The Prime Minister announced today that from 11:59pm on Wednesday 7 October, the Auckland region will move to COVID-19 alert level 1. 

What does this mean for oral health practitioners?

From Thursday 8 October all oral health practitioners will practise under COVID-19 alert level 1 guidelines.

Until then, practitioners in the Auckland region must continue to practise under COVID-19 alert level 2 guidelines.    

COVID-19 Āwhina app

The Ministry of Health requested we share the following with our oral health practitioners.

Āwhina is a free mobile app that lets health workers access the latest information from the Ministry of Health and other trusted sources. The information in the app is a single source of information about COVID-19 from the Ministry of Health and other trusted sources. The app pushes notifications about updates or new content and allows users to save content in the app for quick access later on.

User feedback on Āwhina:

“For this accurate up to date info, it is a superbly easy way to ensure you are acting in the safest and best possible way for staff and patients.”

Āwhina – latest (September) release features:

• Ability for users to indicate whether articles were useful and the ability to provide feedback on how we can improve these from within the app
• Updated menu items, including a new resource for pressure injuries
• Displaying an app icon badge on all devices (typically a red circle indicating the number of unread updates)
• Improvements to the Notifications list – notifications display in order of most recent first, and the notification bell count updates when articles are viewed in Latest Information feed.

More information and details of how to download the app are on the Health website:  health.govt.nz/awhina

Andrew Gray (Chair) & Marie Warner (Chief Executive)COVID-19 alert level announcement