Covid 19 coronavirus: Northland iwi leaders to meet today to discuss latest case

Nurse Vicky Maihi at the Marsden Point, Ruakākā Covid-19 testing station yesterday. Photo / Tania Whyte

Northland iwi leaders will meet today in the wake of New Zealand's first new Covid-19 community case since November.

Te Kahu o Taonui, the Northland Iwi Chairs Forum will meet by Zoom at noon.

Harry Burkhardt, Te Kahu o Taonui chairman, said the group of 11 iwi leaders would be meeting, with other organisations invited including Northland District Health Board, police, Civil Defence and the Ministry of Social Development.

Te Kahu o Taonui played a key role in Northland's 2020 Covid-19 response.

New Zealand's first positive community case since November was on Sunday identified as a woman from near Whangārei who is suspected to have contracted Covid-19 while in Auckland's Pullman Hotel managed isolation facility.

The woman visited Whangārei, Ruakākā, Kaiwaka, Maungaturoto, Matakohe and Mangawhai.

Burkhardt, who is also Northland District Health Board chairman, said the meeting's purpose was to get a sense of how all the players were collectively responding to the new Covid-19 reality.

The forum would look at what it needed to do to support the response rolled out to date. Whānau were also wanting to assist and this would also be considered.

Burkhardt said authorities still didn't have a clear view of whether or not alert levels needed to be lifted.

"But that's always on the cards," Burkhardt said.

It was important to be ready, should it happen.

He said the challenges facing Northland's vulnerable communities had not gone away since New Zealand's last Covid-19 lockdowns.

"Their risk hasn't changed for our vulnerable communities."

He said New Zealand's level 4 lockdown had shown vulnerable communities' isolation was a negative and a positive.

Protecting the vulnerable by stopping Covid-19 being brought into these communities had been one tool used in level 4 lockdown that had worked well.

Burkhardt said there was no sense of any Covid response fatigue in the community.

He said it was pleasing to see how well the infected woman had used the QV Covid tracing app, which had really assisted the response progress to date.