There are calls for a Royal Commission into PHARMAC’s epilepsy drug switch after a sixth death was reported to the Centre for Adverse Reactions Monitoring; and the former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has died.
1.Public health professor Michael Baker says Covid-19 will inevitably be transmitted through the community in New Zealand and it could happen reasonably soon. An Auckland man whose now in isolation with his family was yesterday confirmed as the third case in this country.
2.The World Health Organisation, meanwhile, is concerned some countries are not taking the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak seriously enough. The head of the UN agency Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says its calling on every country to act with speed, scale and determination.
3.The Chief Ombudsman has told Parliament Waikato Hospital’s mental health facility is seriously overcrowded and patient safety cannot be guaranteed. Peter Boshier filed his reports into the Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre after a string of unannounced inspections by his office.
4.There are calls for a Royal Commission into PHARMAC’s epilepsy drug switch after a sixth death was reported to the Centre for Adverse Reactions Monitoring. About 11,000 people most with epilepsy but some with mental health conditions, began switching to a generic form of the drug lamotrigine last year.
5.The Islamic Women’s Council, says it’s likely the mosque attacks would not have happened if their warnings had been taken seriously. It’s submission to the Royal Commission into the Attacks on Christchurch Mosques, sets out repeated failings by public officials to pay attention to growing Islamophobia.
6.Elizabeth Warren, who had been a frontrunner in the Democratic race to contest the White House, has ended her campaign. A former bankruptcy law professor who forged a national reputation as a scourge of Wall Street even before entering politics, Warren had banked on a strong showing on Super Tuesday after a string of disappointing finishes in the early states.
7.Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan have agreed to a ceasefire for Syria’s north-western Idlib region. The two leaders met amid concerns of an emerging proxy war in Syria.
8.The former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has died. Her husband Harry Parke said the death was totally unexpected. Fitzsimons became the co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand in 1995, and when the party joined the Alliance led by Jim Anderton’s New Labour Party, she took on the deputy leadership role.
9.Water from Lake Omapere and Northland is expected to flow to Kaikohe today. A 3km pipe will carry the water there for upto 100 days.
