Kia ora

 

Thank you for taking the time to write to Hon Chris Hipkins, Minister for
COVID-19 Response, Minister of Education, Minister for the Public Sector
and Leader of the House.

We are receiving a significant amount of correspondence at the moment and
although your email will be carefully considered and noted, it is not
possible to respond to each individual email. However we will endeavour
to respond to your individual queries as soon as we can.

In the meantime, information about the COVID-19 Protection Framework can
be found here:
[1]https://covid19.govt.nz/traffic-lights/c...
and guidance for businesses can be found here:
[2]https://www.business.govt.nz/covid-19/
Current locations of interest are set out
at [3]https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/dise...
encourage anyone who has been at one of the locations of interest at the
time specified to self-isolate and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453. 

 

You can find the nearest testing centre to you
at [4]https://www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19/ and your nearest
vaccination centre at
[5]https://www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19-v.... You can also book
your vaccination at [6]https://bookmyvaccine.covid19.health.nz/ or by
calling 0800 28 29 26.

 

To get your My Vaccine Pass online head to
[7]https://mycovidrecord.health.nz/ or for help over the phone you can
call 0800 222 478 between 8am and 8pm, 7 days a week. Those pharmacies
giving COVID-19 vaccines can also help with My Vaccine Pass face to face,
and can be found here:
[8]https://www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19-v...
.

We appreciate that this is a challenging time. If you need to talk, you
can call or text 1737 at any time. Mental health and wellbeing resources
are also available
at [9]https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/dise...
about the financial support available to individuals and businesses can be
found
at [10]https://covid19.govt.nz/business-and-mon....

We also understand that there are several other aspects to the response
that are very important to people. You can find more information about:

o Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ)
at [11]https://www.miq.govt.nz/, including how to request an emergency
allocation
at [12]https://www.miq.govt.nz/travel-to-new-ze...
make a complaint or request a review of your application by
emailing [13]https://www.miq.govt.nz/about/contact-us....
o Travel with Australia
at [14]https://covid19.govt.nz/travel/quarantin...
you are in Australia, please register
at [15]https://www.safetravel.govt.nz/ and if it is an emergency,
contact the Consulate on +64 99 20 20 20.
o Vaccine data and statistics
at [16]https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/dise...
Medsafe’s vaccine safety monitoring reports
at [17]https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/COVID-19/vac...
o The Government’s plan to reconnect New Zealand with the rest of the
world
at [19]https://covid19.govt.nz/reconnecting-new....

Please remember to take care, and be kind. We have beaten COVID-19 before,
and we can do it again.

Ngā mihi,

Office of Hon Chris Hipkins

Minister for COVID-19 Response | Minister of Education | Minister for the
Public Sector | Leader of the House | MP for Remutaka

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Kia ora Scott,

 

Thank you for your request for official information. The Minister's Office
reference number for your request is: CHOIA197

 

Please be advised that due dates for requests received from 29 November
2021 onwards take into account the following periods:

 

Christmas (25 December 2021)

Summer Holidays (25 December to 15 January)

New Year's Day (1 January 2022)

Day after News Year's Day (2 January 2022)

 

Your request has been logged and you can expect a reply no later than
February 1 2022 as required under the Official Information Act 1982.

 

Due to the COVID-19 global pandemic response, the Minister is experiencing
significantly higher volumes of queries and requests for information. If
we are unable to respond to your request within this time frame, we will
notify you of an extension of that time frame.

 

If you have any queries related to this request, please do not hesitate to
get in touch.

 

Ngā mihi,

 

[1]cid:image001.jpg@01D433B3.8E157340 Daniel
Martin
Health
Private
Secretary

Office of
Hon Chris
Hipkins   

Minister
for
COVID-19
Response |
Minister
of
Education
| Minister
for the
Public
Service |
Leader of
the House

Parliament
Buildings,
Private
Bag 18041,
Wellington
6160, New
Zealand

 

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Dear Scott,

Please find attached letter from Hon Chris Hipkins in response to your email of 14 November 2021.

Kind regards,

Office of Hon Chris Hipkins
Minister for COVID-19 Response | Minister of Education | Minister of the Public Service | Leader of the House
Parliament Buildings, Private Bag 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

show quoted sections

Thank you for your email.

 

Please accept this as acknowledgement that your email has been received by
my office.

 

General COVID-19 information and testing

 

All the latest COVID-19 information can be found at [1]covid19.govt.nz

 

Locations of interest [2]can be found here. You can also call Healthline
free on 0800 611 116 for health advice and information, including where to
get tested.

 

We are currently in phase 3 of the response to Omicron. You can find more
information about what that means [3]here.  

 

Vaccination

 

To get your COVID-19 vaccination head
to [4]bookmyvaccine.covid19.health.nz or to the [5]Healthpoint website to
find a vaccination site near you.

 

For help with My Vaccine Pass you can call 0800 222 478 or head
to [6]mycovidrecord.health.nz to get it online.

Managed Isolation

The Government has announced its 5-step plan to re-open New Zealand
borders, commencing 27 February. Please carefully read the
steps [7]here as you may not be required to enter MIQ depending on the
date and location you wish to travel from, and visa requirements.

 

Anyone with queries regarding MIQ should contact +64 4 931 5720 if you’re
overseas (rates will apply) or 0800 476 647 if you’re in New Zealand.

You can also submit an enquiry via the [8]MIQ website.

 

Anyone with queries about changes to flights should
email [9][email address] with a copy of their original flight
ticket and their voucher, and details of the new flight number. This email
is monitored 24/7.

