Local Democracy Reporting

Diabetes is the country's biggest and fastest-growing health condition and south Auckland is the region most affected. Ministry of Health figures show in 2020 there were 277,803 people with diabetes, with 47,988 in Counties Manukau alone

Papakura Marae Health Clinic GP Dr Matire Harwood is seeing a rapid rise in Omicron case numbers and most of them are children.

If vaccination rates remain below 90 per cent, health experts fear the worst is yet to come for South Auckland, reports Justin Latif