Further meetings take place at 11am, 12 noon and 4pm.
The incident management team (IMT) was established just after Simpson returned from his secondment to Wellington in February.
It currently manages staff deployment and welfare, patient flow and co-ordination, public information management, Māori health and equity, planning and intelligence, logistics and operations.
At the team's disposal is data on positive cases, vaccines, admissions, discharges, ward levels and staffing numbers, all of which is constantly being updated.
"One of the most important things is following what the main diagnoses [at the hospital] are," Chamberlain said.
"Currently, respiratory is not the number one admission cause."
Russell Simpson (left) and Maurice Chamberlain monitor data at the IMT hub. Photo / Bevan Conley
Staff members, regardless of role, were "rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in".
"Even our accountant was in the van taking patients up to Waimarino yesterday, and that meant we didn't have to take a nurse off the floor," Chamberlain said.
"The plans are there, but sometimes they don't give you the reality. You can watch the All Blacks' plan, then you watch the game and it's two different things.
"You have to be able to adapt."
Being a neurophysiologist, Simpson said he wasn't able to use his practice in Whanganui.
He spent parts of last week acting as a courier driver instead.
"I took 10,000 RATs to our regional hubs and caught up with them. I spent quite a bit of time at the WPI Tangiwai Sawmill as well, because they have a testing laboratory at the factory.
"We are all doing our bit to try to minimise the impact on our frontline.
"The environment is calm and controlled, because everybody's responsibilities are well defined."
The team used the same setup as a CIMS (Co-ordinated Incident Management System), which was always used for anything that fell outside of BAU (business as usual), Simpson said.
Multiple doors have been installed throughout the hospital to ensure facilities can be isolated if needed.
The surgical and medical wards have also been swapped, to allow for more closed side rooms.
If the hospital moves to level 4 of its Covid-19 response plan, the medical ward becomes a Covid-dedicated unit, and the surgical ward becomes the medical/surgical ward.
Clinical nurse manager Shar Tapa-Mosen on the hospital's medical ward. Photo / Bevan Conley
Clinical nurse manager Shar Tapa-Mosen said one team would look after Covid-positive patients on the medical ward for the entire day.
"Usually, it would be the same team the following day as well.
"That reduces the chance of cross-infection."
In the critical care unit, charge nurse Jo Vigenser said the recently installed double doors meant the area could be swipe-access only in the event of a lockdown.
"That means minimal personnel.
"We have three rooms that are behind closed doors, one is a negative pressure room.
"Once we get three Covid-positive patients and we are looking at a fourth, we'll start to move other patients out."
If the unit did go into lockdown, a doctor would be mobilised to stay in it, Vigenser said.
Nurses on the medical ward had been trained to care for lower-risk patients from CCU (critical care unit) in the event they had to be moved.
Critical Care Unit charge nurse Jo Vigenser next to the double doors that can lock down the facility. Photo / Bevan Conley
Looking after staff was just as important as looking after patients, the DHB's emergency management co-ordinator Simon Ward said.
He has completed simulation training throughout the hospital over the past two years, sometimes using a theoretical Covid-positive patient.
Through that, intercoms and doors were installed.
"If one person comes in and there is contamination through a ward it could potentially take a lot of people out, which impacts the service we can deliver.
"That is why the incident management team is there - to manage staffing rather than to manage patients.
"Staffing really needs some high-level co-ordination."
One factor to take into account was the large number of people visiting New Zealand in the coming months.
"That will introduce a whole lot of new things that we will have to manage, as well as Covid-19," Simpson said.
"Seasonal influenza is the one that worries me because we haven't had it here for two years.
