COVID-19 updates
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COVID-19 Message from the Director-General of Health – Dr Ashley Bloomfield 21 January 202121/1/2021
Kia ora koutou, A very happy New Year to you all. I hope wherever you were in New Zealand you managed to have a break and switch off with friends and whānau. I want to firstly thank all our essential workers, including health workers, for their efforts in our MIQ facilities over the break. Your commitment to protecting New Zealand’s borders enables our country to live without COVID-19 in our communities. Every day you go to work you keep the rest of us safe and I am so grateful. Click here to read the full update Please find below some guidance from our Contact Tracing team regarding Bluetooth notifications:
Guidance For Health Professionals Bluetooth Tracing FAQ's Please share with all Clinical Teams such as GP’s , ED staff, Testing Centre’s and others that the public may contact should they receive a notification. Have a safe Christmas and New Year. Response and Coordination COVID-19 Response Ministry of Health COVID-19 Message from the Director-General of Health – Dr Ashley Bloomfield 18 December 202021/12/2020
Kia ora koutou, We have undertaken our regular review of our Testing Strategy and I’m writing to confirm that, for the period ending 27 January 2021, we’ll continue to focus our testing efforts on testing all people with symptoms of COVID-19 in all regions. continued...
This continues our focus on testing: - regions/groups that have been underrepresented in recent data, in particular Māori communities - testing as part of any wider case or outbreak investigation, including targeting testing by geographic location or specific populations, if appropriate at the border, including testing border workers and those in managed isolation and quarantine facilities. Testing during the holidays I want to thank those of you who have already been working with the Ministry and DHBs to ensure there will be adequate testing capacity and public health measures in place throughout New Zealand to ensure that Kiwis will be able to holiday safely. We are asking everyone to ensure that their plans recognise our collective need to continue to provide testing services during the summer break. It is important that these plans take into account the events planned and usual holiday patterns in your region. Our latest Testing Strategy reflects expected increases to domestic travel and socialising over the coming weeks, particularly around the key public holidays in December and January. In the leadup to this, and throughout the summer, we will be reminding people that tests for COVID-19 will be available throughout the holiday season, including on public holidays. Please ensure that your holiday hours and practice information is up to date on Healthpoint.co.nz throughout the summer holiday period. We will be referring people to Healthpoint for testing location information through Ministry communications and the NZ COVID Tracer app. Healthline also uses this resource to refer people to testing sites so it’s important that your hours and services are up to date over the holidays. Testing numbers In addition to this, we are encouraging anyone with cold or flu symptoms to stay at home and get a test. They should continue to stay at home until they have a negative test result, regardless of where they live in New Zealand. Testing numbers have remained consistent, with a minimum of 30,000 and potentially up to 40,000 tests per week, including the mandatory border testing. We expect these numbers to remain consistent but may need to increase up to more than 60,000 tests a week if there is any community transmission over the holiday period. The full current advice for the period ending 27 January 2021 is available here. As always, the assessment and testing for COVID-19 is at no cost to individuals. It’s been an intense year and I’d like to acknowledge the increased workload and pressure that COVID-19 has created for us all. Thank you for your continued support and your efforts throughout the year to ensure that testing has been widely available and accessible throughout the country. Together, we’ve delivered a robust programme of testing nationwide that’s kept our communities and whanau safe. I hope there will be an opportunity to rest your staff and take a well-deserved break. Kind regards, Dr Ashley Bloomfield Director-General of Health Testing Operations | COVID-19 Immunisation, Testing and Supply | Ministry of Health Kia ora koutou We trust this finds you well as we head into the Christmas and New Year period. The Ministry of Health COVID-19 PPE supply chain would like to message all general practices and urgent care facilities that are conducting COVID-19 swabbing to let them know how to source their PPE requirements over the Christmas period. Could you please send the attached email to all the general practices and urgent care facilities that you look after and have on your data base and within your networks. As indicated in the MoH principles of supply, the supply of PPE will be at no cost in Alert Levels 2, 3, and 4 and for swabbing at all levels, however this is not a long term arrangement. All information on the Ministry’s principles of supply can be found on the MoH web site. If you have any questions, please contact the Ministry COVID-19 Health Supply Chain team at: COVID.HealthSupplyChain@health.govt.nz Kind regards, COVID-19 Health Supply Chain Team The Ministry of Health COVID-19 PPE supply chain would like to message all general practices and urgent care facilities that are conducting COVID-19 swabbing to let them know how to source their PPE requirements over the Christmas period. Click here to view the email to all the general practices and urgent care facilities that you look after and have on your data base and within your networks.
As indicated in the MoH principles of supply, the supply of PPE will be at no cost in Alert Levels 2, 3, and 4 and for swabbing at all levels, however this is not a long term arrangement. All information on the Ministry’s principles of supply can be found on the MoH web site. If you have any questions, please contact the Ministry COVID-19 Health Supply Chain team at: COVID.HealthSupplyChain@health.govt.nz Kind regards, COVID-19 Health Supply Chain Team Kia ora tatou, To support the implementation of the changes to the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Required Testing) Order 2020, which have taken effect from this morning, we have produced guidance for ports, airports and managed isolation and quarantine facilities. These are attached for your information and reference. The guidance has been developed in consultation with a range of stakeholders and we have sought to keep the key messages as short and as straightforward as possible, while remaining faithful to the intent and requirements of the Order. We’ll continue to work with stakeholders to address questions about specific circumstances and intend to develop fact sheets covering the most commonly asked questions. If you have any questions or feedback, please send it to COVID-19testing@health.govt.nz. Thank you for your ongoing support and continued commitment to working with border employers to ensure we have a robust programme of ongoing testing to keep our workers and communities safe from COVID-19. Click here for Guidance on COVID Required Testing No.3 Amendment order - Maritime Ports Click here for Guidance on COVID Required Testing No.3 Amendment order - MIFQs Click here for Guidance on COVID Required Testing No.3 Amendment order - Airports Ministry of Health l COVID-19 Health System Response Please remember to notify NIR if there are new doctors or nurse’s in the clinic, if they have come from another clinic a phone-call to NIR is sufficient. Please put the GP as the Provider when entering immunisations, otherwise the immunisations do not message to NIR. Click here for Education and support for the NZ COVID Immunisation Programme COVID-19 Message from the Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield - 3rd December 20203/12/2020
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