Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield:
Total new cases 20 (6 new and 14 probable) – total now 1,386
That’s out of 2,100 people tested, so a very low positive rate.
No more deaths announced – total remains 9.
13 people in hospital, 3 in ICU, 2 are critical.
728 people have recovered.
There are now 16 clusters (10+ related cases). A new cluster is linked to a rest home in Auckland.
Healthcare workers that have been infected – 113, which is 13% of all cases. Only a small number have been due to overseas travel, few have been confirmed as infected off patients.
Dr Bloomfield says that a strong World Health Organisation is important in dealing with Covid-19.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern:
As of today the PM, Government Ministers and public service chief executives are taking a 20% pay cut for 6 months – Government ministers and chief executives take pay cut
The media rescue packages will be considered by ministers ‘soon’.
A lot of questions from media about media. There’s obvious concern from journalists about the future for journalists.
| Total | Change in last 24 hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand | 1,078 | 6 |
| Number of probable cases | 308 | 14 |
| Number of confirmed and probable cases | 1,386 | 20 |
| Number of cases currently in hospital | 13 | -2 |
| Number of recovered cases | 728 | 100 |
| Number of deaths | 9 | 0 |
| Clusters under investigation | Location | Total to date | New cases in last 24 hours | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marist College | Auckland | 92 | -1 | Unknown |
| Wedding | Bluff | 89 | 3 | Overseas exposure |
| Hospitality venue | Matamata | 72 | 1 | Overseas exposure |
| Private function | Auckland | 38 | 3 | Unknown |
| Aged residential care facility (1) | Christchurch | 35 | 1 | Unknown |
| World Hereford Conference | Queenstown | 33 | 0 | Overseas exposure |
| Community | Auckland | 30 | 1 | Unknown |
| Ruby Princess cruise ship | Hawke’s Bay | 19 | 1 | Overseas exposure |
| Aged residential care facility (2) | Christchurch | 19 | 3 | Unknown |
| Group travel to US | Wellington | 16 | 0 | Overseas exposure |
| Group travel to US | Auckland | 15 | 0 | Overseas exposure |
| Aged residential care facility (1) | Auckland | 15 | 0 | Unknown |
| Aged residential care facility | Waikato | 14 | 0 | Overseas exposure |
| Wedding | Wellington | 13 | 0 | Overseas exposure |
| Community | Christchurch | 10 | 0 | Overseas exposure |
| Aged residential care facility (2) | Auckland | 10 | 5 | Overseas exposure |
* A decrease in numbers is due to probable cases being reclassified as not a case.
Some news preceded today’s update from Stuff: Elderly man dies in New Zealand’s first suspected Covid-19 home death
A man in his 70s has died in Southland in what’s believed to be the first coronavirus home death in New Zealand.
Stuff understands the man had earlier been diagnosed with Covid-19 and was in isolation.
That hasn’t been counted yet.
Your NZ 
Alan Wilkinson
/ 15th April 2020A pretty good result for the first working day after Easter. I’ll update the data when it comes available at 3pm but I expect it will fit the curves without shifting the parameters.
Pete George
/ 15th April 2020It looks like we’re generally holding the spread and doing quite well. If this keeps up over the next week a relaxation looks very likely, which I think will be timely.
Kitty Catkin
/ 15th April 2020I think so. I was talking to someone outside the chemist, a young mother, who had to leave three small children in the car while she queued for 50 minutes outside Countdown. She was good-humoured about it, but it was obviously wearing thin. Two chemists were open but not letting anyone in, which was jam for the third one. I had a long hilly walk towing a heavy load of groceries because my mobile had died and I couldn’t call a taxi; they aren’t at the rank now. People’s patience has a limit and we’ve probably reached it.
Blazer
/ 15th April 2020what a truly tragic tale.just try and cope with such adversity the best…you can.Hey it coulda been worse…it coulda been raining.
Kitty Catkin
/ 15th April 2020What a truly nasty person you are. I’d like to see you pulling a bag that weighed what this one did up steep hills and see if you still thought it was something to sneer at, or have to leave small children alone in a car for over an hour because you couldn’t take them into a shop. Your uncalled for spite and bile does you no credit at all, although you seem proud of it. It’s nothing to be proud of, quite the reverse.
duperez
/ 15th April 2020I’m not going to complain if I have to queue and wait a while to get into the supermarket tomorrow.
Duker
/ 15th April 2020No queues yesterday at Pak N Save at around 10:30am( that is one of the busiest in NZ) saw another PnS say the same this morning
Kitty Catkin
/ 15th April 2020There was one at the P & S I go to, but it moved quite fast.The longest I have been in one is about 10 minutes. They seem to have organised themselves better than Countdown whose limit of two per item means that people have to keep going back. Too yawn-making for words.
