Venkat Raman
Auckland, March 3, 2022
A majority of people currently afflicted by Covid-19 are less than 30 years of age, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has said.
He said that of the 23,183 cases reported today (March 3, 2022), 54% are less than 30 years old and about 14% are over 50 years of age.
However, those in hospitals accounted for older people- about 60%, whereas those under 30 years of age accounted for only 21%.
Dr Bloomfield said that as of today, 503 people are in hospitals and seven in intensive care. There are 146,527 known active community cases.
About Rapid Antigen Tests
“Newly arrived Rapid Antigen Tests are being distributed to supply chains. However, people in the distribution system are being challenged as their staff become Covid-cases or close contacts. There are 169 collection sites where people who are on the critical worker exemption scheme can collect the tests, and there are also more than 100 community testing centres where the tests are available, and 26 providers focused on Māori and Pasifika populations,” he said.
Dr Bloomfield said that GPs are not collection points for tests.
A new website called, ‘RATs Requester Site’ is under construction, he said.
New website coming
“The new website will allow people who are symptomatic or are household contacts to click and collect the order for RATs. Initial problems with the site have been sorted out, and more than 65,000 orders have been placed online with more than 1000 also placed over the phone. We are setting up additional collection points every day,” Dr Bloomfield said.
He acknowledged there were queues and staff at these sites had been subjected to quite unpleasant behaviour.
“They are doing their best. I request people to be patient,” he said.
Dr Bloomfield appeared before the media for the first time since he apologised on Tuesday for delays in PCR testing results, due to a significant backlog created by an underestimation of laboratory capacity.
Opposition parties have condemned the error and some leaders have said that Dr Bloomfield should be sacked.
Dr Joe Bourne, Primary Care Lead for the New Zealand Covid-19 Vaccination and Immunisation Programme joined Dr Bloomfield through a virtual connection.
-With material sourced from www.rnz.co.nz
