New Zealanders did not let the Covid-19 pandemic stop them from acknowledging Anzac Day, with Kiwis taking part in a unique dawn service as the end of the level 4 lockdown nears. Get all the important news and read the full stories in the links below.
• The Covid-19 lockdown took away the Anzac Day dawn parades but New Zealanders did not let the pandemic stop them from paying their respects to our war heroes.
Up and down the country, respecting social distancing rules, Kiwis were "united apart", gathering by their letterboxes and at the end of their driveways for a unique dawn service. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it is an Anzac Day like no other, but the purpose of honouring the Anzac commitment and "enduring hopes of peace" remains the same. Together, apart, we stood at dawn, and we did remember them.
• Eighteen people have now died of Covid-19 in New Zealand after an Auckland woman in her 70s passed away last night. The latest death came as the Ministry of Health reported five new Covid-19 cases. Four of the cases are linked to existing clusters, and one is still under investigation. The Auckland woman who died last night was in Waitakere Hospital and had been transferred from CHT St Margaret's Hospital and Rest Home. The woman had underlying health conditions and was a confirmed case of Covid-19. There are seven people in hospital, one less than yesterday, with one person in ICU in Middlemore.
• Thousands of New Zealanders have lost their loved ones over the past four weeks and not been able to properly grieve, a "rigid" process being described by health experts as "inhumane". Under alert level 4 restrictions, gatherings for funerals and tangihanga are not allowed, and only whānau in the same isolation bubble are able to view the deceased. Once the country moves to level 3 on Tuesday, up to 10 people will be able to attend a tangihanga or funeral. However, Māori health experts from national pandemic group Te Rōpū Whakakaupapa Urutā say this is still not good enough, and not based on scientific evidence.
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• When Darryl Evans turned up for work at a Māngere food bank at 6am today, there were 189 people waiting outside. The queue outside the Māngere Budgeting Service grew over the day, and at one point people were waiting four hours to get a food parcel. Evans, the CEO at the service, had to order in Portaloos for the crowd. "On Monday we had 302 families, Tuesday we had 340, Wednesday 602, Thursday 712, and today we've done 796," he said. "It's almost as if a tsunami has happened."
• Separated by wars in foreign continents, New Zealand Defence Force personnel stationed overseas know a thing or two about isolation from loved ones. As Anzac Day dawns on New Zealand deployments in Lebanon, South Korea, Iraq and Egypt, soldiers awake to a new reality. They, too, fear for the health of their vulnerable family and friends back in Aotearoa. Here, in their own words, is a snapshot of their lives navigating military conflict amid a pandemic.
• As New Zealand's strictest level of lockdown nears an end, figures reveal the workers who bore the heaviest burden on the frontline were more likely to be women. Kirsty Johnston reports.
• Ready-made meal and meal-kit companies are bucking the lockdown blues and experiencing a surge in trade, with orders at some companies up more than 500 per cent since lockdown began. As demand surges, some businesses have increased their people power. One meal-kit company has hired redundant former flight attendants, while another has set up an entire new boxing facility in just a week.
• Tourism juggernaut Skyline Enterprises has succumbed to the financial pressures of Covid-19 and initiated job cut talks, as Tourism Industry Aotearoa says a survey carried out on its members revealed they plan to lay off about half of their staff. The 547 members who responded said they would normally have 27,536 staff employed but 13,213 would lose their job because of Covid-19. About 65 per cent had already made cuts.
• US President Donald Trump says his comments suggesting people can ingest or inject disinfectant to fight Covid-19 were an attempt at sarcasm. Trump said yesterday researchers were looking at the effects of disinfectants on the virus and wondered aloud if they could be injected into people, saying the virus "does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that". But speaking to reporters in the Oval Office today, Trump insisted his comments were misconstrued. In related news, the US death toll from Covid-19 has passed 50,000.
• Belgium's farmers have exhorted their countrymen to step up to the plate and eat frites twice a week to demolish a 750,000-tonne potato surplus that has built up because of coronavirus. Frites, a kind of chip that is fried twice, are a national dish in Belgium, where they are regularly paired with mayonnaise and mussels. But potato farmers are hard-hit by the country's lockdown measures, which were imposed in mid-March and closed restaurants. "Let us all eat French fries twice instead of once a week," said Romain Cools, secretary general of the trade association for potato growers.
• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website
• For many horse racing is hardly more than entertainment or a Saturday afternoon punt. But for thousands of New Zealanders it is their job, and only source of income. With the global Covid-19 pandemic having shut down racing, many participants fear they won't survive in an industry which has been their lives.
The scooter rider suffered serious injuries and was taken to hospital.
