Call to build special quarantine facilities
AUCKLAND: One of the country’s top public health academics thinks the Government should stop using hotels to quarantine people who test positive for the virus.
University of Otago professor of public health Nick Wilson says if officials are serious about wanting to reduce another large outbreak, purposebuilt facilities should be used.
‘‘[The Government] should also seriously study the pros/ cons of purposebuilt quarantine facilities in places such as Ohakea air base,’’ he told the Science Media Centre.
‘‘A costbenefit analysis that took into account the huge economic cost of the recent Auckland outbreak, might tip the balance towards having a highquality approach to quarantine facilities.’’
It comes as director of public health Caroline McElnay confirmed there were 12 new cases of Covid19 yesterday, all in managed isolation.
Ten of the cases arrived on flight AI1354 from India on Saturday
The large number of cases arriving into New Zealand imposed extra burden and risk on to the quarantine system, Prof Wilson said.
‘‘It should prompt serious work by health authorities to lower the risks further.
‘‘This could be by requiring pretest screening (a negative PCR test for the pandemic virus in the 48 hours before departure) in countries with high pandemic spread and where cases exceed a particular threshold of new cases per million population per day.
‘‘This threshold should be set at a level to cover those on flights from countries with poorly controlled pandemic spread such as the UK, the US and India.’’
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said predeparture testing would not automatically make New Zealand’s border protection stronger.
‘‘Where you are around the world depends on whether you’ve got the possibility of doing those predeparture tests or not.’’
In India specifically, one of the issues has been the ability to test at the border predeparture.
‘‘We would literally have to have health people on the ground in order to do that.’’
Prof Wilson said a negative test before flying would reduce the burden on the quarantine system here and it would also reduce the risk of outbreaks spreading on planes. — The New Zealand Herald