections” in wastewater samples in Auckland or around the country that had returned positive results.

    Supermarkets on random agenda
    On random surveillance testing at supermarkets, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the government had considered the option in case “you want to do a lot of surveillance testing very quickly at sites where you haven’t had ongoing testing”.

    The health team had advised that “in the current environment testing stations have established for symptomatic and their asymptomatic plans are still reaching into those communities at high rates”.

    “But we continue to say let’s consider everything and certainly supermarkets have been on our agenda for something that should be considered.”

    Dr Bloomfield said testing was not done at random, but specific suburbs had been identified for it.

    Yesterday, the ministry reported 33 new community cases of covid-19.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    French High Commissioner Patrice Faure in New Caledonia has declared an eight hour curfew for 15 days from tonight as health authorities reported 256 new cases yesterday in the covid delta variant outbreak.

    The curfew will run from 9pm to 5am

    Government spokesman Yannick Slamet and Health Director Dr Mabon de la Dass addressed last night’s media conference as the crisis entered its second week.

    Dr De la Dass announced 256 new cases, taking the total to 821 cases since the outbreak began just over a week ago.

    Seven patients were in intensive care and two people had died, one with other serious illnesses.

    Eighty percent of the people hospitalised were unvaccinated.

    Slamet said that local “tabac presse” shops — newsagencies — would be closed, but cigarettes and newspapers could be bought at supermarkets that remained open.

    It was “inevitable” that the two-week lockdown declared last week would be extended.

     

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A medical worker administers the covid-19 vaccine to a patient

    With a key panel of the World Trade Organization set to convene this week to discuss a potential patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines, rich nations are under growing pressure to stop obstructing the proposal as the coronavirus continues to ravage poor countries that have been denied access to the lifesaving inoculation.

    Nearly a year has passed since South Africa and India first introduced the temporary patent waiver, which now has the support of more than 100 WTO member nations — including powerful countries such as the United States and France. But Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, and other rich nations have thus far refused to support the waiver, leaving powerful pharmaceutical companies with a stranglehold over the production of coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics.

    The WTO’s TRIPS Council — a body that oversees the implementation of intellectual property rules — is scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the proposed waiver, which aims to lift legal barriers stopping manufacturers around the world from producing generic coronavirus vaccines for low-income nations.

    “Despite the groundbreaking medical innovations delivered in the past year, and tall commitments by some powerful nations promising global solidarity and equity, access to these innovative Covid-19 medical tools remains scant in too many low- and middle-income countries,” Candice Sehoma, South Africa advocacy officer with Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) Access Campaign, said in a statement Monday.

    “People in these countries, facing life or death in this pandemic, can no longer rely merely on charitable or voluntary measures dictated by only a small number of high-income countries and the pharmaceutical industry they host,” Sehoma added. “We demand the countries opposing the TRIPS Waiver to stop blocking the will of the majority of the world to obtain this additional legal tool in the pandemic to achieve self-reliance in producing Covid-19 vaccines, treatments, and tests.”

    Yuanqiong Hu, senior legal and policy adviser to MSF’s Access Campaign, said that adoption of the patent waiver would represent a “critical and historical step to remove monopoly barriers hindering increased global production and diversity of supplies — and all people’s access to desperately needed Covid-19 medical tools.”

    The latest informal TRIPS Council meeting will come as the U.S. and other rich countries are preparing to make third doses of the coronavirus vaccine available to their populations — even as billions of people around the world have yet to receive a single dose.

    During a press conference last week, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus estimated that 80% of the 5.5 billion vaccine doses administered globally thus far have gone to people in upper-income countries. Tedros is demanding a moratorium on booster shots until at least the end of the year in order to free up vaccine supply for poor nations.

    “Almost every low-income country is already rolling out the vaccines they have, and they have extensive experience in large-scale vaccination campaigns for polio, measles, meningitis, yellow fever, and more,” Tedros said. “But because manufacturers have prioritized or been legally obliged to fulfill bilateral deals with rich countries willing to pay top dollar, low-income countries have been deprived of the tools to protect their people.”

    “There has been a lot of talk about vaccine equity,” Tedros added, “but too little action.”

    Last Thursday, the WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti warned that the continent is now on track to “get 25% less doses than we were anticipating by the end of the year” as rich nations hoard much of the existing supply.

    Echoing Tedros, Moeti blamed the worsening vaccine delivery forecast on “prioritization of bilateral deals over international solidarity.”

    “Every dose is precious,” Moeti said. “If companies and countries prioritize vaccine equity, this pandemic would be over quickly.”

