Stay-at-home orders may be enforced
Stay-at-home orders and closing schools and shops could be enforced under the traffic light system if Omicron or another variant of Covid-19 was to widely spread.
While Delta remains the dominant variant worldwide, Omicron is spreading rapidly, and has become the dominant variant in England, the United States, and South Africa.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has not ruled out the possibility of localised lockdowns in the event of community transmission, saying at the time he announced the first case of Omicron in managed isolation last month, ‘‘we’d just have to see what the situation was’’.
The traffic light system was intended to give as much certainty and stability as possible for people and businesses, reducing the need for ‘‘widespread’’ lockdowns.
But it was also designed to allow the Government to take urgent action if needed to protect the health system and communities.
Now a spokesperson for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Covid-19 group has elaborated on what that urgent action might look like.
‘‘Localised lockdowns and protections remain in the toolkit and could be used to control high rates of transmission, and provide immediate protection to the health system and prevent severe illness or death,’’ the spokesperson said in a statement.
That could mean stay-at-home orders, schools and shops having to close, restrictions on gatherings, and restrictions on movement in or out of a lockdown area.
It could also involve requirements for people travelling into or out of a specific area, such as the measures in place for travel out of Auckland over summer.
The ‘‘trigger’’ for, and scale of, any lockdown or restrictions would depend on the circumstances and the nature of the health response required.
The spokesperson for the Covid-19 group did not provide any further details on the likely measures.
While high vaccination rates and other health measures meant New Zealand would be less reliant on widespread lockdowns, the traffic light framework still allowed the Government to take ‘‘necessary urgent action’’ to protect the health system and communities, the spokesperson said.
Leading epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker issued a plea to the Government to do away with the traffic lights altogether in favour of a tweaked alert level system, saying the framework was not designed to dampen down or manage an outbreak.
An Omicron outbreak would be ‘‘incredibly intense’’, and the traffic light system wasn’t fit to handle that, he said.
The strain was very infectious and evaded some immunity from prior infection or vaccination, he said.
With Delta, there were three tools working to control the outbreak, Baker said: high vaccination coverage with a vaccine that limited transmission, contact tracing, and basic rules. With Omicron, ‘‘we’ve lost two of the three’’.
The variant had a shorter incubation period, roughly two to three days, which ‘‘greatly limits’’ the ability for contact tracing, he said.
Vaccination still greatly improved outcomes, but was less helpful in stopping transmission.
Baker said the Government should look to reintroduce the alert level system ‘‘now, before we need it’’.
He said New Zealand had time to prepare for Omicron, but that was largely ‘‘borrowed time’’, given the ‘‘unprecedented’’ numbers of infected people coming into MIQ.
There were 65 new border cases reported on Wednesday last week alone.
There were hundreds of active border cases, and New Zealand could have a border failure ‘‘at any moment’’, he said.
‘‘At the current MIQ rate, [Omicron] could get in very, very soon.’’