Board member Andy Cranston said Covid was originally perceived as threatening the elderly but that was no longer the case.
Mr Green said figures “skewed” to the younger generations.
His figures presented to the meeting, showed the most affected age groups were the 18 to 24 age group with 738 cases; the 12 to 17 age group, with 619 cases; and the five to 11 age group, with 599.
The next most affected group was the 30 to 34 age range with 481 cases, and then 25 to 28-year-olds, with 426 cases.
Mr Green said some people had a mild illness while others were “quite ill”.
There was a greater risk for older and more vulnerable members of the community.
But there were examples of young people with significant illness.
“And there is the question of ‘long Covid'.”
The evidence from some countries was that one in 10 could suffer from long Covid.
Mr Green said cases had been doubling every four days, but the seven-day trend was a downward one.
The percentage of Maori with Covid had dropped slightly with a corresponding rise in the number of cases from those aged 50 plus. A total of 2604 Maori had Covid in the February 24 to March 17 period, compared to 2288 for “other”, and 204 for Pasifika people.
Mr Green said the Pacifika total was “slightly higher than we had expected”.
Suburbs reporting the most cases were Te Hapara, Kaiti and Elgin.
Mr Green said there were not a lot of reported cases on the East Coast.
“We know there is under-reporting.”
There were many who had not tested, or had tested positive, but had not reported the result.
Tairawhiti Covid figures were “way above” the modelling.
Mr Green attributed that partly to the introduction of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) and the resulting “higher density of testing”.
RATs immediately increased the number of cases being reported.
The number of Tairawhiti people being hospitalised was low, reflecting high vaccination rates.
That was a credit to vaccination and public health staff.
Mr Green's figures show a peak of five people in hospital with Covid over the above period February 24 to March 17.
For a brief time, on Monday, March 21, six people were in hospital with Covid.
Vaccination roll-outs were being tailored to specific communities.
There was a big focus on five to 11-year-olds — an event at Waikirikiri Park last weekend resulted in more than 200 vaccinations.
Mr Cranston said the national vaccination rate for that age group was 50 percent, and 48 percent in Tairawhiti. He asked if that was a comfortable figure.
Mr Green said he would like a figure close to 100 percent, and the national target was 90 percent.
Many whanau presently had five to 11-year-olds sick at home with Covid.
Mr Green said Hauora Tairawhiti had more than 250,000 RAT tests available and iwi were getting 100,000 tests delivered to them at a time.
“There is absolutely no shortage of RAT tests anywhere.
“If anyone need RAT tests, let us know.
“Because we want to get them out.”