MIQ will continue to process [10]Emergency
Allocation and [11]Exemption requests. If you require an update on an
existing application then you can view the live status of your application
via the MIQ customer portal at any time.

Future room releases will be announced on the MIQ website and social media
platforms.

COVID-19 Protection Framework

 

If you have questions about the traffic light system, you can [12]make an
enquiry here.    

We appreciate your patience. 

Thanks again.
Authorised by Chris Hipkins MP, Parliament Buildings, Wellington

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Kia ora Scott,

Thank you for your email regarding the proactive release of COVID-19 Response Weekly Reports.

The consultation process for preparing the proactive release of these reports has not yet been completed which has meant the timetable for release provided to you earlier was incorrectly a little optimistic. Nevertheless, it is expected that the Weekly Reports for July and August will be released during the week of 11 April, September during the week of 18 April 2022 and November the week after. Where possible, the reports will be released earlier than these dates.

We apologise for these delays.

Regards

Failagi Filipo| Office of Hon Chris Hipkins
Minister for COVID-19 Response | Minister of Education | Minister of the Public Service | Leader of the House
Parliament Buildings, Private Bag 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

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Kia ora Scott,

We would like to provide an update on the proactive release status of the Weekly Reports. We had previously indicated that the July and August reports were expected to be proactively released this week - there has been a slight delay and these are expected to be published next week. We will advise you once this has been done. Likewise, the September and November reports are likely to be published a week later than previously advised.

We acknowledge these delays are longer than anticipated and once again we apologise for this.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards

Failagi Filipo | Office of Hon Chris Hipkins
Minister for COVID-19 Response | Minister of Education | Minister of the Public Service | Leader of the House
Parliament Buildings, Private Bag 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

From: Scott [mailto:[FYI request #17953 email]]
Sent: Monday, 14 March 2022 6:13 PM
To: C Hipkins (MIN) <[Chris Hipkins request email]>
Subject: Re: Letter from Hon Chris Hipkins - OIA0550

Dear Office of Chris Hipkins,

I am emailing to follow up on my request of 14 December for copies of COVID-19 Response Weekly Reports (CHOIA1947), which you informed me in your response of 2 February would be refused under section 18(d) as the information would soon be made publically available.

In your response letter you provided me with a timetable of when the information would be proactively released on the Unite Against COVID-19 website:

https://fyi.org.nz/request/17953/respons...

The first two tranches of relevent information were scheduled for release by the end of February according to this timetable, but this doesn't appear to have occured yet. Are you able to give me an update on when this release is now scheduled to occur?

Yours sincerely,

Scott

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Kia ora Scott,

This is to confirm that the Weekly Reports for July and August are available online:

https://covid19.govt.nz/about-our-covid-...

Thank you for your patience.

Regards

Failagi Filipo | Office of Hon Chris Hipkins
Minister for COVID-19 Response | Minister of Education | Minister of the Public Service | Leader of the House
Parliament Buildings, Private Bag 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

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Kia ora Scott,

This is to confirm that the Weekly Reports for September and October are available online under the "Proactive releases - 3 May 2022" heading at the following link:

https://covid19.govt.nz/about-our-covid-...

Thank you for your patience.

Regards

Office of Hon Chris Hipkins
Minister for COVID-19 Response | Minister of Education | Minister of the Public Service | Leader of the House
Parliament Buildings, Private Bag 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

show quoted sections

Thank you for your email.

 

Please accept this as acknowledgement that your email has been received by
my office.

 

General COVID-19 information and testing

All the latest COVID-19 information can be found at [1]covid19.govt.nz

For information on testing go
to [2]https://covid19.govt.nz/testing-and-trac...

You can also call Healthline free on 0800 611 116 for health advice and
information at any time.

 

Vaccination

To get your COVID-19 vaccination head
to [3]bookmyvaccine.covid19.health.nz or to the [4]Healthpoint website to
find a vaccination site near you.  

Getting your booster is as important as ever. Even if you aren’t due yours
yet, book it in now at the website above.

COVID-19 Protection Framework

The COVID-19 Protection Framework has been simplified. For information
about what to do at Orange go
to: [5]https://covid19.govt.nz/traffic-lights/l...

If you have questions about the traffic light system, you can [6]make an
enquiry here.    

 

We appreciate your patience. 

Thanks again.
Authorised by Chris Hipkins MP, Parliament Buildings, Wellington

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References

Visible links
1. https://covid19.govt.nz/
2. https://covid19.govt.nz/testing-and-trac...
3. https://bookmyvaccine.covid19.health.nz/
4. https://www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-19-v...
5. https://covid19.govt.nz/traffic-lights/l...
6. https://covid19.govt.nz/about-this-site/...

Kia ora Scott,

Thank you for your email. We expect the November and December Weekly Reports to be proactively released by the end of this week. We will let you know as soon as they have been uploaded.

Thank you for your patience.

Regards,

Office of Hon Chris Hipkins
Minister for COVID-19 Response | Minister of Education | Minister for Public Service | Leader of the House
Parliament Buildings, Private Bag 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

show quoted sections

Kia ora Scott,

This is to confirm that the November Weekly Reports have now been published.

https://covid19.govt.nz/about-our-covid-... Proactive Releases 27 May 2022.

Regards

Office of Hon Chris Hipkins
Minister for COVID-19 Response | Minister of Education | Minister for Public Service | Leader of the House Parliament Buildings, Private Bag 18041, Wellington 6160, New Zealand

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