Covid-19

Second round of resurgence support payments announced

Published

5 years ago

September 10, 2021

The government has announced a second round of the Covid-19 Resurgence Support Payment.

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield are giving an update on the Covid-19 Delta outbreak.

It comes as the government’s review of Auckland’s alert level setting – due on Monday – draws closer.

There were 11 new community cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand today.

Robertson said a second round of the Resurgence Support Payment will open.

“This is a new payment as the Resurgence Support Payment was originally seen as a one-off initiative but it is clear that as heightened alert level restrictions are in place for longer it does put more pressure on businesses.”

Applications will open 17 September and will be available until one month after a nation-wide return to level 1.

To qualify, firms must experience at least a 30 percent decline in revenue over seven days as a result of the current alert levels as well as existing eligibility.

The seven day window is from 8 September.

The government estimates the new payment will cost about $430 million.

There will be two more payments after this, three weeks apart as long as the conditions that trigger the payment still apply, Robertson says.

“The overall amount of support is actually more than the last time we were in alert level 4.”

The New Zealand economy was going strong as we went into this outbreak, Robertson said.

While the bounce back last year was better than almost all economic forecasters had expected and most forecasters expect the same to happen this time, he said that was not to say the pandemic was not taking a toll on businesses.

“The second payment of the wage subsidy scheme remains open nationally for businesses. Eligibility is not determined by the alert level for the area the business is in but rather that so long as the drop in revenue is caused by the rest of New Zealand being in alert level 3 for a time or the higher alert level in Auckland.”

If Auckland stayed at level 3 or 4, that will trigger a third fortnight of wage subsidy payments for eligible businesses, he said.

As of this morning, 404688 applications for the wage subsidy have been approved in this period, totalling almost $1.7million in payments.

Robertson said one of the things Cabinet received advice about when making decisions about alert level changes was the level of testing and he encouraged Aucklanders to get tested over this coming weekend.

– RNZ

Covid-19

Covid-19 update: 8544 new cases, 39 further deaths linked to virus

Published

3 years ago

June 19, 2023

News Staff

There were 8544 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Aotearoa in the week to midnight on Sunday, and a further 39 deaths attributed to the virus.

The total number of deaths attributed to the virus in New Zealand is now 3077.

In addition, there were 246 cases in hospital at midnight on Sunday with six in intensive care.

The seven-day rolling average of cases was 1217.

Last week, 9883 new Covid-19 cases were reported and a further 37 deaths were attributed to the virus.

Source: RNZ

Covid-19

Dr Jonathan Howard: why US doctors spread Covid disinformation

Published

3 years ago

May 21, 2023

News Staff

An American doctor believes more than 800,000 Americans would be alive today, if the US had taken New Zealand’s Covid approach.

Jonathan Howard, who is the chief of neurology at Bellevue Hospital in New York, said he was angry that influential health professionals minimised the seriousness of the virus.

“We want them infected,” was the call of then presidential science adviser Paul Alexander.

It’s also the title of Howard’s new book, which tells the story of how some medical and public health professionals came to become anti-vaccine and pro herd immunity.

He told Kim Hill on Saturday Morning there was a deluge of mis-information from prominent US doctors, some of whom wanted to actually spread the virus.

“Famous doctors from our top universities went on television and told people that Covid was just going away, that it was just the flu, that young people under the age of 65 have essentially no risk,” he said.

“And not only were there not attempts to limit the virus, these were loud influential voices who wanted to spread it.

“You can read quotes from our former Covid advisor, Donald Trump’s former Covid advisor, celebrating rising cases, saying this is a good thing when cases rise, which is shocking and astonishing.”

While Howard said there were obvious differences between the two countries, many lives could have been saved if the US had taken a similar approach to New Zealand.

“If we had limited infections until we had vaccinated the vast majority of our population, we would have potentially had hundreds of thousands of people still alive today, there’s no question about that.”

However, our zero-Covid strategy wasn’t without its critics, with Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya writing that it had “cost New Zealand dearly”.

“I think that the fact that most of your grandparents are still alive means that zero Covid did not cost you dearly,” Howard said in response.

“I don’t discount that, there were real costs of the lockdowns, I don’t know anyone who argues otherwise and I want to be very clear that I was protected from those costs, meaning I am very fortunate to be employed, I worked throughout the pandemic, I was never lonely, I don’t have my own business.”

But Howard said he didn’t think that the alternative – letting the virus spread freely – would have yielded a better outcome.

He said that when forklifts were needed to move bodies into giant refrigerated trucks in New York, it was fantasy to imagine the city could have operated as normal during the pandemic.

“You talk about deferred healthcare – every single healthcare worker was working with Covid patients, our hospitals were overflowing,” he said.

“So when I hear people lament they missed cancer screenings, who would have done those screenings? Would elderly patients have left their house to go to crowded waiting rooms to get a mammogram for example? I don’t think so.

“I think that the fantasy is that things could have just been normal if only if it hadn’t been for overly cautious politicians.”

By comparison, New Zealand did well, Howard said.

“I look at the numbers, I look at your death rate with great jealousy.” he said.

“And I think for long periods of time your economy was more open than ours was because we had to keep locking down, just because there were overwhelming outbreaks of the virus.”

Howard said the fact many older New Zealanders were still alive compared with the US statistics, showed the success of this country’s Covid strategy.

Source RNZ