Omicron wave races across New Zealand
Case numbers explode from less than 1,000 each day to more than 22,000 in two weeks
Two years after the pandemic began, New Zealanders are finally facing its reality.
After keeping the virus at bay for so long, Covid-19 is now tearing through the nation’s population courtesy of the highly infectious Omicron variant. In the space of two weeks, new case numbers exploded from less than 1,000 a day to more than 22,000.
“Psychologically it’s quite a big shock because to date the pandemic has been largely something that’s happened to other people,” said Michael Baker, Professor of Public Health at the University of Otago. “Until recently, the only people I knew who got infected with the virus lived overseas.”
New Zealand had been one of the pandemic success stories. When Covid-19 first arrived, the government slammed the border shut, imposed one of the toughest lockdowns in the world and eradicated the virus from the community, allowing a quick return to normal. So far, the death toll is just 65.
But the emergence of more infectious strains in the second half of last year – first Delta then Omicron – proved too much.
Universities across the country are now awash with the virus as the new semester starts, and high schools are asking pupils to study at home as infections rise.
In capital city Wellington, usually bustling streets are almost empty as people either work from home or isolate as they or household members fall ill.
Meanwhile in Australia, a gauge of job vacancies surged to a new pandemic-era high, cementing expectations that the labour market will tighten further as competition among firms for workers intensifies.
Job ads shot up 8.4 per cent to 228,170 positions in February, ending two consecutive monthly falls due to disruptions caused by the Omicron variant, an Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd survey showed yesterday Help-wanted notices are up 46.3 per cent versus January 2020, before coronavirus hit.
“The February increase reinforces the view we expressed last month that job ads hadn’t yet peaked with labour demand continuing to grow and job-switching expected to rise,” said Catherine Birch, a senior economist at ANZ.
“We now forecast the unemployment rate to fall to the low 3s by late 2022.”