Papatoetoe High School delivered a lesson on how to respond to an outbreak of Covid-19 this week. Photo / Alex Burton
Papatoetoe High School delivered a lesson on how to respond to an outbreak of Covid-19 this week. Photo / Alex Burton
Opinion
EDITORIAL
This week's frustrating outbreak in the Auckland suburb of Papatoetoe was over after a 72-hour raised alert thanks to a couple of fortunate factors.
Firstly, the time of year. The UK variant of the virus just so happened to touch down when Papatoetoe High School was closing for threedays. How many more cases might have eventuated had classes remained in lessons instead of emptying out for Waitangi weekend?
But more credit should be given to the splendid response from the community at the heart of this latest incursion.
Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the key to lowering the alert level was doing enough testing "in the right places" to reassure experts the virus wasn't spreading undetected.
And this largely came down to Papatoetoe High - a school with the motto of "worthy to hand on the torch". The school had 31 close contacts and 1490 casual contacts.
Within hours of the infection making the news, the school population was patiently queued at a pop-up testing station. Of the 17,000 tests taken by Thursday almost half were Māori or Pacific people.
Meanwhile, we had the refreshing candour of principal Vaughan Couillault who responded to every media inquiry personally and readily, without board vetted and approved statements. He stood by his wards who had become unwitting victims of the virus, describing them as "good students".
Then, asked whether he was happy for his school to remain closed while the rest of the city opened back up, Couillault told the Herald: "Hell, yeah, because the rest of the country is going down alert levels. If that's the price we pay to get the economy back and rolling again, hell, we'll pay it."
The south of Auckland hasn't always enjoyed unanimous admiration - but this school and community certainly deserve it for their actions this week.
This week, Hipkins called border workers the "national heroes" of the Covid-19 response who needed support from their communities.
To take nothing away from these frontline staff, equal praise should be heaped on the Nicholson Ave school which rose to the challenge with frankness and pride. Here are great New Zealanders, worthy of holding the torch high before handing it on.
