Covid-19 Omicron: Nearly half of Hawke's Bay schools are managing Covid-19 cases

Tester Mere Timu swabs Hastings woman Lu Videan at the Hastings Showgrounds testing station. Photo / Paul Taylor

Nearly half of Hawke's Bay schools are managing Covid-19 cases.

According to the Ministry of Education, 49 per cent of schools and 28 per cent of early learning centres in Hawke's Bay are managing Covid-19 cases.

This falls well below the overall national rate of over 73 per cent of schools.

In Hawke's Bay, there were 39 early learning centres, 39 primary schools, five intermediate schools and 15 high schools notified of Covid cases the last two school days.

Across the country, almost three quarters of schools and early learning centres were grappling with Covid-19 cases, according to the latest update from the Ministry of Health.

The proportion is even higher in Auckland, where 86 per cent of schools are handling cases.

Primary schools are the worst hit, with 646 across the country dealing with Covid-19 cases, compared with 173 secondary schools and 57 intermediate schools.

Just over 470 early learning centres have also been hit by Covid-19.

"Schools/kura and early learning services (ELS) have layers of preventative measures in place to protect teachers/support staff, students and children. Public health advice has remained consistent throughout the Covid-19 response that school/kura environments are a lower risk for transmission of Covid-19.

"We know that the more layers of protection in place (eg, good hygiene practices, handwashing, ventilation, cleaning and disinfecting high touch areas regularly etc.), the harder it is for the virus to be transmitted", Sean Teddy, Hautū of Operations and Integration/Te Pae Aronui at the Ministry of Education said.

Meanwhile, Hawke's Bay had 680 new cases of Covid 19 and 23 people in hospital on Monday.

The Ministry of Health announced 15,540 new cases nationwide, with 952 people in hospital.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/covid-19-rats-hawkes-bay-pharmacists-speak-up-about-struggles-of-being-collection-sites/AWN36SOM7MP2KYS7YXKP6GOQ74/

There have been two new Covid-related deaths, the total number of publically reported Covid-related deaths to date has been 115.

In Hawke's Bay 97.4 per cent of the eligible population have got their first dose of the vaccine, 95.6 per cent of the eligible population have got the second dose and 72.8 per cent of the eligible population have got their booster.

The rolling seven-day average for new cases nationwide has dropped slightly from the peak.

There were 34,045 RAT test results reported nationwide in the last 24 hours and 1762 PCR tests done in the last 24 hours.