Australia and New Zealand have received their first COVID-19 vaccine deliveries and will begin rolling out inoculations in the coming week, while populous cities of Melbourne and Auckland remained locked down following the emergence of new cases.

“The Eagle has landed,” Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt told reporters in Canberra on Monday as the first shipment of 142,000 doses of the vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and Germany’s BioNTech touched down.

Vaccination in Australia will start from Feb. 22.

In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the first batch of 60,000 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines had arrived and would undergo safety checks before border workers start receiving vaccinations from Saturday.

“This will be the largest full-scale vaccination campaign in this country’s history,” Ardern said.

“We have purchased enough vaccines to cover all New Zealanders and to do so for free. That includes all those in New Zealand regardless of their visa status,” Ardern said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-australia-new-zeal-idUSKBN2AF0AL

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will arrive in New Zealand next week, earlier than expected.

Ardern and senior ministers have given a briefing on the country's coronavirus vaccination programme.

"We should be in a position, providing all goes well, to start vaccinating border workers from next Saturday," Ardern said.

Over the next two to three weeks, 12,000 workers should be vaccinated, followed by their household contacts. The next priority will be healthcare and essential workers, along with most at-risk groups, in the second quarter of the year.

"It's going to take all the year to reach everyone," Ardern said.

Deliveries are expected near weekly, with a batch in the low tens of thousands delivered within the first consignment.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the first batch would be enough to cover all border workers.

"Our advance purchase agreement has us getting just under quarter of a million [courses] in the first quarter. That is going to come in waves."

The remaining courses will be split of the following two quarters, he said.

www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/436268/covid-19-prime-minister-gives-briefing-on-vaccination-in-new-zealand

New Zealand’s government said the fiscal and economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic will be less severe than first feared as its decision to impose one of the world’s strictest lockdowns pays off.

Economic growth will recover more rapidly while budget deficits and net debt will be much lower than expected just three months ago, Finance Minister Grant Robertson said Wednesday in Wellington when presenting the half-year fiscal and economic update. Unemployment will now peak at 6.9% at the end of next year rather than the 7.8% predicted in September.

“The government’s decision to act quickly in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic has contributed to a better than expected economic recovery,” Robertson said. “While New Zealand’s economy contracted in 2020, it is forecast to rebound strongly in 2021, outperforming regions we compare ourselves to like the euro zone, the United Kingdom and Japan.”

New Zealand’s strategy to eliminate Covid-19 from the community saw it impose a harsh nationwide lockdown that tipped the economy into recession, but its success allowed a relatively quick resumption of normal life. Today, as many countries face new lockdowns, New Zealanders head into the Christmas vacation free of any restrictions.

While gross domestic product plunged a record 12.2% in the second quarter, economists predict it surged by 12.9% in the third, according to a Bloomberg survey. That data is due tomorrow.

https://theprint.in/world/new-zealand-says-its-strict-covid-lockdown-is-paying-off-as-economy-rebounds/567584/

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The New Zealand government signed a deal on Monday to buy 1.5 million COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc PFE.N and Germany's BioNTech 22UAy.F, with delivery potentially as early as the first quarter of 2021.

The government did not disclose financial terms of the deal, its first vaccine purchase, which will provide enough doses to vaccinate 750,000 people.

Officials said talks were continuing with other drug companies to secure more vaccine supplies for the country of 5 million people and further announcements were expected next month.

“The additional agreements will ensure that once the portfolio is completed, we will have sufficient COVID-19 vaccines for the whole population,” Research Minister Megan Woods said in a statement.

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-newzealand/new-zealand-signs-deal-with-pfizer-biontech-for-covid-19-vaccine-idUSL4N2H30QG

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There are no new cases of Covid-19 to report in New Zealand today.

New Zealand has recorded 1,515 cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic began.

The country's total number of active cases remains at 45 – and all of them are imported cases.

