Covid-19: PM's plea to businesses - check your staff are following the rules

Sunday, 28 February 2021

Grant Robertson announces wage subsidy plan for Auckland businesses.

After revelations that multiple people who have Covid-19 went to work while infectious, the Prime Minister has asked employers to ensure their staff are following the rules and restrictions.

On Tuesday, the Kmart store in Botany, east Auckland was confirmed as a “location of interest”. A teenager who tested positive had gone to work at the shop while contagious – leading to hundreds of other staff and customers who had been at the store while the person was on shift being asked to self-isolate.

Three days later, the Ministry of Health announced that another case linked to the same cluster of infections had gone to work at KFC in Botany while they had been contagious.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern issued a plea to businesses to do their bit to stamp out Covid-19 on the first day of Auckland's fourth stint at alert level 3.

A third case had also been out in the community while they had symptoms, prompting the Government to move the Auckland region to alert level 3 and the rest of New Zealand to alert level 2 for a week from 6am on Sunday.

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During a media conference on Sunday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she had another request for businesses: “Please check with your workforce to see if any are close or casual contacts of any of these cases or have visited any of the sites of interest'.

Kmart in Botany underwent deep cleaning after a staff member who later tested positive for Covid-19 went to work while infectious.

Businesses should then ensure any of their staff who were meant to be in isolation stayed home.

“Make sure they don’t come to work and that they get tested,' Ardern added.

“Beating Covid is a team effort and, despite our best efforts to date, recent cases have gone to work when they shouldn’t have.

“All of us need to do what we can to ensure that those who are most at risk of having the virus are staying at home. Doing so will help us get back to lower alert levels quicker and ultimately keep everyone safe.”

She said larger organisations, such as multinationals, should already have robust protocols in place to do this.

Businesses that had seen a significant downturn during the alert level changes could access the wage subsidy while restrictions were in place, Ardern said.

Employers across the country who qualified for the scheme could receive weekly payments of $585.80 per full time employee and up to $350 per part-time employee.

Businesses that get the subsidy are expected to top-up workers’ pay to at least 80 per cent of their usual wages and salaries if they can afford to.

Ardern said the Government hadn't been told of any cases where employers weren't topping up the payments, but she would like to hear of any such instances.

Businesses could also get a short-term absence payment if one of their workers was staying at home or waiting for the result of a Covid-19 test.

“We know staying at home is hard for many families. The Government has taken action to ensure whānau are supported to break the chain of transmission,” Ardern said.

The Ministry of Health said 11 staff members at KFC Botany who worked at the same time as the infected person had been tested for Covid-19 on Saturday. Four of them had received negative results so far.

All 33 Kmart workers considered “close-plus' contacts of that case had also tested negative.