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Staff and volunteers entertain people in Auckland on Super Saturday. (Fiona Goodall/Getty)
Staff and volunteers entertain people in Auckland on Super Saturday. (Fiona Goodall/Getty)

The BulletinOctober 20, 2021

The mastermind behind Super Saturday

Staff and volunteers entertain people in Auckland on Super Saturday. (Fiona Goodall/Getty)
Staff and volunteers entertain people in Auckland on Super Saturday. (Fiona Goodall/Getty)

What began as Tamati Shepherd-Wipiiti’s brainstorm ended up as the biggest day in the country’s vaccination programme, Justin Giovannetti writes in The Bulletin.

The story behind Super Saturday. Three weeks before the most successful day in the country’s vaccination programme, Tamati Shepherd-Wipiiti was at home, surrounded by post-its, unicorns and scribbled notes. The ministry of health manager was trying to figure out a way to get more jabs into Māori arms. He spoke with The Bulletin about how the big event came together.

“For Māori we have a few things that motivate us. We are fiercely protective of our whanau and our whakapapa. Another thing that’s really motivating is competition, we love to compete,” he said.

“As a country we’d done very well with the over 65s. Over 90% vaccinated in nearly all DHBs. I had to ask myself: If  ‘protect your whānau’ works for that demographic, what works for 18 to 40-year-olds? It’s competition, it’s sports and it’s a Māori sense of humour. How do we bring those together nationwide? I suddenly thought, ‘Gee, telethon used to be really cool like that.’ We used to get together as a country, could I take that and create a vaxathon?”

Shepherd-Wipiiti is usually a senior health consultant with PWC, but he’s currently on secondment to the ministry of health. His focus is on increasing equity in the country’s vaccination programme. Armed with an idea, he wrote out a one-page concept, shared it with ministers and others in government, and got rapid feedback. They loved it and were willing to fund it. Others may have had similar ideas, but his name is on the plan that became reality.

The deadline was incredibly tight, with an announcement made to the public on October 6. “Usually you have nine months to stand up a telethon, we had 10 days,” he said. Super Saturday was marked as October 16 on the country’s calendars and circled in red ink.

The need for a strong business response. One of the first people to get a call was Rob Fyfe, former head of Air New Zealand and the government’s main conduit with the country’s business community. “I told him there was no way we could do this alone, we need business. He said business will be receptive to any initiative that’ll help get the country open. We started a call out and just had major support, all the big names came forward,” said Shepherd-Wipiiti.

The day quickly morphed into a public-private venture with over $500,000 in donations from industry, along with offers of facilities and help. From a new airliner serving as a vaccination clinic to free KFC, the day became a focal point for New Zealand business. It was a reflection of the small team that brought it together, only four people who themselves represented a merger of business and government.

“I was really surprised with the level of support from private businesses,” said Shepherd-Wipiiti. “It was like we opened a valve and they threw their weight behind the programme. We couldn’t believe what we got. Wow. It’s been tough times for kiwi business but they wanted to be part of it.”

In the end, vaxathon and Super Saturday was a success. Over 130,000 New Zealanders came out for a party and a jab. It was the single biggest day of the vaccination programme for Māori and offered people a splash of entertainment in the middle of gloom, according to Shepherd-Wipiiti.

“We started with: how can we lift our Māori vaccination numbers? And then we thought, if we can make this work for Māori, we’ll make it work for the country. It was fun for everybody,” he said.

“The thing that was really exciting for us was that the health sector has been under a lot of pressure since Covid happened last year. For a lot of them this was a moment to celebrate. Everyone has had a good injection of fun, the element of competition is still there and we want to harness that in the coming weeks to get the job done.”

While another Super Saturday isn’t likely, there could be bigger regional events next month in a final push to get the country’s vaccine programme across the finish line.


This is part of The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s must-read daily news wrap. To sign up for free, simply enter your email address below

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Ashley Bloomfield looks on during a press conference at Parliament (Hagen Hopkins/Getty)
Ashley Bloomfield looks on during a press conference at Parliament (Hagen Hopkins/Getty)

The BulletinOctober 19, 2021

Ongoing mysteries of the delta outbreak

Ashley Bloomfield looks on during a press conference at Parliament (Hagen Hopkins/Getty)
Ashley Bloomfield looks on during a press conference at Parliament (Hagen Hopkins/Getty)

Once a footnote in daily health updates, the number of cases that can’t be linked to the greater outbreak has grown worryingly in recent weeks, Justin Giovannetti writes in The Bulletin.

The mystery count is rising rapidly. One of the numbers that underlines the scale of the delta outbreak and the challenge faced by contact tracers is the number of “unlinked cases” reported daily. Cases that scrutiny and contact tracing simply can’t link back to the greater outbreak. When the chains of transmission are well known and the tentacles of cases can be linked, the number of unlinked cases should head back to zero over time. Instead, it’s soaring.

Just over a month ago, the ministry of health began reporting how many cases remained a mystery across the previous fortnight. When Auckland was in level four lockdown, the number was hovering around a dozen per day. The number increased and dipped as new unlinked cases were detected and older ones were solved. However since the move to level three, the number of mystery cases has shot up. As of yesterday, the tally sits at 140 over the past fortnight.

What does this mean for the delta outbreak? Dr. Dianne Sika-Paotonu, an immunologist from the University of Otago, spoke with The Bulletin about what the mystery cases mean:

“Each of these cases represent potential transmission chains that are unknown and are potentially indicative of delta continuing to spread in our community. These mystery cases could have been passing on the virus and infecting people in the community without their knowledge. We continue to see these appear despite the higher restrictions,” she said.

That likely means that there’s a gap between the number of people with Covid-19 in New Zealand and the number of cases reported every day. Each mystery case could speak to a larger unknown chain of transmission.

“We may have reached the point where people are too afraid to come forward to get tested and that might mean the number being reported at 1pm doesn’t truly reflect the precise number of cases out in our communities,” Sika-Paotonu added.

It’s already impacted contact tracing. Stuff reports that the ministry of health has stopped tracking sub-clusters in the outbreak because the growing number of mystery cases has made it unwieldy. There were more than 30 sub-clusters when the count stopped, and nearly half were no longer linked. According to the ministry, the focus has shifted from trying to create epidemiological links and simply identifying, testing and isolating close contacts.

Mystery cases are also at the centre of Waikato’s lockdown. While Northland is headed back to level two, parts of Waikato will remain in level three and face more restrictions than Auckland until at least the end of the week. While newly reported cases are “broadly linked” in the area, the prime minister said yesterday, an ongoing drip of mystery cases in Waikato has raised concerns. That’s the issue with unlinked cases: if they remain a mystery after a few days, they might indicate that you don’t know as much about an outbreak as you’d like.


This is part of The Bulletin, The Spinoff's must-read daily news wrap. To sign up for free, simply enter your email address below

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