Director of Public Health Dr Caroline McElnay:
Two more deaths today – older individuals with underlying health problems. So the total deaths are now 4.
A man in his 80s died in Wellington Hospital. He first became ill in 26 March and is linked to a cluster.
A man in his 70s died in Burwood Hospital, who was moved there from Rosewood Rest Home. It is the second death from there.
Thirty people linked to Rosewood Rest Home in Christchurch are confirmed to have Covid-19 or probably have it, including 13 residents and 18 staff and two other cases who have had close contact. They are still investigating how Covid was transmitted to the rest home.
There is a new Christchurch cluster in Christchurch at the George Manning Rest Home.+
Another new cluster is linked to a the Spectrum daycare facility providing day care for individuals with intellectual disabilities
29 new cases today (20 confirmed and 9 probable) bringing the total cases to 1,312.
422 now recovered (+49)
15 in hospital, 5 in Intensive care (1 critical)
| Total to date | New in last 24 hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand | 1,035 | 20 |
| Number of probable cases | 277 | 9 |
| Number of confirmed and probable cases | 1,312 | 29 |
| Number of cases in hospital | 15 | -1 |
| Number of recovered cases | 422 | 49 |
| Number of deaths | 4 | 2 |
Note: The number of confirmed and probable cases reported in the last 24 hours includes cases which were entered on an earlier date as ‘under investigation’ or ‘suspected’ whose status has now been changed to confirmed or probable.
View details of confirmed and probable cases.
View details of significant COVID-19 clusters.
| DHB | Number of cases | Change in last 24 hours |
|---|---|---|
| Auckland | 173 | 4 |
| Bay of Plenty | 42 | 3 |
| Canterbury | 135 | 0 |
| Capital and Coast | 86 | 0 |
| Counties Manukau | 98 | 3 |
| Hawke’s Bay | 38 | 3 |
| Hutt Valley | 21 | 0 |
| Lakes | 14 | 1 |
| MidCentral | 28 | 0 |
| Nelson Marlborough | 48 | 0 |
| Northland | 25 | 1 |
| South Canterbury | 11 | 0 |
| Southern | 207 | 5 |
| Tairāwhiti | 1 | 0 |
| Taranaki | 14 | 0 |
| Waikato | 167 | 1 |
| Wairarapa | 9 | 1 |
| Waitemata | 183 | 7 |
| West Coast | 5 | 0 |
| Whanganui | 7 | 0 |
| Total | 1,312 | 29 |
Greater Wellington Regional Council has released details on air quality for the first full week of lockdown showing dramatic falls in pollutants across the region.
Air pollution from traffic emissions measured at its Wellington City station from 26 March to 1 April dropped by 72 percent as a weekly average compared to the same period over the previous four years (2016-2019). Levels measured at its Upper Hutt station, which are usually much lower than Wellington City, fell by 63 percent.
Patient numbers at emergency departments in Auckland, Northland fall
Patient volumes at some emergency departments in Auckland and Northland have fallen by up to 50 percent in recent weeks, leaving district health boards worried people are delaying seeking treatment.
Longer jury trials hiatus ‘devastating’ but understandable – defence lawyer
Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann shut down the trials last month until May, and that has now been extended another two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Courts are still hearing priority proceedings during the lockdown which include matters of individual liberty, family violence and cases where a defendant is being held in custody – unless the cases involve witnesses.
Elizabeth Hall from the Defence Lawyers Association said the backlog could cause year-long delays in some cases, and defendants could decide to plead guilty rather than wait.
“The people who are awaiting trial are presumed to be innocent.
“So the risk is that people who are in fact innocent feel the pressure to plead guilty just to get it over and done with, because they can’t bear waiting and because they may end up being in custody longer waiting than if they just pleaded and got it out of the way.”
She said extending the suspension of jury trials would have a “devastating impact” on victims, witnesses and defendants.
Hall said lawyers understood that convening juries created a health risk and the only option was to cancel them for now.
Your NZ 
Duker
/ 11th April 2020The claims made by some here in the last week about Covid 19 spreading fairly widely – undetected !, especially in US in last half of 2019 creating herd immunity have been definitely debunked.
They came from a military Historian, Victor Hanson who works out of the Stanford based Hoover Institute and is a regular on Fox ( where else).
The usual suspects tried to run with on this blog
https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-circulating-california-2019-bunk.html
Pink David
/ 11th April 2020It’s not just one study. There is similar research in Germany and UK. Nor has your article ‘debunked’ it, just some arguments as to why they believe it is unlikely. Both are valid views. More data is needed.
Duker
/ 11th April 2020It was completely repudiated…. even the Stanford medicine study Hanson quoted says its nothing like what he concludes and Hanson has zero medical qualifications to even understand reserach in this area. However authoring a 2019 book ‘The Case for Trump’
In other words the thinking mans Whack job
Common sense shows that the rate it peaks in some places hospitals would be wondering about all these sick people filling the ER
First documented case in UK was 28th Feb, by the end of Mar the UK was getting 100 deaths day.
PD you get your info from Fox news … PG should make you link it so we see its going to be nonsense
Pink David
/ 11th April 2020Here is a link to Fox News.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.24.20042291v1
Duker
/ 11th April 2020From your link
‘Importantly, the results we present here suggest the ongoing epidemics in the UK and Italy started at least a month before the first reported death ”
Unpublished reserach that hasnt been through peer review
Index case in UK was woman who arrived in UK on 23 Jan, first death was 13th Mar so no suggestion it has been circulating last year
The simulations just say what is obvious , arrived from China, and within a month or so first deaths .
