School students have been video calling their teachers from kitchen tables and bedroom desks as a new term got underway this week; and random testing Covid-19 is underway in Christchurch to try to determine the extent of community spread in the city.
1.School students have been video calling their teachers from kitchen tables and bedroom desks as a new term got underway this week. Parents breathed a collective sigh of relief as Suzy Cato and overnight national heroes came to their rescue on Home Learning TV – Papa Kāinga TV, a Ministry of Education programme screening six hours each school day.
2.It took two days for Canterbury District Health Board staff to visit Rosewood Rest Home & Hospitals in Christchurch after its first Covid-19 case. Rosewood’s dementia ward has since become the country’s deadliest Covid cluster.
3.A nurse at Wellington Regional Hospital caring for Covid-19 patients and using full protective equipment, has tested positive for the virus. The nurse last worked on 6 April and did not do further shifts after experiencing symptoms, Capital and Coast DHB says.
4.New Zealand researchers are leading major clinical trials to test drugs for the prevention and treatment of Covid-19. The three trials are being led by the Medical Research Institute with almost $1 million of funding from the state-run Health Research Council of New Zealand. The first trial will test 16 drugs, including hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and steroids, on thousands of patients in intensive care with Covid-19-related pneumonia, across 15 countries.
5.Random testing Covid-19 is underway in Christchurch to try to determine the extent of community spread in the city. Pegasus Health has set up a clinic outside the Pak ‘n Save Moorhouse Ave, to take swabs from about 300 volunteers who don’t have virus symptoms.
6.An economist John McDermott is calling on the Government to further expand and tracing for Covid-19. John McDermott who’s a former Assistant Reserve Bank Governor and executive director of the economic think-tank, Motu, says current data shows the number of new cases has steadied over the past five days.
7.The number of recovered Covid-19 cases is steadily climbing while active cases appear to be declining. There are almost 769 recovered cases well over 100, more than the number of active cases.
8.The electorate names and boundaries for the next two general elections have been released, with a new electorate established in South Auckland. Boundaries of 30 general electorates and 11 names have been changed, with the most boundary changes in Auckland, Waikato, Otago, Southland, and Christchurch.
9.Around three quarters of the people seeking welfare support in the Queenstown Lakes district are migrant workers and foreign nationals. The Emergency Operations Centre led by the Queenstown Lakes District Council has already received more than 5000 welfare requests since the lockdown began.
10.AA Insurance has introduced a freeze on increased fees and is offering to refund premiums over the lockdown period. Insurance companies are saving millions of dollars during the pandemic as the number of motor vehicles falls.
