Dozens tied to cluster get vaccine
Dozens of Assemblies of God church members tied to the biggest cluster in Auckland’s Covid outbreak were vaccinated yesterday after getting out of isolation.
While getting their jabs, many shared how hard it had been watching their church family get sick in the past few weeks and how they had supported each other.
More than 500 people from 27 Samoan AOG congregations gathered for a conference in Ma¯ngere last month — an innocent event that became a super spreader event for the highly contagious Delta strain.
At least 363 people linked to the August 15 conference have since tested positive for the virus, and many have gone into MIQ or hospital.
Those who didn’t test positive have been locked down at home for two weeks awaiting their test results.
Church spokesman Jerome Mika said about 70 people linked to the church registered for yesterday’s event, run by South Seas Healthcare Trust in Otara.
Junior Fuimaono, 23, had been at home in isolation for two weeks with his family, including their father, a pastor at the Panmure branch of the Samoan AOG.
Fuimaono works for South Seas’ Healthline and has been doing so from home — but it’s been hard with 10 people in his bubble.
He got his first jab yesterday, with younger siblings Livingstone, 14, William, 16, and Holy, 18.
“It was all right,” he said after his shot. “I was pretty nervous at the start. I’m not good with needles.”
But he had a message for others who felt that way: “I’d encourage them to get their vaccinations — just to work together and to help out each other. Also through the pandemic, to stand in unity.”
He hadn’t been bothered by some of the racist rhetoric he knew was out there since the Samoan cluster hit the news.
“At the end of the day we just pray for them, as our pastors tell us to.”
A Samoan mum of three, who asked not to be named, was getting her first jab, with her sons, 14 and 15. Her shot was fine, though her boys had been “a bit dramatic” about the needle.
The family attend the Ma¯ngere AOG and were considered close contacts of the original case so had isolated at home.
“My kids enjoyed it — for me it was a challenge trying to organise shopping and things like that.”
The boys’ school, Otahuhu College, had been linked to the outbreak, which meant a delay in devices being delivered.
Her isolation period had finished last week as their last known contact was the church event.
“It does get overwhelming, especially when you know that a lot of them are your close contacts,” she said. “When you’ve got a good relationship with a lot of the church members it does get more personal — it hits closer to home.”
Getting vaccinated as a group yesterday had been “so good”. “Knowing that we are in it together, this does truly illustrate that — we are actually here to support one another, we’re not leaving others in the lurch and not caring.
“This goes to show that church can be family.”
Sonyah Tuiala is part of the AOG church’s crisis management team, set up to help get the church through the outbreak. They are looking after those in isolation and MIQ and making sure they have support.
She’s been encouraging their church family to get vaccinated once out of isolation — and got her own first jab yesterday.
“All those who have got negatives for their last two tests could come through.”
Many others had to wait as they had already had their first shot.
South Seas Healthcare chief executive Silao Vaisola-Sefo said yesterday’s event had gone well.
Church members had been pushing to get tested as soon as they were able.
The trust has been running churchby-church vaccination events in since April, often bringing church members in buses, but had to stop when the country went into lockdown.
“We’ve had pop-ups in churches, we’ve had mobile [clinics], it’s always been there. We get numbers, too, but then the challenge is scaling up.”
The Ma¯ngere church group represents at least 363 cases of the 841 cases identified in the country’s latest outbreak.
The combined service on August 15 was held at 33 Andrew Baxter Dr.
The Birkdale social network is the second biggest cluster with 76 people, including the Devonport man who was the first case to be identified in the latest community outbreak.