Tena ra tatou,

Attached is an update regarding COVID, in brief summary from Clair our Hauora Lead.

• Cases are going back up, and despite under-reporting +++, the increase has been greater proportionately for Māori than non-Māori.
• 264 (34%) of cases were in the Far North, 67 (9%) in Kaipara and 449 (58%) in Whangarei District last week. The wastewater detection shows BA.4/BA.5 Omicron subvariants are still dominant.
• Despite persistently marked inequities in vaccine coverage (56% of Māori, 56% Pacific compared with 75% of non-Māori non-Pacific people have received a booster; rates for tamariki Maori are less than 25% for one dose and only 8% for two doses), vaccination uptake is very low now (basically zero for tamariki).
• The Public health intell team has gone back to NOT reporting properly on inequities…