    Millions of people have died of Covid-19 since South Africa and India first introduced the patent waiver at the WTO last October, and more than 8,800 people across the globe are still dying each day as the Delta variant and other dangerous mutations continue to spread.

    In the face of such grim figures, Australia last week became the latest country to endorse the patent waiver, a decision that public health campaigners hoped would build momentum for the proposal heading into the fresh round of negotiations.

    “The tide is turning in the battle against global vaccine inequality,” Nick Dearden, director of the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said in a statement. “Australia’s support for a waiver puts the WTO in a strong position to make progress.”

    “The British and German governments have no allies or excuses left,” Dearden added. “They must stop obstructing efforts to waive patents so that we can finally vaccinate the world.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • By Jeffrey Elapa in Port Moresby

    Papua New Guinea has dispatched a team of government officials to investigate a covid-19 delta variant threat in its two frontline provinces bordering Indonesia’s Papua — Western and West Sepik.

    Health Minister Jelta Wong has revealed this in Parliament while responding to questions without notice.

    Admitting the rise of delta cases in the two provinces that share land and sea borders with Indonesia was a “major concern”, he told Parliament last week that the investigating team was due back in Port Moresby today and would report to government.

    He was replying to a question from the Member for Aitape-Lumi, Patrick Pruaitch, who had asked what the government was doing to address the delta cases in the two border provinces.

    Pruaitch said Western and West Sepik provinces were currently experiencing an increase in covid-19 that had already killed several people as reported in newspapers.

    He said it was important that the government took a “frontline approach” to prevent the deadly delta variant from spreading.

    Pruaitch wanted the minister to tell the nation what measures and plans it had to address the crisis, and also reveal the level of funding it had made to mitigate the spread of the variant.

    Investigators on the ground
    Minister Wong said the government had already dispatched the surveillance team to the two border provinces to investigate, identify the needs and report back to government.

    Wong said the team would report the findings to the government which would then decide on action to be taken and funding.

    The team also included some development aid partners.

    Minister Wong said the variant was real and serious and was now threatening PNG with several deaths already reported, especially in Western Province.

    He said while it was an individual’s choice to be vaccinated or not, it was vital for MPs to be responsible and to educate their people.

    They needed to tell them the truth about the need for vaccination and about the virus that was now a threat to humanity.

    Indonesia has a growing covid-19 crisis with almost 4.2 million cases, 138,889 deaths and only 15 percent of the 270 million people vaccinated.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • RNZ News

    Auckland will stay in covid-19 alert level 4 for another week until 11.59pm next Tuesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.

    Cabinet has made an in principle decision that Tāmaki Makaurau will then move to alert level 3.

    The rest of New Zealand will remain in alert level 2 until Tuesday next week.

    Alert level settings will be reviewed next Monday.

    Ardern said Cabinet had made an indicative decision about Auckland, but had not made one about the rest of New Zealand moving to alert level 1.

    While there was nothing to indicate there was covid-19 outside of Auckland, lower restrictions in the rest of the country would mean a far greater risk of spread if it did escape, she said.

    Having the rest of the country at alert level 2 gave a greater chance of stamping the virus out if it did get out of Auckland, she said.

    Auckland has been at alert level 4 since midnight on August 17 after an outbreak of the delta variant of covid-19.

    Cabinet had seen evidence and advice that alert level 4 was working, saying it had consistently reduced the R value below 1, and it is now about 0.6, Ardern said.

    Watch the media conference

    Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield brief the news media. Video: RNZ News

    “On that basis and on the advice of the Director-General of Health, Auckland will remain at alert level 4 until 11.59pm next Tuesday, the 21st of September.”

    Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the “lockdown is working” and it is only a small number of cases that the ministry is focused on.

    “The testing is at a good level … so our view and our advice is that another week in lockdown in alert level 4 in Auckland gives us our best chance to really finish the job off here.

    “Our view is we are doing everything right. It is paying off and we need to see this through and there is good reason to want to eliminate the virus again,” Dr Bloomfield said.

    “It does allow us to enjoy a full range of activities and for the economy to really crank back up again.”

    He said the focus for the next week was finding cases.

    Cases and testing
    Ardern said today there were 33 new community cases to report, but only one of them was currently unlinked.

    “Likewise of the cases reported yesterday, just one remains unlinked to the wider outbreak at this point,” she said.

    Ardern said that in some cases where an epidemiological link had not been able to be built, the genome sequencing was still able to tell authorities how the case fitted into the outbreak.

