There are 20 new coronavirus cases in New Zealand as PM Jacinda Ardern reveals all Government ministers and public sector chief executives will take a 20 per cent pay cut.
There are 20 new coronavirus cases in New Zealand as Jacinda Ardern reveals all Government ministers and public sector chief executives will take a 20 per cent pay cut.
Ardern said the pay cut, which will last for six months, was about the Government taking leadership and also reflected what was happening in the private sector.
"If there was ever a time to close the gap between different positions, it's now," the Prime Minister said.
"This is where we can take action which is why we have."
Ardern said cutting chief executives and ministers' pay affected a wide range of individuals.
Ardern said the 20 per cent cut was an acknowledgment of the economic hit many parts of New Zealand were taking as a result of Covid-19.
National Party leader Simon Bridges said on Twitter that he will also be taking a 20 per cent pay cut.
Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield, who will also see his pay cut as a result of the move, said today's 20 new Covid-19 cases are made up of six confirmed cases and 14 probable cases.
Ardern hit out at reports of landlords increasing rents during the lockdown, saying it was "utterly unfathomable".
"Be a good citizen, just be a good human being," she said.
The Government isn't able to freeze rents for commercial tenants under the Property Act, she said, but did what it could by extending out the the non-payment period.
20 new cases today, new cluster at aged care facility
Today's 20 new cases brings the total number of cases in New Zealand to 1386 - 728 of which have now recovered.
While Bloomfield said there were no further deaths confirmed, he was waiting for more information on a man who died in Invercargill last night. The Herald understands the man is believed to have died of Covid-19 but Bloomfield said the cause of death had not been confirmed.
The official death toll from Covid-19 remains at nine. Thirteen people are in hospital and three are in ICU.
Sixty-two people from the Pacific community have had Covid-19 and a "good number" of those had come from the Marist College cluster, Bloomfield said.
There is a new significant cluster which is also centred at an aged care facility in Auckland. There are now 16 clusters of more than 10 people.
Bloomfield said they were "working their way back" through confirmed cases to find if they were associated with clusters.
He said the Ministry of Health was concerned about how an infection got into a rest home and caused an outbreak.
Bloomfield said in his view they were now doing widespread population testing, or sentinel testing, through the low case definition and the number of testing stations around the country.
Bloomfield said more than 100 health care workers had been infected with Covid-19, about 46 were infected at their work which was mostly in the aged care sector.
In just five cases it wasn't clear how the worker was infected.
Bloomfield said he spoke with DHB chief executives last night about the need to increase testing.
On wearing masks in public, Bloomfield said they were continuing to look at the evidence around masks but there was still a range of opinions around when they were needed and when they were not.
Dr Ayesha Verrall's report on contact tracing would be put in front of ministers tomorrow and then it would be made public along with what the Government was doing in response to it.
The proportion of cases where the cause of the infection wasn't known is now under 10 per cent since the first case was reported in New Zealand. It was likely that a number of them would never be traced given how much time had passed, Bloomfield said.
Bloomfield said they would be looking to work very closely with Australia on developing a vaccine.
On health workers' access to PPE
Bloomfield gave a "categorical assurance" that there was a good supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the health sector with a nationalised distribution chain.
He said he wasn't prepared to give individual assurances as there are more than 100,000 health care workers in New Zealand.
Bloomfield said he wouldn't expect for PPE to be reused or recycled as there was good stock, but there were differences about how long each piece could be used for.
For example, a mask could be used until it got damp, he said.
Yesterday, New Zealand had its deadliest day with four people died from the virus. Three were from the Rosewood rest home cluster and a man in his 70s died in Wellington.
The number of global cases of Covid-19 is set to hit 2 million today. The death toll stands at more than 110,000.
Epidemiologist Sir David Skegg yesterday said Cabinet would be playing "Russian roulette" with New Zealanders' health if it made a lockdown decision on Monday without first improving contact-tracing and surveillance testing.
Ardern said she was confident in the Health Ministry's contact-tracing, which was still improving, and although surveillance testing had not officially started, it was already happening in practice with wide-ranging testing across all regions.
