Covid-19

Covid-19 update: Seven deaths, 6636 new cases

Published

5 years ago

May 2, 2022

News Staff

There are 6636 new cases of Covid-19 in the community and seven further deaths.

Photo: Unsplash / Mufid Manjun

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said 480 people were in hospital, including 12 in ICU.

Today’s rolling seven day average of new Covid-19 cases is 7553. Last Monday it was 8355.

A second person who has travelled from overseas to New Zealand has been confirmed as having the BA.4 variant of Omicron.

Both identified cases were isolating at their homes, the ministry said.

BA.4 has also far been reported in southern Africa and Europe, and in New South Wales. The ministry said the arrival of the sub-variant in New Zealand was not unexpected.

“At this stage, the public health settings already in place to manage other Omicron variants are assessed to be appropriate for managing BA.4 and no changes are required,” the daily Covid-19 update said.

The deaths reported today included people who had died over the previous two days.

The latest deaths took the total number of publicly reported deaths with Covid-19 to 757. The seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is 11.

Three deaths took place in Auckland; one in Waikato; one in Bay of Plenty; one in Wairarapa and one in Canterbury.

One person was in their 40s; one in their 50s; three in their 80s and two were aged over 90.

Of these people, one was a woman and six were men.

Of the 480 hospital cases there is 27 in Northland, 78 in Waitematā, 64 in Counties Manukau, 90 in Auckland, 35 in Waikato, 26 in Bay of Plenty, one in Lakes, three in Tairāwhiti, 11 in Hawke’s Bay, four in Taranaki, two in Whanganui, nine in MidCentral, two in Wairarapa, six in Hutt Valley, 11 in Capital and Coast, eight in Nelson Marlborough, 74 in Canterbury, four in South Canterbury, one in West Coast, and 24 in Southern.

Yesterday, one case of a new sub-variant BA.4 was found in New Zealand in a person who recently travelled from South Africa.

Microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles says it is too early to reach any conclusions about the sub-varitant, but it does have some worrying mutations.

Wiles told Morning Report that this variant has a mutation that was found in Delta which could mean it is more severe than Omicron.

Vaccinated travellers from 60 visa-waiver countries are now able to enter New Zealand without having to stay in MIQ nor testing themselves for Covid-19.

Source – 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