Auckland in lockdown on eve of COVID vaccinations

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With vaccinations for COVID-19 set to start at the end of the week, the country has gone back into lockdown while the severity of a community outbreak in South Auckland is assessed.

The three community cases are a mother, father and daughter from the same Papatoetoe household.

Authorities are investigating a link to the mother’s work at LSG Sky chefs in Mangere where she handled laundry.

The family spent Waitangi weekend in New Plymouth, and a list of locations of interests has been published in Taranaki, Piopio and South Auckland.

More testing facilities have been set up including one at Papatoetoe High School, where the daughter is a pupil.

At midnight, Auckland was put into level 3 lockdown for three days until Wednesday midnight, meaning schools are shut and people are asked to work from home unless it is impossible to do so.

Supermarkets and pharmacies will remain open.

The rest of the country is now at level 2.

Dr Rawiri Jansen from the Māori pandemic response group, Te Roopū Whakakaupapa Urutā, who has been involved in discussions about the vaccine roll-out, says it’s critical front line workers are first to get the vaccine.

"The group we're going to start with is the real front line in terms of our border. If you visualise that, I'm thinking about cleaners and the people working in the COVID hotels, the nurses and the border staff and the people at the airport. That's great because we can use the vaccine as an additional barrier to the COVID getting in, and then we start thinking about how we get it out to bigger parts of the community," he says.

Dr Rawiri Jansen

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