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15 new community cases, modelling shows with high vaccination rates level 4 won't be necessary

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Thu, 23 Sep 2021, 12:40PM

15 new community cases, modelling shows with high vaccination rates level 4 won't be necessary

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Thu, 23 Sep 2021, 12:40PM

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield provided an update on Covid-19 in the community.

Professor Shaun Hendy also provided some insights into the modelling.

  • There are 15 new community cases 
  • Most of today’s cases are household contacts. 3 cases are yet to be linked. 
  • There are 15 people in hospital with three in ICU 
  • Suburbs of surveillance have changed with Mt Wellington being added and others like Mt Eden and Papatoetoe no longer being included 
  • A new testing requirement for people travelling outside Auckland for those needing to take a one-off trip. They will need a negative test result within 72 hours of travel. 
  • More than 37,000 essential workers in Auckland have been tested this month 
  • Section 70 restrictions governing some parts of Upper Hauraki have changed due to no evidence of any spread outside the community. 
  • Profession Sean Hendy said when work on modelling was started in March by the time it was released in June it was clear vaccination wasn't the answer to eradicating Covid.
  • Ardern said vaccines alone weren't enough to counter the transmissible Delta variant.
  • ‘Children can’t be vaccinated - it will reach them’ Ardern warned
  • She said at high levels of vaccination level four lockdowns would be a thing of the past.
  • Ardern said we were continuing to take a stamp it out strategy in our current outbreak. Today gave a glimpse of the future with high vaccination rates. "We should strive for high vaccine. That is going to be the golden ticket for New Zealand," she said. 
  • On vaccines for those aged five and over, the decision would be based on expert advice, said Ardern. "It will always be a health decision, always," she said. 
  • Bloomfield said health officials were looking at the evidence which was "promising". They were also looking at studies over vaccination in under fives, said Bloomfield. 
  • Ardern said 13 babies and 253 children under the age of 12 had been infected by Covid in this current outbreak. 
  • Ardern said the Government was taking on a range of information and modelling to help inform decisions about dealing with Covid in the long term.  Vaccines matter and helped reached freedoms in society. 
  • Hendy said he was presenting a strategy that would need to be in place for at least a year, and possibly longer than that.  
  • Ardern said vaccine certificates were a live debate for the Government in its Covid response. 
  • Hendy said 90% vaccination coverage would mean a far lower need to use lockdowns. 

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