There are no active Covid cases in the community.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-zero-new-cases-today-no-one-in-hospital-with-virus/3WYSFYC76SCMZIWUZNEKOMPL6I/

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As we move into the spring/summer period where flu is always uncommon in New Zealand, Professor Michael Baker offers his analysis on the flu season numbers and why masks continue to be so important.

He said there has been "near extinction of influenza in New Zealand following our very effective Covid-19 response", as numbers vanished from the two standard systems for surveillance - resulting in a 99.8 percent reduction in flu cases.

According to Baker, there were usually 1600 more deaths in winter, compared to other seasons, and around a third of those were caused by influenza, mostly in older people with long-term health conditions.

"What the Covid-19 response has done has largely eliminated those excess winter deaths and mortality as a whole is down around 5 percent," he said. "So that means an extra 1500 people will survive this year who wouldn't have."

Baker said these measures had led to "a revolutionary change in thinking about how to deal with respiratory pathogens" and could be brought back in the event of a serious flu pandemic.

"These are not measures you would roll out routinely of course, but if we had a particularly severe respiratory disease like a severe flu pandemic ... and it had the same infection fatality risk as we've seen with Covid, that is half a percent or one percent of people dying, then we could think about using these measures again."

However, despite flu numbers being down, lockdown measures had not managed to stop ordinary colds and respiratory illnesses, such as rhinoviruses - which had dropped slightly during lockdown but bounced back soon after.

"A lot does come down to their reservoirs and some are so well-adapted for humans and they're so widespread in the population that they are not affected a great deal by the lockdown."

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018767843/near-extinction-of-influenza-in-nz-as-numbers-drop-due-to-lockdown

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All community cases in New Zealand’s second Covid-19 outbreak have recovered, with the health minister saying the virus has been “squashed”.

The news comes as the Ministry of Health announced there were three new cases of the virus detected in managed isolation on Wednesday.

The ministry said all patients from the recent Auckland outbreak have recovered and there are no active community cases remaining.

“The Auckland August cluster will officially close when there have been no new cases for two incubation periods from when all cases complete isolation,” the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/123009637/covid19-all-auckland-community-cluster-cases-recovered-virus-squashed

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Coronavirus restrictions in New Zealand’s largest city will be lifted this week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday as she expressed confidence a second wave of COVID-19 infections in Auckland has been almost eliminated.

The city will move to alert level 1 from 11.59 p.m. on Wednesday, joining the rest of the country, after reporting no new cases in the Auckland cluster for 10 consecutive days.

“There is now a 95% probability of the cluster being eliminated,” Ardern said at a news conference. “COVID-19 will be with us for many months to come. But we should still mark these milestones.”

New Zealand, a nation of five million, appeared to have stamped out community transmission of COVID-19 earlier this year following a tough nationwide lockdown that was subsequently lifted.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-newzealand/new-zealands-ardern-lifts-coronavirus-restrictions-in-auckland-idUSKBN26Q021?il=0

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Another day of no new cases of COVID-19 has been recorded in New Zealand, the Director-General of Health has revealed.

Tuesday's figures marks the second consecutive day of no coronavirus cases in the community or in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) facilities.

Dr Ashley Bloomfield says three people remain in hospital - one each in Auckland City, Middlemore, North Shore - though none of these patients are in intensive care.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/09/coronavirus-zero-new-cases-of-covid-19-in-new-zealand.html

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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday lifted all coronavirus restrictions across the country, except in second-wave hotspot Auckland, as the number of new infections slowed to a trickle.

Some restrictions were also eased in Auckland to allow gatherings of up to 100 people, but the country’s biggest city needed more time before all curbs could be lifted, Ardern said.

“Our actions collectively have managed to get the virus under control,” she told reporters in Auckland. “This was the centre of the outbreak and that’s why that caution is needed here.”

New Zealand, a nation of five million, appeared to have halted community transmission of COVID-19 earlier this year, but a fresh outbreak in Auckland in August prompted the government to place the city back in lockdown.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-newzealand/new-zealand-ends-all-pandemic-restrictions-outside-main-city-of-auckland-idUSKCN26C02F

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