Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2022-03-25 Origin: Site
"We are cautiously optimistic that Auckland case numbers are around 13,000-14,000, which could represent a peak for us in Auckland," Andrew Old of the Northern Regional Health Coordination Centre told an official briefing at noon today.
"We've only got a few days to get to this level, based on our modelling and what we've seen overseas, it may be about to turn the corner."
The Ministry of Health has announced 22,535 new community cases in New Zealand. Today, 13,252 new cases are in Auckland.
Health officials stress that it is very important for people who self-test positive for RAT to register their results on My Covid Record.
An Aucklander, who did not want to be named, told the NZ Herald that of the 25 people he knew had been infected, none of them had reported their case to the Ministry of Health.
This Aucklander is a tradesman who does engineering contracting and employs a dozen people, about half of whom, that is, seven or eight people, can't come to work now.
"I asked those people if they had reported their test results. They were sick. They said they just wanted to sleep and didn't want to go online and study how to record the diagnosis..."
He said they mainly work on two construction sites, one of which has been hit hardest by the infection.
"I have several people working in one of the construction sites. Now it has become a haunted house. There are usually 60-70 people working in that construction site. Now, there are about 5 left."
He said that some people, he knew, had no problem with the ability to operate online, but after testing positive, isolating and preparing paracetamol-seems to be all for them.
"I don't know of anyone who has reported a case, I know of 25 infections. I think it's actually much more common than what the Ministry of Health has announced."
The contractor said the cases were indeed quarantined, but not officially notified.
For the RAT supply, the Ministry of Health said there is currently a sufficient amount of supply, with 9.3 million boxes already arriving and 8.8 million boxes being distributed over the past week.
Although the rapid test box is well stocked, the Ministry of Health also emphasized that no one should be tested if there is no one who needs to be tested.
"That means doing the right thing and keeping a free RAT for family contacts or people with symptoms."
After the government announced yesterday that it is possible to register and receive free RAT online, the actual operation process caused a lot of confusion.
"There are now more than 500 RAT collection points across the country, including participating pharmacies, GPs, testing centres..."The Ministry of Health said that with a large number of pick-up points, long queues can be avoided.
But after the test on Thursday, it was not as good as the Ministry of Health said.After the announcement, large-scale queues appeared at some collection points.An east Auckland man said he spent three hours "travelling around the city" on Thursday looking for an RAT test for his son.
He said: "I went to two pharmacies and they said the information on the Department of Health website was incorrect and I had to go to Leonard Road, Mt Wellington to pick it up, I drove over and saw 100 cars queuing up - these communication issues needs to be resolved."
He later rushed from Mt Wellington to Auckland CBD and queued for an hour at The Cloud to receive it.
Estimates from the Covid Modelling Aotearoa suggest that actual infections could be four times the daily reported figures.
The cumulative number of confirmed cases in the 21 days to yesterday stood at 146,779 (some of which may have recovered).
If the model is correct, it means that the actual infection in the past 3 weeks is around 500,000.
500,000 is one-tenth of New Zealand's total population.
Auckland's high infection rate could mean one in five.
Families should prepare paracetamol and throat lozenges.
Today's report said that it is very important to rely on paracetamol and throat lozenges to isolate at home after diagnosis.
The media quoted Joe Bourne, head of primary care for New Zealand's vaccination programme, as saying people should have an "Omicron emergency kit" at home.