    They expect to have more information about the one as-yet unlinked case reported today.

    Ardern said one reason for the bigger numbers over the weekend was high rates of transmission within households.

    Dr Bloomfield mentioned yesterday, about 16 percent of very close contacts become cases.

    “That in and of itself will generate about another 50 cases in the coming days and we’re starting to see some of those come through.”

    The number of unlinked cases went up and down every day, Dr Bloomfield said.

    At 9am there were 17 unlinked cases but only a small number of those the ministry was really worried about.

    Ardern said surveillance testing of healthcare workers and essential workers had also not identified any transmission.

    “It’s also clear there is not widespread transmission of the virus in Auckland.”

    Vaccinations
    Ardern said the government wanted as many Aucklanders as possible to have had their first dose of the covid-19 vaccine by the end of the week. She said people booked for October should consider going online again and seeing if more bookings had opened up.

    Another option was going to a drive-through vaccination clinic, with no need for booking.

    Ardern said she stood by her previous statements that the government did not want to continue to use lockdowns, but the country needed to make sure that enough New Zealanders had been vaccinated.

    “That’s why New Zealanders are empowered too. They have the chance to move away from lockdowns as much as we do, by being vaccinated.”

    Message to Aucklanders
    “To all Aucklanders, you’ve done an amazing job so far protecting yourselves, your family and your community,” Ardern said.

    “We owe you a huge debt of gratitude … but the cases are telling us we have additional work to do.”

    She said that four weeks into lockdown, it might be tempting to relax their bubble, but she asked everyone to treat every day as seriously as they did from day one.

    People should have an assigned person who went to the supermarket, Ardern said.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

    A Pasifika local government politician in New Zealand, the first from Kiribati to be elected to political office, has appealed to “Pasifika friends and family” to get vaccinated now as part of the national covid rollout.

    Victoria Short, deputy chair of Auckland’s Hibiscus and Bays Local Board, says not to wait.

    “If you are waiting for your personalised invitation to get vaccinated, you might be waiting forever, as it may never come,” she said in a statement.

    “The time to get vaccinated is right now.”

    Short, a 30-year-old mother of two, said she had seen first-hand how the delta variant had affected island families after it swept through the Pasifika community in Warkworth, north of Auckland.

    “The current delta outbreak is disproportionally affecting our Pasifika community, who are vaccinating at a much slower rate than most other ethnicity groups,” Short said.

    “Complex family and social structures, such as our Pasifika people making up a significant portion of our essential workforce, on average having larger households which are often multi-generational, and us being such a social vibrant people are all ingredients which allows covid to thrive and spread.”

    Fully vaccinated
    Short herself is now fully vaccinated and is an active Pasifika community representative in the covid-19 response planning led by the Ministry of Pacific People and the Ministry of Health.

    “Wonderful work has been achieved by MPP [Ministry of Pacific People] in delivering culturally appropriate messaging to our community on the need for coming forward for a vaccination.

    “Also, I have received fantastic feedback from numerous families in Pasifika community regarding the vaccination clinics, with someone even telling me, it was like going back to the islands for half-hour.”

    However, the problem was that even with the significant resources and planning that had gone into the vaccine rollout programme, Pacific People were still one of the lowest vaccinated ethnic groups in New Zealand.

    “If you haven’t been vaccinated yet, don’t wait a day longer. There are drive-through vaccination centres, clinics and pharmacies throughout the country ready and waiting to stick the needle in your arm.

    “Current drive-through vaccination centres in Auckland also don’t require a booking and have more than enough supplies to accommodate everyone.

    Collective action
    “We are a smart, kind, generous, hard-working people, and now is the time to demonstrate this to the rest of New Zealand through our collective action,” Short said.

    “When you take yourself to get vaccinated, make sure you load up the car with everyone else in your bubble over 12 years old, whether they are documented or not.

    “The best thing we can do for ourselves, our community and New Zealand right now is to get vaccinated.”

    “It’s up to us to take action for our health and the health of the loved ones around us.”

    More than 65 percent of eligible people in New Zealand have now been vaccinated in the national rollout — half of those so far with double shots.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RNZ News

    Covid-19 numbers dropped slightly today to 20 new community cases, while Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a deal with Denmark to bring 500,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine to this country.

    The number of new delta variant community cases in New Zealand dropped back to 20 cases from yesterday’s 23, which was the highest in several days.

    At today’s media update, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said all the new cases were in Auckland.

    The total number of cases in the current community outbreak is 922. Eighteen people are in hospital and four are in ICU.

