Advertise on podcast: Covid Watch

You now no longer need to be vaccinated to visit someone in prison. Corrections has changed its vaccine rules for jails. It's also confirmed that most prison workers soon won't be forced to be vaccinated, but they will have to wait a bit longer for that rule to change. Corrections Deputy National Commissioner Leigh Marsh joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE

Another All Black is out with Covid. Will Jordan is the latest player to get hit with the virus, joining the three coaches and two players already out of the first test. Captain Sam Cane says he might miss the second test as well with the 7-day isolation requirements. Another defeat snatched from the jaws of victory for the Black Caps. This time, England won by 7 wickets at Headingley in Leeds to win their test series 3-0. Once again, the Black Caps found themselves in winning positions but were unable to capitalise. Newstalk ZB Sports reporter Elliott Smith joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE

Just as the excitement was building for the first All Blacks test of the year - Covid has struck. Ian Foster and his assistants John Plumtree and Scott McLeod are out of action with the virus. Add to that midfielders David Havili and Jack Goodhue testing postive. Former Ireland coach Joe Schmidt is being brought in to help - but what does something like this do for preparations? All Blacks assistant coach and the last coach standing Brad Mooar joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE

Covid had struck both the All Blacks and the Irish camps ahead of their first test this weekend. So far, one Irish player, two All Blacks midfielders and three All Blacks coaches have had to isolate after testing positive. As a result, former Ireland coach Joe Schmidt has been called in to help the All Blacks. Former All Blacks coach John Hart joined Heather du Plessis-Allan. LISTEN ABOVE

Joe Schmidt has been called in to help coach the All Blacks in their first test against Ireland at Eden Park on Saturday after a Covid outbreak in camp. Schmidt was not due to start his selector/analyst role with the All Blacks until the Rugby Championship but after head coach Ian Foster, forwards coach John Plumtree and defence coach Scott McLeod all caught Covid, he will now attend team trainings this week. In further disruption for the All Blacks, Crusaders midfielders David Havili and Jack Goodhue have also been removed from the team due to Covid. Crusaders centre Braydon Ennor has joined the squad as cover. Schmidt coached Ireland from 2013-19 – a period that included their first win and maiden home victories against the All Blacks – before returning home last year. Schmidt's intimate knowledge of Ireland's senior players and management (Irish head coach Andy Farrell was his assistant) is sure to prove valuable. Losing their most experienced coaches causes significant disruption for the All Blacks, however. Given the seven day isolation period assistant coaches Brad Mooar and scrum coach Greg Feek, alongside Schmidt, will largely assume the reins. Ian Foster was among the few in All Blacks camp to test positive for Covid-19. Photo / Photosport Havili was expected to start at second five-eighth alongside Rieko Ioane in the All Blacks midfield but Quinn Tupaea may now benefit from his and Goodhue's respective absences. Roger Tuivasa-Sheck also now looms as potential bench cover, although the All Blacks could prefer fellow test rookie Leicester Fainga'anuku. In a statement from isolation, Foster said he is confident in the team's ability to carry on preparing for the first test. "We've had a plan for this happening, and it's a great opportunity for the wider coaching group and the senior players, who will be highly motivated to step up. "We have learned how to cope with the unexpected, like everyone has over the past couple of years. I will still be working alongside the coaches and team via Zoom and I have huge faith in the coaching group and the players. "We have structures in place and everyone is working together." 🗞 SQUAD UPDATE | Head Coach Ian Foster and Assistant Coach John Plumtree have tested positive for Covid 19 and are isolating at home. David Havili and Jack Goodhue have also tested positive and are also not with the team in Auckland. Braydon Ennor has joined the team. pic.twitter.com/upp3GI6chg— All Blacks (@AllBlacks) June 26, 2022 - by Liam Napier, NZ Herald

