About 40 border workers were the first in the South Island to be vaccinated against Covid-19 today after a second batch of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines arrived yesterday at Auckland International Airport.
Covid 19 coronavirus: Ashley Bloomfield and Chris Hipkins to give Valentine s Day Covid cluster update nzherald.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nzherald.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Air crew were originally staying at the Ramada Hotel at Auckland CBD and Manukau, but switched to the Grand Windsor on Auckland’s Queen Street on Friday.
After the switch, they were told by Air New Zealand via a staff bulletin: “As per the MoH guidelines you will be able to leave the hotel for up to 90 minutes of exercise per day.”
This means the crew returning from the US over the weekend could have checked into the Grand Windsor and then left and gone for a run through the middle of downtown Auckland.
It would not be the first time returning flight crews had been given permission to exercise outside their isolation facilities.
OPINION: The Ministry of Health is refusing to answer basic questions on the plan and frontline workers lining up for a vaccine this weekend deserve to know.
Opinion/Flotsam & Jetsam: A well-built bridge and work-from-home stipend
By Jim Carter
That ill-fated but sturdy covered bridge in Long Grove, Illinois, claimed its 14th victim last week – an oversized (of course) box truck. As you may recall, we reported in this space last year that the bridge was struck the first day after it was repaired in August, and then hit again the following day while a TV crew was filming the previous day’s incident. It remains essentially undamaged. (Brawny Bridge?)
Aging gracefully: Frank Rothwell, 70, of Oldham, England, was recently persuaded to enter the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, a trans-oceanic rowboat race. He not only made it to the Antigua finish line – in 56 days, two hours and 41 minutes – but placed fourth. It was “really, really boring,” he said, but he raised almost a million dollars for cancer research – enough to “make a difference in people’s lives.” (You da’ man, Frank.)