Jorge is at home all day on ACC from a motor bike accident. He has plenty of time to think about things and sensibly decides we need another fridge. Of course he has a Uruguayan friend who works in refridgeration. Sorted in 5 minutes. He's easy to get used to living with but I need to sort out the cupboards. And the garage. Judith arrives on Saturday and helps. I'm grateful as I've lived with stuff in boxes for so long it's hard to see the wood for the trees. She gets rid of my glass bottle stash.
Social bowls is the order of the week at PHS and I skipper an English team. It's hot and I swim at Taylor's where there are so many jelly fish eggs I can scoop them up with my hands. It's like swimming through lumpy, gelatinous sago pudding. Another climate change, change along with warmer sea water. It's Covid quiet so I invite people over for a dessert, film party on Saturday to avoid house bound syndrome. Tina arrives on Sunday with a hiss and a roar. She's lively, talkative and anxious about her new job at Harcourts Gold. I'm sure we'll hear more. Bertie designs and makes a wedge to put behind the book shelves which are going in Jorge's room which will mean I can unpack some of the boxes and boxes of books.
I finally get Kahu round for a birthday meal. He's happy to be living somewhere else but I can see he's a bit startled by all the new people in the house. I'm happy he's living elsewhere so we can both get on with our lives and have more harmonious conversations when we do meet up.
The weather goes back to grey but swims are not freezing like they used to be in this weather. The water is too unseasonably warm for that. Meanwhile in Ukraine the war of occupation goes on, in Wellington, at Parliament, anti-mandate protestors occupy the grounds, make a lot of noise, and a general nuisance of themselves while Covid unwinds.
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- 21,015 new community cases
- 12 new cases identified at the border
- 773 cases in hospital
- 4817 total PCR tests in the last 24 hours
- 8,970 booster doses administered yesterday
Update from the Ministry of Health, Changes to reporting COVID-19 deaths
From today, the Ministry of Health is moving to a new approach to reporting deaths of people who have COVID-19.
We will automatically report all deaths of people who die within 28 days of testing positive for COVID-19. This is the approach used by the UK and many other countries. As of today, this number is 81.
We will also be providing the following additional details that will include some deaths reported outside of the 28 day window:
- People for whom it is clear that COVID-19 is the cause of death. As of today, this number is 34.
- People who had (or were subsequently found to have) COVID-19 when they died but their cause of death was clearly not COVID-19 related. As of today, this number is 2.
- People whose cause of death is still under investigation e.g. it is being considered by the Coroner, but we know they had COVID-19 when they died. As of today, this number is 48.
How the Parliament protest was brought to an end
From The Detail, 5:00 am on 4 March 2022
Photo: RNZ
After 23 days, the occupation at Parliament was finally brought to a chaotic and violent end. The Detail talks to two reporters who were there as it all unfolded.
Torn tents, burnt trees and a scorched lawn were all that remained on Wednesday night of the 23-day protest on Parliament Grounds.
That morning, when the operation to clear the occupation began, RNZ’s Charlotte Cook and Stuff’s Thomas Manch had arrived before daybreak.
Even before the first clashes erupted between the police and protesters, there was a sense of tension.
“We had some suspicion that something was going to happen,” says Manch.
“You don't get 500 police officers in a city without people noticing.”
For an hour it was quiet, but the protesters seemed agitated.
They knew something was up, too.
“They'd been talking about it on their channels, they'd noticed some of the signals that we'd noticed,” says Manch.
Protest security guards were communicating on their walkie-talkies and flashing strobe lights in the faces of the reporters.
“And then the police helicopter was in the air, that was the start of it, that was the beginning,” says Manch.
Cook watched police officers come out of the back of Parliament, march past Lambton Quay and along Stout Street. The protesters were yelling.
“They were upset, they knew something was going to happen but what that looked like they weren't sure".