    There were also three new cases in managed isolation.

    “We do not have widespread community transmission,” Dr Bloomfield said at the press conference, noting that the source of most of the cases is clear and more are being found all the time.

    “Casual fleeting transmission, we haven’t really seen any cases from that.”

    Dr Bloomfield said no staff or patients had returned a positive test following the three community cases announced last night from Middlemore Hospital.

    The person who tested positive at Middlemore Hospital last weekend had nine other family members who had tested positive, providing a clear link to the wider outbreak, Dr Bloomfield said.

    “I just want to emphasise the importance of anyone who needs care for any reason to seek that care,” Dr Bloomfield said.

    “I want to reassure people that our hospitals are safe.”

    Vaccines coming from Denmark
    The government has secured an extra half a million doses of Pfizer covid-19 vaccines from Denmark that will start arriving in New Zealand within days, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today.

    “This is the second and larger agreement the government has entered into to purchase additional vaccines to meet the significantly increased demand through September before our large shipments land in October,” Ardern said.

    Ardern thanked the Danish government and European Commission for facilitating the deal, which added to another 250,000 doses from Spain announced last week.

    “Combined, the Denmark and the Spain deals leave us in the strongest position possible to vaccinate at pace,” and move beyond life with tough covid restrictions, she said.

    “There is now nothing holding us back.”

    Ardern also announced that 500,000 Aucklanders were now fully vaccinated. More than 26,000 were vaccinated just yesterday.

    “Thank you Auckland, and keep it up. You are doing the very best you can do right now to avoid future scenarios like the one we are in.”

    Alert levels to be considered
    Cabinet is set to meet tomorrow to look at alert levels. Auckland has been in alert Level 4 since August 17.

    Ardern refused to speculate today on what cabinet might do.

    However, the recent bump in new cases and concerns about unexplained cases at Middlemore Hospital have had several experts predicting Level 4 will last longer than this coming week.

    Auckland Mayor Phil Goff said it was likely there would be a further delay.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RNZ News

    New Zealand has reported 23 new cases of covid-19 in the community today, more than double the amount reported yesterday.

    There was no media conference today. In a statement, the Ministry of Health said some volatility in the case numbers was likely at this stage as “we expect some changes in the numbers as day 5 and day 12 tests for contacts of cases are due, and we do further investigations of any new unlinked cases”.

    “This does serve as a strong reminder of the importance of following the covid-19 alert level rules wherever you are, and to get tested if you have any symptoms or have been at a location of interest at the specified times.”

    Yesterday, there were 11 cases reported in the community.

    All of today’s cases were in Auckland and 14 of them have been epidemiologically linked to previous cases.

    There are now 19 people in hospital, with four in ICU or HDU.

    The total number of cases linked to the community outbreak is now 902.

    There was also one new case reported at the border today.

    There have now been a total of 3534 cases of the coronavirus in New Zealand since the pandemic started.

    MIQ worker tests positive
    In other news today, an MIQ worker at the Holiday Inn facility in Auckland has tested positive for covid-19 during routine testing, and more than a dozen new covid-19 locations of interest have been added to the list today.

    As well, epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker has warned that health officials will be reluctant to move Auckland down alert levels next week if the country records many more unexplained cases.

    Dr Baker said the case increase today was not too much of a concern because the overall trend was still downwards.

    But he said officials would be looking out for further unexpected cases.

    “That would suggest that there are chains of transmission out there that are still carrying on that we haven’t fully extinguished at alert level four.”

    Auckland was doing a remarkable job of stamping out a delta variant outbreak – but the goal now was to stamp it out as fast as possible, he said.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • RNZ Pacific

    New Caledonia has recorded its first death of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The fatality was announced by territorial President Louis Mapou today in a televised address.

    He said the victim was an elderly person who had died in hospital.

    The fatality comes four days after the first three cases of the latest community outbreak were detected.

    Mapou said the delta variant crisis was unprecedented and the only means to counter the pandemic was vaccination.

    He said another 51 infections had been detected in the past day, bringing the total to 117.

    A lockdown has been in force since Tuesday.

    New Caledonia’s members of the French legislature have asked France to send medical personnel because there were not enough specialists to staff the ICUs that had been set up.

    In French Polynesia, a further three covid-19-related deaths were reported but health authorities say the latest wave appears to have peaked.

    Almost 400 people have died since the surge of delta cases in late July, with the daily death toll reaching more than 20 two weeks ago.

    However, the number of hospitalisations has remained high, with 303 covid-19 patients in care, 57 of them in ICUs.

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.