Brazilians seek Kiwi nous to beat Covid
Hamilton is being heralded as an ‘‘exemplary’’ example of a city that fought coronavirus – and won.
Mayor Paula Southgate spoke about the city’s experience battling Covid-19 to Brazilian mayors during a panel discussion yesterday.
Brazil’s National Front of Mayors (FNP) helped organise yesterday’s online forum and said one of the main challenges its country faces was a lack of cohesion around measures to fight the virus.
Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has dismissed the virus as just a ‘‘little flu’’ despite the country’s Covid-19 death toll exceeding 52,000.
Porto Alegre Mayor Nelson Marchezan Junior took part in yesterday’s discussion and said 66 people had died from coronavirus in his city alone.
Southgate said central government has led New Zealand’s response to the coronavirus pandemic but such efforts wouldn’t have been successful without local government and ‘‘local leadership’’.
‘‘We were in charge of implementing the rules and procedures the Government put in place,’’ she said.
During the country’s lockdown, the city council worked closely with Waikato mayors and Civil Defence staff, ensuring information was shared quickly.
‘‘The key role we played was coordinating other community groups to do things, so that we didn’t have duplication of either resources or activities,’’ Southgate said.
During the online forum, Southgate revealed Hamilton had been selected to have a quarantine hotel for New Zealanders arriving from overseas.
‘‘We had a few little errors at a [central] government level around managing quarantine and repatriation of New Zealand citizens, and there was a little burst out of Covid and that’s how little space it needs to fire off again,’’ she said.
‘‘So we’ve got to do a good job of making sure people who come across our borders go straight into that [Hamilton] hotel and have no chance, zero chance, of infecting anyone else and that’s pretty important to me.’’
Southgate said Hamilton had experienced one cluster of Covid 19 cases – Atawhai Assisi Home and Hospital – but that had been ‘‘extremely well contained’’.
Following the easing of lockdown restrictions, the council worked with businesses to help them open, such as granting restaurants more footpath space, so they could spread out diners.
Speaking earlier at the city council’s community committee meeting, Southgate said Hamilton is acknowledged as being exemplary in the way it coped with Covid-19.