Weekly Correspondence - 5/8/22 COVID-19 Care in the Community •
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More than 400 pharmacies can now supply oral COVID-19 antiviral medicines Paxlovid and Lagevrio to eligible people who are at a higher risk of becoming very sick, without needing a prescription. This initiative will be offered to all pharmacies in coming weeks and locations of participating pharmacies will be published on Healthpoint. Pharmac has an access criteria assessment tool on its website to help clinicians assess people’s eligibility for funded COVID-19 antiviral treatments.
COVID-19 Response •
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Manatū Hauora/Ministry of Health announced the same vaccination rules for passengers arriving by air will apply to arrivals on cruise ships and recreational vessels with New Zealand’s maritime border fully opening to overseas visitors from 11.59pm on 31 July 2022. A national ‘Masks Matter’ campaign is underway to help get people back on track with those good public health measures that reduce the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. You can print posters about this here. Locations of where people can go to access free masks from COVID-19 testing stations are now on Healthpoint. The COVID-19 Health Hub has a useful isolation calculator for people to use to create an isolation timeline for their household. Guidance for return-to-work of healthcare workers who are COVID-19 cases or contacts has been updated to make it easier to follow and to reflect current settings, although there has been no substantial change to the return-to-work pathways. The Government has today, 1 August, announced a suite of targeted measures to train more health workers domestically and bring more doctors and nurses into the country to help address immediate workforce pressures.
Concluding the use of AstraZeneca as a COVID-19 vaccination • • •
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AstraZeneca will no longer be available in New Zealand after 4 September. New Zealand does not have access to further AstraZeneca doses. We will contact people who haven’t completed their AstraZeneca courses or who have yet to receive a booster to give them the opportunity to make a booking on or before 4 September. The last day people will be able to get the AstraZeneca vaccine is 4 September, as the vaccine stock expires the next day. It is still effective if administered on 4 September. Novavax remains as the non-mRNA option for those not wanting or not being able to have a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. People unable to receive their AstraZeneca vaccination on or before 4 September or who are due their next AstraZeneca vaccination after that, should talk to their doctor or health provider about alternatives.
Advertising an upcoming webinar on surgical mesh harm identification and management •
In conjunction with the MOH, ACC is supporting an upcoming Goodfellow webinar on the identification and management of surgical mesh harm. It will be held on the evening of 23 August. Information about the webinar is here: