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Download AudioCovid has come to Te Tairāwhiti, and a hapū leader says the community is now having to deal with the problems it warned about for the past two years.
A quarter of the residents of Ruatoria have or have had Omicron, and the surge still has a few weeks to run.
Tina Ngata, who faced criticism for organising hapū checkpoints during earlier outbreaks, says despite the warnings there has been no increase in health services to that part of the East Coast, which is up to five hours away from a hospital.
She says people who called the checkpoints vigilantes didn’t understand the reality of living in an isolated rural community that has been left to its own devices with poor housing and minimal medical services.
“All that means we have whānau with poorer housing and poorer health that is related to that housing and that kind of health is usually respiratory conditions like asthma, bronchiolitis, but also lifestyle conditions like diabetes and also cancers and rheumatic fever and all of these things are a Covid risk on top of the socioeconomic Covid risk factors, so we’re a little bit of a perfect storm,” Ms Ngata says.
She says the area’s health workers are starting to get hit by Covid, either getting it themselves or having to isolate because family members have it.
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