New Zealand has another coronavirus-related death - a man in his 60s from the Rosewood Rest Home in Christchurch. The country also has five new Covid-19 cases today - two confirmed and three probable.
New Zealand drowning numbers might be up, but cooler ocean temperatures and the Covid-19 lockdown also led to a 20 per cent drop in rescues this season, Surf Life Saving NZ says.
Life guards were tested early in summer as beaches thronged with people and fatalities were up, including four people who died in three days over Christmas.
Overall, 34 people have died in preventable drownings in 2020, through to April 17, up on 29 drownings at the same time last year, Water Safety NZ statistics showed.
However, after Christmas, emergency call outs to volunteer surf lifeguards "dropped right off".
"A persistent westerly weather flow between the Christmas break and mid-February meant the water temperatures in the mid-North Island never reached those extra warm temperatures the public love to spend long periods in," National lifesaving manager Allan Mundy said.
"This had surf lifeguards responding to almost 20 per cent less rescues they had in the previous season."
While patrol season typically runs from October's Labour weekend to Easter weekend in April, clubs stopped patrolling on March 22 this year when the country entered Covid-19 alert level 3.
It meant in total over the past season - from June 30, 2019, to April 20, 2020 - surf lifeguards patrolled more than 218,110 hours nationwide.
During those hours, they carried out more than 96,000 preventative actions involving 420,480 people, completed more than 530 rescues, assisted more than 1500 people to safety and gave first aid to 2370.
Two hundred and seventy-nine searches were also carried out.
Once New Zealand entered alert level 3, the season was brought to "a screaming halt" as patrols were cancelled and surf life saving clubs closed, Mundy said.
However, Surf Life Saving NZ's 40 Emergency Call Out Squads were then deemed an Essential Service and had to be ready to respond to requests from police.
That meant "the race was on" to get crews set up with personal protection equipment," Mundy said.
One lifeguards had the wrap-around glasses, respirator face masks, nitrile gloves and coveralls, the next step was to train crews up in how to use them in water rescue situations.
Mundy reminded New Zealanders suffering cabin fever after four weeks of lockdown, they needed to stay out of the water until the alert level 4 Covid-19 lockdown finished at midnight on Monday.
"After that, people must follow the Government's level 3 rules," he said.
"Such activities must be carried out alone or in your bubble - no congregating - and kept low risk."
"That means not taking up activities you have not tried before or are inexperienced in. Motorised activities such as boating, sailing and jet skis are not allowed.
If someone was in trouble in the water, members of the public should call 111 immediately and ask for the police, who would then direct surf life saving crews to the rescue.
Apart from a possible spike in the numbers of New Zealanders getting back in the water next week, surf life saving teams were now looking ahead to the rest of the year in a new Covid-19 world.
Surf lifeguards made 20 per cent fewer rescues this patrol season. Photo / Paul Taylor
One of the challenges would be how to train, Mundy said.
A large part of the organisation's training happens from March to June when there are fewer people in the water, but much of that time was now likely to be lost because of lockdown and social distancing measures, he said.
