Boost defences as we wait

As soon as journalists heard the Government was reviewing the Covid traffic light system, they started asking me whether we should be getting rid of masks and moving to green.

Here’s my answer: those are the wrong questions to ask.

The right question is this: if we want to get rid of masks and/or move to green, what public health measures will we need in place to minimise the impact of Covid-19?

Because no matter how much we all wish the pandemic was over, it isn’t. We’re just in the lull between waves. It’s sad how quickly we’ve come to accept a new normal of daily deaths and thousands of cases a week impacting on everything from whether buses can run to schedule to our favourite local business having enough staff to operate.

It reminds me of an earlier pandemic. In 1981 a new disease was recognised in the United States. The virus responsible was identified in 1982. In the 40 years since, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has caused an estimated 40 million deaths worldwide.

We’ve certainly come a long way since 1981. For people able to access treatment, HIV is no longer a death sentence. But for those who can’t get treatment, the average survival time after infection is a little over 10 years.

I know it’s starting to feel like Covid-19 has been around forever, but we are only in the early stages of this pandemic. That means we know quite a bit about the ‘‘acute’’ stage of the disease – what happens to us in the short term after getting infected. Thankfully we now have vaccines and antivirals to help prevent the worst outcomes.

But what the virus does to our bodies in the medium to long term is anyone’s guess. What I can tell you is the data isn’t looking good.

It’s now very clear that some people will experience a variety of debilitating symptoms for months and potentially even years after getting Covid.

Then there’s the emerging evidence that even a mild infection can increase your risk of having a stroke or heart attack in the weeks and months afterwards. Some people have developed appendicitis. Others have had a nasty case of shingles. There’s even data suggesting that the virus may impact sperm production and motility, at least for a few weeks after an infection.

I firmly believe that if we don’t understand what’s at stake, we risk accepting a lot of preventable disability and death and ongoing disruptions.

The best public health measures are ones that work invisibly in the background or become so commonplace that we don’t notice them any more. Like treating our drinking water. Or pasteurising our milk. Or wearing a seatbelt.

If we want to get rid of masks, we need to replace them with things that will minimise the harm and disruption this awful new airborne virus causes. Improving ventilation, purifying the air, and good use of rapid antigen tests are the measures that immediately spring to my mind.

In other words, we should be using this time between waves to shore up our protections, not abolish them.

Dr Siouxsie Wiles MNZM is an awardwinning microbiologist and science communicator based in Auckland.