Turner said this strategy was being explored and would eventually be “part of the mix”, but there was no single approach to reopening our borders. If New Zealand introduced quarantine-free travel for vaccinated people from low-risk countries, there were ways to safeguard the community. Wilson floated three ideas that could be explored:
Regular Covid-19 tests while arrivals were in the community;
Mandatory digital tracking for the first three weeks;
And restricting arrivals from going to potential super-spreader settings – bars, nightclubs, gyms – for these three weeks. “Then people could have the choice – they could have this non-quarantine- option or they could have 14 days quarantine,” Wilson said.
Vaccine game-changer? US moves to waive IP on Covid vaccines
5 May, 2021 11:07 PM
5 minutes to read
The Biden-Harris administration in the US is moving to waive intellectual property protections for Covid vaccines. Photo / Bloomberg
The Biden-Harris administration in the US is moving to waive intellectual property protections for Covid vaccines. Photo / Bloomberg
Derek Cheng is deputy political editor for the New Zealand Heraldderek.cheng@nzme.co.nz
The potential waiving of intellectual property protections on Covid-19 vaccines is being described as a game-changer that could help developing countries as well as New Zealand.
This morning US trade representative Katherine Tai said the Biden Harris US Administration will support waiving such protections.
Infections, mutated variants ravaging the world The pandemic, in terms of case numbers, is a vastly different beast now than it was one year ago. Now, there are about 845,000 new cases across the world each day. This represents an increase of about 800 per cent on the same time in 2020, when the equivalent number was 92,000. The total number of recorded cases now is about 146 million which accounts for 1.8 per cent of the global population. Compare that to one year ago and the number was 2.7m infections (around 0.03 per cent of the population). This tells us Covid-19’s presence across the globe has ballooned by 5160 per cent.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern answers questions about the vaccine rollout, donations and drug reform.
Former far-Right leader Kyle Chapman has found a new cause to fight for; spreading Covid-19 vaccine disinformation. Chapman, who claimed he had fought against racism his whole life – racism against white people, he adds – said he was now fighting for “everybody’s medical freedom”, including Māori and Pasifika. He had joined a group which was printing and distributing flyers containing misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines. A Nelson-based group created the flyers and printed 20,000 of them, he said. They sent him 5000 copies, which he said he would distribute in letterboxes all over Christchurch. An “unlimited” number of flyers could be printed in future, he said.
Former white supremacist plans leaflet drop of Covid-19 vaccine disinformation stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.