Confidence shaken in scary Covid world
New Zealand has been flexing. Showing off videos of our huge rugby crowds. Opening a new mall in Auckland. Taking holidays around the country.
This flexing felt well-earned after an extremely strict lockdown. But yesterday, just as Parliament was set to return properly, that confidence got popped.
After almost a month with no new cases, the Ministry of Health announced that two new cases had popped up and they were ‘‘border-related’’.
Given everyone who enters the country is supposed to be put in mandatory isolation for two weeks, this was worrying but explainable. But it soon became clear that, despite entering the country on June 7, these two women were granted an exemption to leave that quarantine and drive to Wellington to visit a dying relative.
So not only were there two new cases, but these two new cases had driven the length of the North Island on Saturday. Bloomfield assured the country that the two had not seen anyone but a single family member, had not stopped at any public restrooms or facilities, and were now safely in isolation with this single family member after driving themselves to a Covid-19 testing site in Wellington. Anyone who has done the drive from Auckland to Wellington might find this a bit questionable, but then again most people doing that drive aren’t on a managed self-isolation plan.
Despite these assurances from Bloomfield, it’s easy to worry. Under level 1 people are mixing all over the country. The staff on the flight from Brisbane and the people in the same hotel are being contacted by the Ministry of Health. This mess certainly gives weight to the ministry’s decision to end compassionate leave from quarantine for funerals under level 1. (Compassionate leave to visit sick relatives remains, which is how this case happened.) If these two had been at a packed funeral we might have a real outbreak on our hands.
But the ministry does not come out looking rosy: Why were these two allowed to leave the managed isolation without a test? Indeed, two days after this pair arrived in the country Bloomfield announced that all new arrivals would be tested on days three and 12 of isolation, something it appears never happen for these two. It took this case for a new policy to be introduced whereby every case seeking a compassionate exemption gets tested before leaving. Kiwis are well entitled to ask why this wasn’t already the case.
There remains an extremely low chance of community transmission of Covid-19. Our systems for contact tracing have been upgraded since the virus first arrived in February. But even if it all ends up OK that easy confidence of a few days ago feels extremely punctured.
Another thing that will take a setback is the growing call for more international travel to be opened up. If we can’t trust our own quarantine, can we trust Australia’s? What if these two had been granted compassionate leave to visit a Pacific island where the healthcare system is utterly unprepared for Covid-19? We might be safe but globally over 4000 people died of Covid-19 yesterday. It’s a scary world out there.