Dr Rawiri Taonui says dropping Auckland to level 2 will put Māori at risk.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to announce today whether or not Auckland will move down alert levels this week.
But Tainui says too many Māori are affected by the Delta outbreak and he hopes that will stop the alert level drop.
“The total number of Māori cases in the outbreak is now greater than the total number of cases for the Pākehā, Asian, Middle East, Latin and American (MELAA) community.”
According to the Ministry of Health, the latest statistics show out of the 263 active cases, 97 are Māori, 103 are Pacific peoples, 23 are Asian and 28 are MELAA.
“The gap is getting even bigger,” says Taonui. “There’s ongoing transmission and it’s at the very margins of our society particularly Māori society, and with more people travelling around in Auckland in level 3 it’s been harder to track that down.”
Taonui says level 2 for Auckland could stimulate a further outbreak in and beyond Tāmaki.
Delta is also getting into marginalised groups such as people in gangs and transitional housing who are at risk, he says.
“They’re not people that trust mainstream so they haven’t had good life experiences with schools, justice systems and in health and so they’re not pushing themselves forward for testing.
It takes a lot of work to work with those people and we’re in a situation where the bulk of our health effort is being pushed towards vaccination and so that represents the potential for Delta to stay mobile across Auckland and eventually beyond Auckland.”
The government will announce Covid alert levels at 4pm today. You can watch live it live on Māori Television, at the Te Ao Facebook page and on the website.
