TLDR & TLDL: It’s a good day to get out your calendars, restart your Christmas planning and get ready to prove your identity because we’ll find out today when (and how) Auckland’s borders will open. And we’ll be able to start setting up and downloading our vaccination certificates. Good luck…
News breaking here and overseas this morning:
the new My Covid Record website crashed just after 7am under the weight of demand from people trying to get their vaccination certificates (NZ Herald);
the Timaru, Waimakariri and Whangārei Councils are taking Local Govt Minister Nanaia Mahuta to the High Court to get a ruling on whether they’re entitled to fair compensation for the transfer of their assets under Three Waters (Stuff’s Steven Walton);
Christchurch Hospital has told GPs it will no longer accept referrals for non-life-threatening surgeries because its waitlist of over 1,000 was “unmanageable (Stuff’s Cate Broughton);(corrected link)
Kiwibank told mortgage brokers it wouldn’t accept mortgage preapprovals for deals done after Friday if they had LVRs over 80%, apart from new builds (Stuff’s Susan Edmunds);
workers stood down for not being vaccinated probably won’t have to wait for the benefit (Stuff);
Pfizer agreed overnight to allow its experimental Covid-19 treatment pill to be made royalty-free and sold in 95 developing nations covering 53% of the world’s population (BBC);
European and British gas prices surged another 20% overnight after Germany’s energy regulator suspended the approval process for the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline designed to pipe Russian gas to Europe via the Baltic Sea and around Ukraine, which argues using the pipeline would increase the risks of a Russian invasion (BBC);
Xi Jinping warned Joe Biden in a three-hour zoom call overnight against ‘playing with fire’ over Taiwan (BBC); and
US stocks firmed 0.5% this morning after US retail sales rose a more-than-forecast 1.7% in Oct from Sept and Walmart raised its profit outlook after a strong sales quarter (US News).
Coming up later today, I’ll be covering the 1pm presser where PM Jacinda Ardern will announce when and how Auckland opens up. My chocolate fish bet is Monday Dec 6, one week after the Nov 29 final cabinet decision on when Auckland (and the rest of NZ) goes to the ‘red’ traffic light, which is like level two, but with vaccination certificates. My pineapple lump bet is Dec 13, after Auckland going ‘red’ within its borders from Dec 6. See more below the paywall fold on this.
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