Schools to reopen in level three
Senior students will be heading back to class next week after two months of online schooling in Auckland
Mōrena and welcome to The Bulletin for Thursday, October 21, by Justin Giovannetti. Presented in partnership with Z Energy.
In today’s edition: National releases its economic plan; MIQ system to be investigated; a challenge to the grocery giants; but first, school is back for seniors.
Senior students will be back in Auckland classrooms from next week. (Getty Images)
Auckland schools will reopen for senior students. Chris Hipkins, the education minister, unveiled plans yesterday allowing students in years 11, 12 and 13 to return to class in level three areas as of Tuesday, after labour weekend. According to The Spinoff’s live updates, face coverings will be required on staff and students, while NCEA and scholarship exams will proceed as usual in Auckland and Waikato. Students and staff will be expected to stay at least a metre apart. After weeks of online learning, the government is balancing the education needs of senior students with the expectation that most of them will be vaccinated. A plan for younger students is still being developed and could include outdoor education and rostered attendance.
“This is a complex issue requiring difficult trade-offs between improving education and increasing potential health risks for children and young people,” said Hipkins.
Principals have responded with relief and concern. Stuff reports that the Principals Federation says it would be untenable for years 1 through 10 to return to school when most are unvaccinated. It doesn’t expect school to return for that group until 2022. The principal of James Cook High School in Manurewa told Stuff that the decision had left him “very happy and also slightly vexed”. With the thumbs up coming on Wednesday, educators are left with only two working days to prepare for a challenging shift back to in-person education. There’s been no guidance for parents who might be concerned about sending their kids back or for students who have picked up jobs during the pandemic to support their families.
However, the secondary teachers’ union is angry. The president of the post primary teachers’ association said in a statement yesterday that they hadn’t been consulted and wouldn’t have supported the move, according to RNZ. The union has asked to see the public health advice supporting the move. “The government seems to have gone from acting out of an abundance of caution to a reckless disregard for the consequences in the blink of an eyelid,” said Melanie Webber, the union’s president. She said that vaccination levels just aren’t high enough among students to justify the move and the government’s guidelines on social distancing aren’t credible.
Experts have warned the move could increase case numbers. Dr Dion O’Neale, a principal investigator at Te Pūnaha Matatini, told the Science Media Centre that the move poses a significant risk as those students were the last age group to gain access to vaccines:
“In addition to new infections that will occur directly from interactions at schools, re-opening schools creates large numbers of indirect new connections between households from otherwise weakly-connected parts of the community. Modelling suggests that most of the extra infections from schools reopening will actually show up in non-school contexts as a result of students subsequently infecting other people in their households or in other community interactions.”
The government has veered away from investing in classroom air quality. As RNZ reports, countries around the world are installing high-efficiency filters in schools as a move to protect students. From Australia to the UK, the filters are being added to central air systems or, often, in stand-alone units that suck up a classroom’s air and purifies it. That won’t be happening in New Zealand, Hipkins confirmed yesterday. It would cost “hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said, when there’s a cheaper solution: “having all the windows and doors open in schools.”
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We’re rapidly approaching 10 weeks in lockdown here in Tāmaki Makaurau, and still unsure when a more recognisable form of living will resume. Which means that for the foreseeable future our staff will be working to bring you the latest from the delta outbreak—and to distract you from it—in a situation with a considerably reduced commercial foundation. This makes us more reliant on our Members than ever. To those who have contributed, a huge thank you from all of us. To readers who enjoy our work and have yet to join The Spinoff Members, please consider doing so today if your circumstances allow it. Head here to donate, or to find out more.
National proposes a Covid economic plan and hard reopening date. The opposition is calling for tax cuts for small businesses, a bigger wage subsidy and $100 vouchers for the fully vaccinated, according to Stuff. It’s largely a collection of policies seen overseas. While the economic message might speak to National’s base, the party’s reopening plan has attracted more attention. The South Island would immediately return to level one and lockdowns would end when either 85-90% of the population was vaccinated or December 1, whichever comes first. Reopening in six weeks would be disastrous and isn’t based on science, Newsroom has concluded.
The Covid numbers: There are 43 cases in hospital and 5 in ICU/HDU. There are now 769 active cases in New Zealand. 56 new community cases were reported in Auckland yesterday and 4 in Waikato. 42,809 people were vaccinated on Tuesday.
The Spinoff’s Covid data tracker has the latest figures.
The chief Ombudsman is investigating the MIQ booking system. There have been hundreds of complaints to the chief Ombudsman that the managed-isolation booking system is unfair, unlawful and broken, so Peter Boshier is going to investigate, One News reports. Tens of thousands of people have entered weekly lotteries without luck to return home. The government responded in a statement that the system is working as designed.
However, according to the Dominion Post, members of the country’s diplomatic corp have been sending hundreds of frantic messages trying to get into MIQ. At least 14 diplomats are now overseas at the end of their postings unable to come home.
A challenge to the grocery duopoly. Consumer NZ and the NZ Food and Grocery Council don’t really get on, but the two have formed an alliance as the Commerce Commission is investigating what to do about the grocery market. As One News reports, the two say it’s time to do something about the massive amount of power wielded by the two companies that dominate groceries because prices are far too high.
In a sign of that power, New World and Pak’nSave are set to remove most of Sealord’s range of frozen products. According to Newsroom, the company's market share could collapse from 80% to 20% with the decision. Foodstuffs, which owns both brands, said it would bring in imported fish in a move that will increase profits.
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Brian Tamaki was released from a police station yesterday amid chaotic scenes. With chants of “Free Tamaki” in the air, a Newshub TV crew was assaulted by Tamaki supporters according to the NZ Herald, as the church leader said he'd been charged due to “political and media pressure.” Tamaki appeared in court via audio-video feed to face a new charge for attending a second anti-lockdown protest after being arrested for an earlier protest. He pleaded not guilty and received a stern warning from a judge not to attend or organise any protests breaching Covid-19 rules.
A Facebook by any other name? The social media giant is planning a name change next week to focus on “building the metaverse,” The Verge reports. The rebrand is intended to shift attention away from social media to other parts of the company working on messaging and smart glasses. Google did something similar a few years ago, when the search engine became a division of Alphabet. But to be fair, Google’s rebrand was very different. It wasn’t facing intense public scrutiny, a whistleblower in congress and a series of damning articles revealing that it knew its products were harming people, spreading disinformation and feeding body issues around the world. There might be less public appetite for Facebook’s metaverse.
Got some feedback about The Bulletin, or anything in the news?
Get in touch with me at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz
Right now on The Spinoff: Siouxsie Wiles looks at what the data is telling us about the delta outbreak after nine weeks. Richard Meade writes that Auckland businesses need more support and less “she’ll be right”. Dr Elspeth Frascatore explains how to have a positive conversation with your vaccine hesitant friend. Tara Ward dives into the Celebrity Treasure Island power rankings with another week of awkward. Kelvin Taylor writes how it feels to be an African-Kiwi on NZ screens.
For a longer read today, a look at Taiwan and China’s clash in the sky. Amid war scares over the month of October, Chinese military planes have flown into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone 159 times according to Reuters. To better understand what the situation looks like, and why this is happening, the news agency has broken down in graphic form what’s going on around Taiwan.
The Olympic flame has arrived in Beijing despite calls for a boycott. As the Associated Press reports, China’s human rights situation (and its relationship with its neighbours, see above) has deteriorated significantly since the 2008 Olympics. In response to critics that the games have “emboldened” China, the international Olympic committee said that the event must remain politically neutral. Due to Covid-19, the torch rally will only last three days before the February start to the games.
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