You’ll be pleased to know you’re not about to hear another white middle-aged man pontificate about abortion.   But I will talk about the effect of the ruling.  That Christopher Luxon felt compelled to make a public statement on the future of this country’s laws based on a decision in another sovereignty with a completely different system shows the emotion and polarity behind the issue.  Now, the decision is not a surprise.  Republicans have been working towards this outcome for years and when it comes to Supreme Court judges, we’re talking very long games.  The Democrats also play the game which is why there was so much pressure on Ruth Bader Ginsburg to resign during Obama’s tenure.  She didn’t, but then died under Trump meaning he had the card to play in the game of “stack the Supreme Court”.  As an outsider I am always amazed at the political influence in choosing the Supreme Court in the United States.  It flies in the face of the traditional pillars of democracy and society.  The four pillars are the judiciary, executive, legislative, and media.  To work properly and to hold each other to account, they need to operate separately.  But in allowing the legislative and executive wings to choose the judiciary that kind of all goes out the window, don’t you think?  Now one of the reasons it resonates in this country is because at the centre of the issue is a state’s power over an individual’s body.  This has been echoed here recently in our vaccination mandates.  Over the weekend I hosted an unvaccinated friend of my son’s and eventually the conversation turned to his motives and concerns. It was emotional and compelling and I was left feeling that he feels a second-class citizen in this country  He asked me, “How can a government tell us we have to have something injected into our bodies”.  It’s a valid question. My way of reasoning was it was a short term measure to get vax rates up.  The mandate was necessary to get to a minimum level of immune resilience to the virus. That resilience was needed to minimise transmission times and maximimise survival rates  To motivate all without a deep-rooted reservation against vaccination..  I thought it was going to be a temporary measure.  Once we reached over 90 per cent vaccination rates I thought that it was mission accomplished and the mandates could ease, which mostly they have.  Except for health workers. A sector suffering huge work force shortages.  I find it hard to reconcile the fact that all New Zealanders can enter the country unvaccinated but an unvaccinated doctor can’t work.  Some may argue it’s the Government’s desire for control. I don’t.  They’re not that organised. It’s a job that’s fallen through the crack and needs to be addressed today.  Lives and livelihoods were taken and they need to be returned right now. 

It’s so good to be back. I was a bit nervous about coming back because when you’ve been sick for three weeks unable to stay awake for long periods and feeling so crap, it’s hard to imagine how you’ll ever get up at 3am again. But as it turns out I was so nervous about being able to wake up at 3am, that my body never actually went to sleep, always the way isn't it. So I'll be having a big Nana nap today. I was feeling so terrible about being off work so long - I feel very deeply my obligation to my audience and it's a dreadful feeling to not feel well enough to show up for you. They say the key to Covid and flu recovery is rest, rest, rest. My doctor kept saying rest, rest and then when you think you’ve rested enough, rest some more. That’s because everyone who has bounced back too early has gone back to square one and I’ve been sent so many horror stories from you guys about Covid turning into Influenza A, like mine did, and how long it took to come back from that.  Some of you are still suffering even after a month. It’s the pits, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so sick. It’s hard when you get Covid, and it's brutal when others – not naming names (my husband) get it and say, “oh it’s a non event!” It’s a unique virus, we all suffer it differently and I am here to say to every single person struggling with it or the fallout from it, I hear you, I feel you. I feel your pain. I of course went and got the triple whammy of Covid, plus flu, plus the Covid reactivated my glandular fever virus from when I was a teenager. Fun fact: that virus lies dormant after you’ve had it, but Covid can kick start it – and in fact it’s kick starting it for a lot of people – it’s a big issue at the moment according to the medical fraternity, so I unluckily enough, got smacked with the trifecta. Hence, such a long time sick. Not that I want to go on about it, but honestly, so sick that even shower water against my skin hurt. Everything ached. That's inflammation for you. But I’ve learned from my illness some good lessons. One, not to ask sick people every day if they’re feeling better yet, because it gets quite depressing when you’re not. Physically, I was a wreck, but mentally I began to go downhill too, because I just wasn’t getting better. Second thing I learned was don’t ask sick people “do you need anything?” The answer will always be no. No one ever wants to bother anyone, so don’t ask, just do. Thirdly I thought I was an empathetic person already, but I have empathy in spades now for anyone suffering any kind of sickness, to feel so debilitated and discombobulated and unable to control your own health outcome. That is a terrifying and awful feeling. I also learned we’re not as invincible as we think we are. So it’s good to be back, and I want to thank everyone who messaged me on my Instagram or emailed me and sent me well wishes or recovery tips and tricks, I so appreciated it. I have the best audience, and the best bosses in the biz too who were so supportive and kind, and for that I’m so grateful. And to Tim and Andrew who filled in for me. It takes a village, thank you.  So onwards and upwards from here, let’s hope I stay awake.

