Coronavirus sparks review
the shots’’, with Civil Defence teams from Marlborough and Nelsontasman working together to provide support.
The plan said working together allowed the neighbouring regions to have a ‘‘consistent approach’’ to their responsibilities, the same levels of service and, if required, share resources.
Teams could help councils with community leadership, provide information to the public, and co-ordinate the delivery of emergency welfare services and resources to affected people.
Paton said organisations part of Marlborough’s ‘welfare group’ would also step up and offer aid to communities affected by the virus.
This included financial assistance to people who’d lost income or family members, through the Ministry of Social Development, arranging for the care of animals, through the SPCA, and counselling for bereaved, through the health board or Red Cross.
Arrangements could also be made for children or people without caregivers, and arrangements made for children temporarily unable to attend school, the plan said.
Civil Defence teams could deliver household goods to people isolated, and could also be required to staff or support cordons in or out of quarantined areas. Civil defence centres were ‘‘highly unlikely’’ to be opened in a pandemic.
‘‘If someone was not able to go to work or to the shops, then it’s providing for all those sorts of needs. It’s all those untended consequences that we have to think about,’’ Paton said.
He said last month at a council meeting that the coronavirus outbreak had developed into a ‘‘rapidly moving situation’’.
Coronavirus was made a notifiable disease last month, giving medical officers of health the power to quarantine people suspected of infection, issue restrictions on movement and travel, and apply for court orders such as for treatment.
The status also made it compulsory for every case of the disease to be ‘‘notified’’, which means that any case discovered by health practitioners must be reported to Government officials.
On Tuesday afternoon, Directorgeneral of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said all but two of the 157 people quarantined at Whangapara¯ oa Reception Centre had left, with one feeling unwell, and the other being their travel companion, who was in ‘‘good health’’.
Director of Public Health Dr Caroline Mcelnay said on Tuesday that Diamond Princess passengers were expected in New Zealand yesterday, and would be taken to the centre for supervised isolation. Kiwis on the Westerdam cruise ship, which docked in Cambodia with a confirmed case of the virus, had returned home and were in self-isolation.
Nelson Marlborough Health spokeswoman Stephanie Gray said on Tuesday the Nelson Marlborough Public Health Service (PHS) was following the guidance of the National Health Co-ordination Centre (NHCC) about the coronavirus outbreak.
‘‘The infection prevention process is very similar to that for other infectious diseases such as influenza and measles,’’ she said.