Blog

New Zealand needs more local research to quantify the true cost of long covid, a briefing paper said. Photo: FANATIC STUDIO / SCIENCE PHOTO L Based on recent Australian research, the economic cost of long covid in New Zealand was likely around 0.5 percent of GDP, or $2b, a year. More local research was needed to quantify the true economic cost. Meanwhile, efforts should be made to prevent infection with better ventilation in schools and workplaces and tweaks to the vaccination programme. Occupational and social support also needed to be strengthened including extended sick leave policies and comprehensive rehabilitation programmes. Researchers estimate long covid is costing the economy $2 billion a year in lost productivity. On Monday, the Public Health Communication Centre published ...

Photo: AFP Inland Revenue is giving hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' details to social media platforms for marketing campaigns, using an anonymisation tool that top international regulators say is inadequate at protecting people's personal information. David Buckingham, a Queenstown employment relations consultant who spotted the practice, said it was a mass "betrayal" of taxpayers. Buckingham said taxpayers had no choice but to give many personal details and their tax status to Inland Revenue, only for the details to end up with Facebook and LinkedIn, bolstering individuals' profiles that the big tech companies grew and traded. Inland Revenue told him that neither he, nor anyone else, could opt out of having their details provided to the firms, he told RNZ. In a statement, Inland Rev...

Photo: chatchaiyo/123RF A 916.67 percent investment gain in one year might be difficult to get your head around - but it is the best annual share performance of any company listed on the NZX in the last 10 years. The New Zealand stock exchange has provided data showing the most significant on-year movements over the past decade. The data assumes net dividends are reinvested and adjusts for capital events. Pacific Edge's share price increased 916.67 percent in 2020. It started the year at 12c and ended it at $1.22. It has since fallen away again, to 10c. "It's important to look at everything in context," Devon Funds head of retail Greg Smith said. "While it had a big run in that particular year, look at the bigger picture and it's lost 99 percent of its value from the peak. It was a big-s...