Freedom calls: One more week until end begins

Extra time in level 4 enables better tracing of contacts and preparation by business

Kiwis can pick up takeaways in a week and may be able to socialise more freely in three weeks after Cabinet’s decision to extend the lockdown until Monday and then spend at least two weeks at alert level 3.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the much-anticipated decision yesterday after deciding that silent community transmission was unlikely to be happening in New Zealand.

“The effort of our team of five million has broken the chain of transmission and taken a quantum leap forward in our goal to eliminate the virus,” she said.

Ardern chose to extend the lockdown by five days — until the end of Monday — to minimise the chances of returning to alert level 4 in future.

It comes at an economic cost of two business days instead of three due to Anzac weekend, but Ardern said it was worth it to be more certain about eliminating Covid-19.

That extra certainty will come from a ramping up of contact-tracing capacity, and tens of thousands of extra tests in remote communities or around cases where the source of infection remains a mystery.

Cabinet’s decision was welcomed by public health experts and businesses seeking clarity about future operations, though the former had concerns about schools and early childhood education (ECE) centres opening and some of the latter wanted the lockdown lifted earlier.

When alert level 4 is lifted at midnight on Monday, April 27, New Zealanders would have spent 33 days living with unprecedented restrictions on movements and activities.

Ardern asked Kiwis to remain lockdown compliant, but businesses are now allowed to return to their premises to prepare to reopen.

Schools and ECE centres are now also allowed back on premises to get ready for a teacher-only day on April 28 — the day after lockdown ends.

Police will still be out in force asking people to justify away-fromhome movements.

Alert level 3, Ardern warned, will see similar restrictions on people’s social lives, and schools will be open but children were asked to stay at home if possible.

But 400,000 to 500,000 more workers will return to their jobs.

On Monday, May 11, Cabinet will assess whether the country is ready to move to alert level 2 on May 12.

Alert level 2 would see most businesses open and some gatherings and socialising allowed, as long as physical distancing of one metre can stay. Children would return to school.

Ardern said extending the lockdown was also recommended by director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield, even though there was high confidence undetected virus outbreaks were not happening.

Several signs indicated this, including a low transmission rate of 0.48 (meaning an infected person on average infects less than half a person), low per capita cases, and one of the lowest mortality rates in the world.

New Zealand also now had one of the highest per capita testing rates in the world, and since April 1 there have been only eight cases where the origin of infection was unknown.

Yesterday there were nine more cases of Covid-19, the same number as the previous day.

There are now 1440 cases, with 14 in hospital and three in intensive care, two of whom are in a critical condition.

With a death toll of 12 and 974 people who have recovered, the number of active cases has now dropped to 454.

Ardern said that elimination didn’t

mean there would be no more cases.

“It means zero tolerance for cases. It means when a case emerges, and it will, we test, we contact-trace, we isolate, and we do that every single time.”

National Party leader Simon Bridges said the Government wasn’t ready to lift the lockdown because it still came up short on testing, contacttracing and the availability of personal protective equipment.

Bloomfield defended the Health Ministry’s contact-tracing, adding that moving from a manual local practice to a nationalised digital system had taken time.

Yesterday Cabinet approved a further $55 million for staffing in public health units and the national contacttracing centre.

Up to 5000 contacts can be traced a day at the moment, but the extra money is hoped to scale that up.

Ardern added that the Covid crisis had exposed shortcomings in the siloed nature of district health boards, and reforms will be looked at after the pandemic is over.

University of Auckland epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson said Cabinet’s decision was “very sensible”.

His research has suggested there are 500 undetected but infectious cases in New Zealand, and the extra five-day window for more testing will allow a handful of those cases to be found.

“The more they test, the more confident we can be that the number of undetected cases is small.”

But he still had concerns about allowing schools and ECEs to open under alert level 3.

Bloomfield said the evidence here

and overseas was that children had low infection rates for Covid-19, didn’t become as unwell when infected, and didn’t tend to infect adults.

But that evidence was new and unclear, according to University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker, who shared concerns about schools and said that children were usually strong transmitters of respiratory viruses.

Baker said Cabinet’s decision had a good chance of success, though modelling had suggested even more time in lockdown to provide even greater certainty.

He applauded the Government for shifting to an elimination strategy four weeks ago. “The decision was huge, and the right one. No other country in the world has done that.”

Business NZ and the Employers and Manufacturers Association welcomed Ardern’s news yesterday because it gave businesses clarity.

“The key point is that we have done a good job of lockdown but we also need to continue managing all our activities safely to ensure that we can get out of level 3 and as soon as possible,” Business NZ chief executive Kirk Hope said.

Ardern hoped the hospitality industry would understand the Government’s extending of the lockdown.

“The best thing we can do for them is to get back to normal life as soon as possible.”

She said extending the lockdown was not a decision taken lightly, but New Zealanders had done what few other countries had been able to.

“We have stopped a wave of devastation. You, all of you, have stopped the uncontrolled explosion of Covid-19 in New Zealand.”

But she said the fight was far from over.

“Stay strong, stay home, be kind. And let’s finish what we started.”