Level 4 to stamp out new strains: Scientists

A lengthy level 4 lockdown would be needed to stamp out new strains of Covid-19 if they entered the community, scientists say.

The warning comes as iwi leaders join calls for New Zealand to limit the number of people arriving in the country, particularly from places where the new strains are rife.

On Monday it was revealed 19 cases of the United Kingdom strain had been detected since December 13. One case of the South African variant has been found.

Professor Michael Plank, Te Pūnaha Matatini and University of Canterbury, said the new variants had “potential for explosive exponential growth”.

Plank said the higher infection rate raised the risk of the variant leaking through our border because there was a greater chance of a quarantine worker getting infected.

Consequently if there was a community outbreak, it would spread much faster and lead to much bigger outbreaks because it was compounded by exponential growth.

Plank said if there was a community outbreak, there could need to be stricter restrictions to bring it under control.

“All the tools we have developed

And restrictions might need to be in place for longer to eliminate the virus. Professor Michael Plank

to fight Covid-19 will still be effective, but we will need to use more of them.

“Alert level 3 was effective in containing the August outbreak, but it’s likely we would need to use level 4 to have the same effect on the new variant.

“And restrictions might need to be in place for longer to eliminate the virus.”

Plank said the Government’s recently-announced additional day zero test on arrival and a pre-flight test for people departing from the United States or the UK were good ideas. But it would be sensible to extend these requirements to all arrivals as the strain was spreading rapidly.

Epidemiologist Dr Michael Baker said other measures could involve a “traffic light system” for travel.

Countries with no or low community transmission could be green, while places like the UK and parts of the United States would be red, meaning flights from there would be suspended. Canada had banned flights from the UK since December 21 to keep out the new strain.

Dr Rawiri Taonui, who conducted research for the Iwi Chairs Forum, called for more urgency in Government response, including applying the pre-departure negative test to all travellers as soon as possible.

He also said the Government needed to consider capping arrivals at 300 per day, down from about 400 currently.