Families struggle to feed kids as daycares closed and the friendly faces of blood donation in lockdown

[18 people with Covid-19 are in Middlemore Hospital]( Almost all of New Zealand’s Covid-19 cases in hospital are Pacific people, the Ministry of Health has revealed. At Sunday’s 1pm press conference, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said there were 34 community cases currently in hospital – [32 of whom are Pasifika people](. Bloomfield added that a significant portion of those people are aged under 30. Pacific people make up most of the Covid-19 cases in the current Delta outbreak and are one of the most vulnerable groups because of their higher rate of underlying health conditions, which south Auckland GP Dr Api Talemaitoga said was to be expected. “That is why one of the arguments we made was to prioritise vaccination to Pacific and Māori, as opposed to the other groups," he added. Last week, leaders of the Assembly of God Church of Samoa NZ in Māngere at the centre of the largest sub-cluster spoke out about the [strain it has put on their community]( which had [received racist vitriol online](. “You would hope that Aotearoa is a mature society, where there is only a minority that have that opinion," church spokesman Jerome Mika said. Read more about that here [Read more]( [Families struggle to feed children with schools and daycares closed]( [The friendly face for people donating blood during lockdown]( [Auckland's Zoom mayor working alone in a council skyscraper]( [Auckland woman charged for allegedly forging mask exemption document]( You've received this email because you have opted in to receive Your Auckland from Stuff Did a friend forward this to you? [Sign up to get Your Auckland]( to your inbox [Unsubscribe]( [Newsletter Settings]( [Privacy Policy]( [Advertise]( [Feedback](