Covid 19 Delta outbreak: 135 cases, 76 in hospital, 88% of Kiwis fully vaxxed

December 6 2021 PM Jacinda Ardern says Pharmac has secured 60,000 doses of Pfizer's new antiviral medicine. It had up to 90% reduction in death, and could be taken at the first stage of someone getting unwell with Covid-19.

There are 135 new cases of Covid in the community as the virus continues to infect more people in the Nelson area.

There are four new cases in Nelson-Marlborough, which will be officially reported in tomorrow's figures.

Of the four new Nelson-Tasman cases, three are linked to existing cases. Investigations into possible connections for the fourth new case are underway.

Public health officials are continuing to manage several hundred contacts associated with exposures at two schools in Nelson and no further cases have been identified from these school exposures to date.

New locations of interest in Nelson-Tasman are being added to.

Of the 135 new cases, there are 125 in Auckland, 8 in Waikato and 2 in Canterbury.

The Canterbury cases were first announced yesterday but are being officially reported in today's figures.

There are eight new cases in the Waikato including five in Te Kūiti and one each in Huntly, Ōtorohanga and Ngāruawāhia.

All eight cases are linked to previous cases.

Seventy-six people in hospital with the virus today.

Of those, 14 are in Waitemata, 31 in Auckland, 26 in Counties Manukau, two in Waikato , two in Bay of Plenty and two in Nelson-Marlborough.

There are seven people in ICU or HDU.

The average age of those currently in hospital is 48.

Health staff are currently supporting 3123 people to isolate at home, including 847 Covid cases.

Nationally, 93 per cent of people have had their first dose and 88 per cent have had both.

So far 3,742,580 My Vaccine Passes have been issued including 82,448 yesterday.

On Thursday night the Ministry of Health began emailing temporary exemptions to people waiting for individual assistance needed to obtain their My Vaccine Pass.
By Friday afternoon, 65,497 temporary exemptions had been provided. There are still about 11,000 people whose email address or contact details are not clear and the MoH is working through this to provide them exemptions.

Yesterday's cases

On Sunday there were 106 new confirmed cases of the virus, with Whanganui and Canterbury the latest to confirm a case.

Another 93 cases were in Auckland, eight in Waikato and three in Northland.

There were 77 people in hospital with the virus, seven of which were in ICU.

And despite almost 90 per cent of New Zealand's eligible population now being vaccinated, more than half of those in hospital had not had a jab. Another 25 per cent had only received one dose or had had their second within the past week, which meant they had not developed full immunity.

Only 13 per cent were fully vaccinated, while the vaccine status of the last 6 per cent was unknown.

Earlier today Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was not expecting lockdowns over summer, with some parts of the country only just starting to get freedoms back.

Ardern's reassuring comments come as a leading epidemiologist warns Auckland will "probably" see more transmission around the city despite its high vaccination rates.

But while Aucklanders are getting ready to leave the city from next Wednesday, Professor Michael Baker told Breakfast Aucklanders shouldn't go and stay with anyone who is unvaccinated as it could be a "real disaster".

However, Ardern is confident the new traffic light system rolled out last Friday will give the country enough protections.

She told Breakfast she was feeling "really positive" after the country's first weekend in the new traffic light system.

New Zealand is projected to reach the symbolic 90 per cent vaccination milestone among eligible Kiwis by Christmas Eve, according to the Herald's vaccination tracker.

That's significant because modelling has shown that at a 90 per cent vaccination rate, 10,000 exposures to Covid-19 would result only in 1175 cases and 73 hospitalisations.

But some experts think we could push vaccination rates even higher - aiming for 95 per cent of over-12s, in addition to vaccinating children from the end of next month.

Across Auckland 90 per cent of the eligible population is now fully vaccinated - although that milestone has not yet been reached in Counties Manukau DHB.

As of yesterday, some 3.6 million eligible Kiwis (88 per cent) were now fully vaccinated, while 3.9m people (93 per cent) had received at least one dose.

That left some 285,244 people – or 6.8 per cent of the eligible population – completely unvaccinated.

Some experts have cautioned the 90 per cent target masked still-lagging rates among vulnerable populations such as Māori and Pasifika – and also didn't account for the risk faced by children, who won't be eligible until next month.

Māori health researcher Dr Rawiri Taonui feared Auckland's reopening could come with a high toll - and worried the Ministry of Health's dataset may be underestimating how many Māori are yet to be vaccinated.

His calculations, which used Statistics New Zealand estimates, suggested an undercount of around 45,000 among Māori.

Taonui said a targeted approach was urgently needed with DHBs supporting Māori health providers to get to under-vaccinated areas.

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