Don’t panic, cope with Covid says Tamihere

Daily case numbers hit 7000 last week.

But John Tamihere says ICU and hospital stays are relatively low.

“Our health system can sustain itself through this wave because the wave is not vicious and vigorous, so we are now starting to over-test in the hope somehow it is going to go through the roof and we go to lockdowns. I don’t see that happening anywhere in the world and it definitely wont happen here so what we’ve got to do is stop panicking people and stop believe the experts know everything now because they are started getting us all stressed and anxiety up going onto Christmas,” he says.

Mr Tamihere says the bigger crisis faced by whanau is their inability to put kai on tables because of low incomes.

The seven day rolling average for Covid 19 cases has risen to 5721.

There were 40,098 new cases reported over the past week and 22 deaths.