BB gun assault
A person was assaulted with a BB gun at a park in Masterton at about 2.45pm yesterday. A police spokesperson said one person received minor injuries. Enquiries are ongoing.
Fluorescent fire
A fluorescent bulb fire resulted in Masterton Fire Brigade being called to a commercial premises shortly after 3pm yesterday. Masterton fire station officer Andy Simpson said the power was isolated at the Bannister St shop before it was ventilated of harmful smoke. He said the minor electrical fire was in an older 38-watt ballast fluorescent bulb, which tend to generate a significant amount of heat compared to LEDs. “New LED bulbs are lower wattage, hardly generating heat, making them much safer.”
Covid-19 update
The Ministry of Health [MoH] has reported 168 covid-19 cases in Wairarapa in the past week, one of the lowest rates in the nation. Professor Michael Baker said New Zealand is experiencing its fourth wave of the virus, with numbers doubling in the past seven weeks, hospitalisations increasing, and wastewater testing indicating a significant rise in covid-19 cases in the community. “It’s really important that everyone who has a position in authority thinks about the health of their workforce, and their school population, and the social venues that they operate in,” Baker said. Wairarapa has the fourth lowest total case numbers of covid-19 in the country, and 50 people in the region have died with covid-19 since 2019. West Coast is the region with the lowest number of current cases [117 cases] while Canterbury has the most [2672]. Nationally, there are 14,242 active cases of covid-19. Since the pandemic began, New Zealand has had 230,0696 recorded covid-19 cases, 18,8620 of them re-infections.
Warm nights
The northeasterly wind flow across the country this week will drag warm air from the north down over New Zealand, giving rise to warmer-than-average temperatures for this time of year. Metservice said the most noticeable change will be the warm minimum temperatures across the North Island. “There won’t be any significant cooling between day and night, and it will feel quite muggy overnight.” Most North Island minimums will be 5 to 7 degrees Celsius warmer than average.
