Dr Ashley Bloomfield dramatically scales back planned event, including cancelling the karaoke, in face of Omicron surge

New Zealand’s Covid chief has had his farewell party scuppered by a rising wave of Omicron cases.

“We’ve canceled karaoke,” the director general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said when questioned about his plans for farewelling the high-stress role. “We’ll do that later in the year, I hope, if the staff still want to come.”

One Auckland school has taken dozens of pupils off its register amid fears some are forced to find work as cost of living crisis hits

New Zealand school principals are raising the alarm that students are falling off the rolls, as a wave of absenteeism follows the disruption of Covid-19.

In 2021, schools in Auckland and parts of the North Island were shut down for weeks or months as the country went into lockdown. Since then, however, principals say a worrying number of students have not made it back to school, or are not attending regularly. Vulnerable students are falling through the gaps and disappearing, despite schools visiting homes and contacting families and neighbours to find them.

Signs that Omicron surge is becoming ‘more intense’, with cases rising steadily and more people in hospital than at any time since April

New Zealand is on the brink of another Omicron wave, experts warn, with average cases rising as immunity wanes, more infectious variants arrive, and winter sets in.

Public health experts, however, are concerned that the public and government are primarily focused on “moving on” from the virus, after the country transitioned out of its Covid elimination strategy – and are not taking the necessary steps to try to reduce transmission.