Chance to get ahead of virus
TODAY’S the day to give the South a literal shot in the arm.
Everyone from health professionals to movie stars will come together to encourage Kiwis to get vaccinated against Covid19 during a Super Saturday filled with events and freebies.
It comes as cases in the latest outbreak continue to mount — 65 new cases were reported yesterday — with increases expected in the coming days.
Southern District Health Board (SDHB) medical officer of health Dr Susan Jack said while the current outbreak was still largely in Auckland, there was a chance to get ahead of the game in the South.
‘‘But we don’t have long — now is the time to be vaccinated.
‘‘We are only as protected as our leastprotected community.’’
While the SDHB was doing well overall with vaccination uptake rates, there was a need to ensure all parts of the community — the young, the old, the people with other health conditions, the people without easy access to healthcare services — were all vaccinated with two doses.
‘‘We need to make access to vaccinations easy and available at times and places that best suit our communities. If we don’t, Covid Delta will find the unvaccinated and people will become unwell and will end up in hospital and ICU.’’
Quality and clinical governance solutions interim executive director Dr Hywel Lloyd said the SDHB was making plans based on modelling of an outbreak in the South causing 300400 community cases.
At that rate it was expected there would be 4080 people admitted to hospital, and 37 intensivecare patients.
However, the numbers would depend on what measures were implemented if a case were discovered in the South.
The current level of vaccinated people in the region meant a lockdown would still be likely, and people’s level of compliance with the rules would have a big impact on the potential spread.
‘‘If people don’t get vaccinated and they ignore the rules, it could be much more than that.’’
It was still important people stayed home if sick and got tested if they had symptoms, no matter how minor.
During Super Saturday in the South, more than 70 locations will take part in the big vaccination push, with many locations taking walkin patients.
The Otago Regional Council is offering free travel on its Orbus Dunedin and Queenstown networks for all passengers today to ensure as many people as possible can travel to vaccination centres. — additional reporting Andrew Marshall
See odt.co.nz for where you can get vaccinated around the South today.
IT turns out, according to a recently released Cabinet paper, that everyone has the right to participate in the ‘‘digital identity ecosystem’’.
Which is nice and reassuring, although odds on many of us had no idea that such a thing existed, let alone that we were allowed to take part in it.
All is revealed in the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Bill, the first reading of which Dunedin Labour MP and Digital Economy Minister Dr David Clark is scheduled to lead off in Parliament next week.
Weighing in at 60 pages of highly technical information it is unlikely to become a bestseller, but for all that the Bill is likely to have more immediate impact on us all than one might have imagined.
That would be because the Government is in the midst of setting up a vaccine passport system, whereby those with their two Pfizer shots on board will be able to access mass gatherings and those who have not hopped aboard the double jab train will not.
A key component to setting up such a passport is for there to be proof of exactly who you are, so national health records can be scanned and your vaccination status updated.
Which is where your digital identity and its associated ecosystem comes in.
As things stand, the main way which you can claim that you are indeed you, should an official website ask that question, is through the Governmentprovided RealMe service.
This will be familiar to anyone who has, for example, interacted online with the Ministry of Social Development, who has taken out a student loan, renewed a passport or had dealings with the Inland Revenue Department.
Sign in through RealMe and the site will accept you really are who you say you are and you can proceed with your business.
It is simple and effective, but by no means problemfree — questions have arisen about security of information and privacy concerns, and they will arise again as RealMe becomes the key to obtaining a vaccination passport.
The efficiency of the service was also called into question last week when it overloaded within hours of the Government announcing the launch of a vaccination certification trial.
Government departments are not the only organisations which use RealMe — several banks do, whose customers were not best pleased at this disruption to their service.
But back to the Digital Identity Services Bill, legislation which began its life before the Covid19 pandemic and which was intended as a law change centred on commercial rather than public health considerations.
Drivers behind included how to manage private sector firms which had realised that there might be a dollar to be made in provision of digital identity services, and how to manage international digital trade — the Cabinet paper suggested there might be between $1.5 billion and $9 billion in it for NZ Inc should a properly functioning digital identity scheme be in place.
The Government is also intending to create a ‘‘consumer data right’’ for individuals, work which will rely heavily on an identity framework being in place.
The Cabinet paper suggests this had been something of a wild west situation up until now as systems and structures have sprung up in an unconsidered and unregulated way.
So, how does Dr Clark envisage we will be safe from predators in this brave new ecosystem?
That would be through a ‘‘trust framework’’, which all identity service providers will need to sign up to and then comply with.
The framework is to be overseen by a governance board made up of people with requisite experience and knowledge in the area, and any changes to the framework will need to be agreed after consultation with the sector and with the privacy commissioner.
The board will oversee a trust framework authority, which will do the nuts and bolts stuff such as accreditation, investigation of complaints and remedying any issues.
This was always going to be important work from a business perspective, but Covid19 sticky beaking its way into the discussion adds a whole other as yet unconsidered dimension to this legislation.
All identity providers, but RealMe in particular, may well find a need to create systems to enable more than a simple sale and purchase agreement for goods or services, and whatever rules that are put in place to safeguard that process will need to have added flexibility for a novel situations which keep on arising in a Covid world.
As the definition of ecosystem says, it is a complex or interconnected system, and it is seemingly getting more complex and interconnected by the day.