Duker
/ 15th April 2020Wasnt the P/S- New World rule that pensioners with Gold card was direct entry . You should try it
Kitty Catkin
/ 15th April 2020I would if I was one, but I’m not so I won’t. I think that’s Countdown, anyway. And the queues are very quick moving at P & S, so it would hardly be worth it.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 15th April 2020Updated now. No significant change in parameters except for the first time hinting at a few undetected cases at the start. I wouldn’t put any weight on that as the data was pretty weird early on and I’m not trying to match it.
Duker
/ 15th April 2020The original 20 patients from Rosewood who were transferred to Burwood Hospital , the nurses are saying none will leave alive after about 5 or 6 ? have died already
Alan Wilkinson
/ 15th April 2020Yes we will get a lot more deaths from the existing cases.
David
/ 15th April 2020Sadly we can probably expect 50 deaths with 90% coming from aged care facilities.
Duker
/ 15th April 2020The story about the lack of protection/ assistance to the DHB nurses at Burwood shocked me.
the CEO of CDHB needs termination immediately…Clark can try to redeem himself , even if its outside his authority he can lean heavily on the local Chair and appointed flunkies.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 15th April 2020Farrar has an instructive comparison with Australia. We don’t come out well as I suspected:
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/04/nz_vs_australia-2.html
Pete George
/ 15th April 2020But that’s a limited comparison of cases only. There’s a lot of variability with testing rates and case counting (we include probable cases, I don’t know if Australia does).
Australia has a much higher hospitilisation rate but that could be for a variety of reasons, maybe they have a greater number of serious cases, maybe they hospitilise less serious cases than us. We aren’t counting rest homes as hospitals. It’s hard to compare like with like between countries.
What it does show is that we have a similar approach and probably similar results to Australia – at this stage. How quickly restrictions are relaxed is going to be very important to keep the virus at least contained.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 15th April 2020I think the present state is that we have a lot of known but controlled cases in the community and very few if any unknown.
So the success of relaxation will depend on maintaining those controls, rapidly identifying and contact-tracing any new discoveries and controlling the border. For other people maintaining social distancing and hand hygiene should suffice.
Duker
/ 15th April 2020Farrar only compares when it suits .
A day or so ago he was praising the billions of taxpayer money for UFB network … didnt mention even Bridges saying ‘the internet at [Mapua , expensive area of Tauranga] is useless half the time ….. it seems the area isnt UFB !
Alan Wilkinson
/ 15th April 2020Signs of sanity: Robertson foreshadowing transition from essential to safe.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12324955
Pete George
/ 15th April 2020Probably covered in this new post: https://yournz.org/2020/04/15/grant-robertson-to-business-nz-on-our-plan-to-respond-and-recover/
Pete George
/ 15th April 2020Simon Bridges is taking a voluntary cut:
I haven’t seen anything from National MPs.
Duker
/ 15th April 2020“I haven’t seen anything from National MPs”
Those distant screams are probably them
Pete George
/ 15th April 2020Green MPs take a cut too:
Pete George
/ 15th April 2020Pete George
/ 15th April 2020Pete George
/ 15th April 2020The Mayor of Auckland says he will also take a voluntary 20 percent pay cut for the next six months.
Phil Goff, the country’s highest-paid mayor, earns $296,000 a year.
He says the reduction is in line with central government ministers and public sector chief executives, who’ve also taken a one-fifth salary cut.
Goff says his is a personal decision and in no way sets expectations for other elected members.
– https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/414241/live-covid-19-updates-from-new-zealand-and-around-the-world-on-15-april
oldlaker
/ 15th April 2020Ministers, but not MPs? Could Ardern not persuade them to join in the war effort?
Blazer
/ 15th April 2020PM and MP pay cut announced.OP header.
Gezza
/ 15th April 2020Text further down says PM & “government Ministers”, & public service CEOs.
Pete George
/ 15th April 2020The original news on RNZ live was vague and didn’t specify ministers, but the Beehive release was more specific. I updated the text but forgot to fix the heading (done now).
Duker
/ 15th April 2020What’s the bet the Nats MPs and maybe others talk about ‘donation to Charity’s ….along the lines of the format John Key set out…..political charity.
Seriously though MPs pay is designed to already have a amount for local charities as they are hit up for money all the time …for a meat raffle to some thing for a local worthy.
Maybe most are better than that and not hide behind something that are funded for already