Rapid response ‘winning formula’
AUCKLAND: New Zealand’s epidemiologists say the Government’s ‘‘vigorous and rapid response’’ to the latest community outbreak is the ‘‘winning formula’’.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last night announced a rise in alert levels to Auckland, up to Level 3, and the rest of the country to Level 2 after the revelation of three new community cases in South Auckland yesterday afternoon.
University of Otago Wellington epidemiologist Michael Baker said that pinning down the source of the outbreak was key to preventing another stricter Alert Level 4 lockdown.
While Ms Ardern could not confirm the strain last night and instead announced a Level 3 alert, Prof Baker praised that action, stating he ‘‘really supports the measures’’.
‘‘This is absolutely the right thing to do at the moment and I can’t really improve on the words of our leaders here that this vigorous, rapid response is absolutely the way to go. It’s the winning formula.’’
Prof Baker said a short dose of Level 3 should prove far less disruptive in the long term.
‘‘It’s an interim approach. If the evidence shows that this outbreak is small and very well contained we could look at a swift change, but if the outbreak is more extensive like the Auckland August outbreak, which extended to 170 cases and three deaths, it’s a different scenario.
‘‘And this is a more infectious variant probably . . . there’s a higher chance that it will be but this gives us time to gather evidence and extend these control measures or not.’’
Associate Prof Siouxsie Wiles, University of Auckland, also agreed with the Government’s move.
‘‘Acting with an abundance of caution is a good idea until we have information about what variant it is. This is just the way that you put a stop on the transmission chain while gathering more information so, hopefully, the three days is all we’ll need.’’
When asked if she thought it could be the more contagious variant which was running rampant around the world at the moment, Associate Prof Wiles said it was well known they were out there so a cautious approach was ‘‘the right call to make’’.
Prof Baker said there was cause for concern as it was yet unclear from where the source of the outbreak stemmed.
Prof Baker said it was likely family members were contagious when they were in New Plymouth as the incubation period alone was ‘‘typically five or six days’’.
‘‘Then people are infectious a couple of days before that, so it’s possible that she was quite infectious a week ago but this will all start to come out with time.
‘‘The thing that concerns is not so much the contacts of these cases, it’s much more about where they got infected from because that’s the difference between a very manageable border failure case and the much tougher community outbreak like the August one in Auckland.’’
Associate Prof Wiles said the new outbreak was in a strange zone as there was no clear link to a border or MIQ worker.
However, there was also the possibility that she knew someone who was and had contact with them while infectious.
It was also a positive that all three cases were in the same family and not in the community.
‘‘There is a potential link to the border through the mother’s workplace so that is another positive but . . . because it is not a direct [border] link, it’s a little sort of more of a stretch I guess, so there are other potential ways that the family could have got infected. So that could be positive, could be negative.’’
Prof Baker told Otago Daily Times reporter Mike Houlahan the new cases reflected a pattern of continuing failure at the border.
‘‘That’s all it can be because that’s the only way Covid19 is coming into New Zealand . . . we all have to lift our game at the moment.’’
Prof Baker said managed isolation facilities were the Achilles heel of the Covid19 response, and the rapid lockdown now in place in Melbourne following a potential outbreak of a British variant of the disease showed there was no place for complacency in New Zealand.
‘‘It seems like we have a run where there are no community cases, we relax, and then we’re surprised when there is a new infection.
‘‘The complexity of this disease means that it is a constant threat and that we must always be vigilant.’’
The ‘‘core elements’’ of the response — managing borders, dampening down transmission hot spots, lockdowns, Alert Levels, testing and contact tracing — needed to be ongoing or ready to be rolled out if needed, Prof Baker said.
‘‘The key dynamic which has changed is that the new variants are just more transmissible . . . an important defence is masks.
‘‘That has been a gap in New Zealand’s response right from the start and I still think it is a bit of gap.’’
‘‘The number of infected people arriving in New Zealand has risen threefold in the last six months . . .’’ — The New Zealand Herald