Surge in positive deadly COVID-19 cases returning to NZ from India
There’s been a surge in the number of people returning to New Zealand from India who have tested positive for COVID-19.
It comes at the same time India has overtaken Brazil to become the second worst-COVID hit country. In the last fortnight, 26 people had tested positive after returning from India, 20 of them from one flight alone. Travel to and from India was largely impossibly early in the global pandemic but a recent return of flights has contributed to a rise in the number of imported COVID cases here.
The flights landed in New Zealand on 23 and 27 August - landing in Christchurch with a stopover in Fiji. Since their arrival, 26 people in managed isolation and quarantine have tested positive after they travelled from India.
Of these 20 are from the first flight six from the second. These cases included people, particularly children, who had contracted the disease from other family members. Six of the current cases in managed isolation and quarantine connected to India are children. Economist and epidemiologist Ramanan Laxminarayan said, with the lockdown measures removed, Indian cases were on an upward trajectory.
“The low amounts of testing are no longer a problem just for counting cases, because no one is really keeping track of these reported infections. If you don’t test, then people don’t know that they are COVID-positive and then they are transmitting the infection to people and their families, and workplaces.”
Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan said a lack of testing meant positive cases were likely being under-reported and the real tally could be 50 to 100 times more.