Herd immunity ? They have no idea
Pink David
/ 11th April 2020Another Fox News link.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047365v1
Pink David
/ 11th April 2020” leaving district health boards worried people are delaying seeking treatment.”
Wow, no one could have seen that coming.
Kitty Catkin
/ 11th April 2020No, who’d have thought that that would happen ?
Or that people like my neighbour would have their lifesaving surgery delayed ?
Duker
/ 11th April 2020Elective surgery is not lifesaving..in the next 12 months anyway
Kitty Catkin
/ 11th April 2020It’s her heart, so it is. She has a high chance of dying without it. Her view is that she’s willing to chance the virus, she has nothing to lose.
David
/ 11th April 2020I think they need to stop caring quite so much about privacy in these times and just release the site where they have or where they think the clusters are forming. People who have been there can self isolate from family if necessary, monitor their health more closely and come forward rather than just hoping someone remembers you had been a contact.
The venues get released in time anyway so why hide them in a time where the more information the better
David
/ 11th April 2020I think we are starting to see the downstream problem of not having an effective Minister of Health with these rest home outbreaks. We have caregivers returning from overseas infected, patients not properly isolated and generally slack standards in an industry that has seen horror overseas from this virus. They are regulated and funded through DHBs and ultimately Clark should have been demanding tight standards being enforced.
Duker
/ 11th April 2020Blame private enterprise …why dont you, I know you want to,
David
/ 11th April 2020I am blaming the health minister and the DHBs for not addressing this, Ardern said she has gone earlier and harder than elsewhere well sure she did but with the easy to do bits…shut things down and throw a cheque at it but the self isolating returnees were a huge problem and its taken weeks for her to address this and then only because Bridges forced her hand. Now a returnee who didnt self isolate has infected a rest home that wasnt instructed by the government how to tighten procedures and avoid this happening.
Duker
/ 11th April 2020we could only mandate self isolation and quarantine when they were 5000 per day , we only can now have government supervised quarantine we are they are 500 per day.
Bridges hasnt offered anything worthwhile … spends his time driving 1000 km round trip
David
/ 11th April 20202 weeks ago it was 3600 per week and perfectly able to be managed by a competent government, as you point out. The number now is around a 1000 a week and it took Bridges to force her hand and as is being reported it took Tindall, Fyfe and Morgan to persuade her to shut the country down on the Monday after they personally arranged 7 plane loads of PPE gear.
See Rob Stocks Stuff piece.
duperez
/ 11th April 2020The update from South Korea is interesting.
“Nearly 100 people in South Korea have tested positive for the coronavirus after initially being cleared, sparking concerns for the growing possibility of double cases.
The number of relapsed cases grew from 51 on Monday and officials are unsure what has sparked the trend. Epidemiological investigations are under way.
The potential for individuals to be reinfected with Covid-19 is of grave concern for health officials, who anticipated infected populations would develop sufficient immunity to protect against a further spread of the pandemic.
However Jeong Eun-kyeong, the director of the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said the virus could have been “reactivated”, as opposed to patients being reinfected a second time.”
The puzzled experts there should get in touch with New Zealand. I’ve seen enough advice and prognostications on various blog sites here to suggest we have oodles of experts and knowledgeable ready to share the true oil.
A poll on whether or not New Zealand officials should look, listen and study the Korean situation and take into account what is happening, would most likely end in a 50/50 split.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12324210
david in aus
/ 11th April 2020Patient volume decreases by 50% in EDs.
One interpretation is that sick people are avoiding ED and in the process are becoming sicker.
Another interpretation is that many admissions to hospital are avoidable and are self-inflicted. Especially, admissions for chronic diseases are often related to not taking medications and poor self-care. There is thought to be a small cohort who likes been admitted to hospitals and enjoy being looked after. Most people find it hard to fathom that some patients want to be hospitalised. But it is not uncommon for patients to be fine but when a doctor comes for a ward round puts on an act to stay in the hospital longer. They present to the hospital typically every one to two months. When I talk to phlebotomists (people who do blood tests) they mentioned this phenomenon for patients who are frequent flyers to hospitals.
The low numbers of avoidable admissions is perhaps higher than we thought. Ironically, when the fear of catching covid19 recedes the hospital will be then at its busiest.
Duker
/ 11th April 2020Car accidents , work accidents have all but disappeared Bars are all closed so the incidents blamed on alcohol have largely disappeared too. People at home and drunk less issues
Only beer and wine is on sale, RTDs the scourge of our age is out.
David
/ 11th April 2020This sheds a bit of light on the lock down and why we went from 2 to 4 in days. Quite concerning and not quite fitting the spin.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/120912415/coronavirus-how-tindall-morgan-and-fyfe-worked-to-ready-country-for-covid19-fight
oldlaker
/ 11th April 2020I thought Ardern’s overseas friends made her mind up?
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/lifestyle/familyandrelationships/lockdown-with-jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-pm-reveals-how-she-switches-off-in-her-downtime-and-why-she-imposed-some-of-the-worlds-harshest-coronavirus-restrictions/ar-BB12qBYe
David
/ 11th April 2020Apparently the PR is better if its her friend overseas, not sure it matter but I would have hoped it was the science and advice from health professionals but there you go.