The Act Party wants to see vaccination mandates for health workers scrapped. Hospitals are facing severe staff shortages just as the flu hits and overseas evidence suggests another Covid surge is likely. Act leader David Seymour joined Early Edition. LISTEN ABOVE

MIQ. You'll have heard calls from the Opposition for an apology to some of the New Zealanders who were locked out of the country at the height of the pandemic. And especially pregnant women who couldn't get home to have their babies here. Newstalk ZB is this morning was able to reveal that conversations were had way back in April 2020 about what to do with pregnant women, but nothing was done. This doesn't affect a huge number of people; about 250 made emergency MIQ requests. The bigger issue that MBIE is currently working through is how we operated managed isolation as a whole and how we'd do it again if, heaven forbid, we did have to do it again. Just say there is another pandemic, something we don't know how to deal with in the next five to ten years or so. Look, the response at the time was unquestionably the right thing to do. We had to shut the border, even though it meant refusing entry to New Zealanders who morally and legally had an absolute right to be here if they wanted. They were extraordinary circumstances for sure, but if we had to do it again, would we spend millions turning city centre hotels into holding pens? And planting people who could and often were carrying a dangerous virus right in the middle of our population centres? And then running a lottery for people who, as I said before, legally and morally have an absolute right to be here? I think it is acceptable to require people who might be a health risk to the rest of us, to be kept away from the rest of us until they're safe. But to prevent citizens exercising their right to be on New Zealand soil, I don't think we'll get away with that again.

Why are we still firing nurses over the Covid jab? We have a shortage of 4000 nurses. We have a report that a woman died in Middlemore emergency department of a brain bleed last Wednesday morning because there was an 8 hour wait to see a doctor. We have surgeries being delayed another month in Wellington hospital because there aren’t enough nurses to cope. Palmerston North Hospital is so short staffed it’s being described as unsafe. Christchurch Hospital’s general team has never cared for so many people at once before.                     We are paying south Auckland GPs $1400 an hour to take pressure of Middlemore. And we’re still standing these nurses down form their work. And by the way, we’re not talking about anti-vaxxers. We’re talking about nurses who’ve had two jabs but simply don’t want to get a third. So what? About a million Kiwis did exactly the same thing: got two jabs, skipped the third. As I say, we have a shortage of 4000 nurses and we’ve stood down another 518 for the booster. If you go into hospital tonight with a brain bleed, do you want a nurse?  Or do you only want a nurse who’s been boosted? If you say you only want a boosted nurse, are you then prepared to take a chance with your life and wait 8 hours so you can see a boosted nurse? What I’m really surprised to hear is that the nurses’ union - the NZNO supports this. Their members do not want to work alongside nurses who haven’t had the booster. And yet look at how many medical staff haven’t had the flu jab: 46 percent. This is so crazy that I can’t quite get my head around it: that we would rather delay operations and leave people living in pain without a hip replacement and we would rather make it even harder for our hospitals to cope right now than let nurses stay at work just because they wouldn’t get a third jab. Crazy.

There are suggestions we may have seen an economic revival of sorts in the month of May. Despite rising costs, the latest BNZ - Business NZ Performance of Services Index shows a surge in sales and new orders for the month of May. The PSI rose 3 points to 55.2, with anything above 50 pointing to expansion, and this is the highest above average income since Delta arrived back in August. Bagrie Economics founder Cameron Bagrie joined Mike Hosking. LISTEN ABOVE  

Today on Newstalk ZB Canterbury Mornings, John MacDonald spoke to Labour's Tracey McLellan and National's Gerry Brownlee on Politics Friday. They discussed today's big news that the Christchurch Santa Parade will now be an indoor event, with a $15 ticket price. John asked if it's time we change our Covid isolation rules, given the widespread impact of influenza at the moment, and the GDP figures - what needs to be done to help New Zealanders now? LISTEN ABOVE