Daily briefings end with Alert Level 4 of Covid-19 tonight
Venkat Raman
Auckland, April 27, 2020
One of the most widely seen and heard personality will get behind the scenes again as the country moves out of Alert Level 4 at 1159 pm tonight.
Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield stepped out of the media conference podium for the last time this afternoon, satisfied that the number of recorded Coronavirus status is not only under control but are continuing to diminish.
Person of high calibre
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern thanked Dr Bloomfield for his service since the declaration of lockdown under Alert Level 4 on March 25, 2020.
She said that working with him during this time was a real honour.
“I consider New Zealand to be very lucky to have a public servant of the calibre of Dr Bloomfield leading the health response. His background in Public Health has meant that I consider New Zealand to be amongst the lucky countries to have the expertise in leading the response. One that considers the health and wellbeing of New Zealanders in every respect,” she said.
Dr Bloomfield has been providing details of the developments relating to Covid-19 in New Zealand five days a week to the people of New Zealand, appearing either alongside the Prime Minister or the Finance Minister since March 25, 2020.
His ability to respond to questions with patience and depth have earned him widespread reputation among all New Zealanders.
As the country moves to Alert Level 3, Ms Ardern will also discontinue her daily briefings but speak to the media once a week after the Cabinet meeting on Mondays.
New Zealanders thanked
Ms Ardern thanked the people of New Zealand for their understanding, cooperation and sacrifices.
“It has been nearly five weeks living and working in ways that just two months ago would have seemed impossible, but we did and we have done it together. We have avoided the worst. Tragically, what we have been unable to stop is the loss of 19 New Zealanders to Covid-19; we send our love to their families in their time of loss,” she said.
Ms Ardern said that earlier modelling by Professor Shaun Hendy showed that New Zealand could have faced up to 1000 new cases per day if measures were not taken.
“We will never know what would actually have happened without our level four restrictions, but we can look overseas and see that this devastating scenario has played out in many other countries,” she said.
But she warned that Alert Level 3 will not be the same as returning to pre-Covid life and that New Zealand may need to remain at alert level 3 for longer than two weeks if required.
No time for risks
“We can only do this if we all continue to pull together, and secondly I will not risk the gains we have made and the health of New Zealanders so if we have to remain at level 3, we will,” she said.
There is no widespread community transmission now in New Zealand and that “we have won that battle.” She said that testing had grown from zero to the capacity to perform 8000 tests per day, one of the highest rates of testing per capita.
Meanwhile, an App to help the country’s contact tracing efforts is in the works, with the Ministry of Health saying that it will be ready in a couple of weeks.
Ms Ardern said that she remained sceptical about what the Contact Tracing App may achieve because it requires very high voluntary uptake.
“Our big focus has been on getting our in-person contact tracing right because that is what we will all be relying on; in places like Singapore, the uptake has been less than 20%. My view is that we cannot rely on this and we cannot place all our eggs in one basket,” she said.
Today by Numbers
Dr Bloomfield said that there was only one new confirmed case of Covid-19 and four probable cases in New Zealand overnight.
However, one person, in her 90s, a resident of St Margaret’s Rest Home in Auckland died of the disease taking the total number of deaths to 19.
“She had underlying health conditions and was part of a group from the rest home who had been transferred to Waitakere Hospital,” he said.
Dr Bloomfield said that the overall numbers of cases in New Zealand had dropped by one.
“In the context of our overall total, six cases which were previously probable have been reclassified as either still under investigation or not a case. So that means our current national total is now 1469, and that is a net reduction of one. 1180 people had now recovered from Covid-19, an increase of 38 on yesterday. This means around 80 percent of our cases are now recovered,” he said.
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