Keep wearing masks
I’m grateful masks are still required under at least some orange traffic light settings, but I was gutted they are no longer required in schools and universities. Now that we’ve transitioned to living with Covid-19 in the community, we should be strengthening our mask game, not downgrading it.
There is plenty of data from overseas that says relying on a ‘‘vaccines only’’ approach isn’t good enough. Vaccines are doing an incredible job protecting people from hospitalisation and death. Just compare the number of people who have died during our Omicron wave with Hong Kong, which went from having fewer than 14,000 confirmed cases in January to more than
1.2 million today.
We started our Omicron wave from a similar place and are now approaching 900,000 confirmed cases.
As I write this, 582 people in New Zealand have died within 28 days of being reported as having Covid. In Hong Kong, more than 9000 people have died. One contributing factor is its low vaccine uptake by people over 80 – just 32% have had two doses compared to more than 90% here.
So why can’t we just rely on vaccines? Firstly, there is still no vaccine for our under-5s and the majority of our 5- to 11-year-olds haven’t yet had the recommended two doses. The second reason is that while vaccines stop some virus transmission, it’s not enough. Masks work best when everyone is wearing them. They help reduce the amount of virus you release into the air. If you enter a virusfilled environment, they help reduce the amount you are exposed to. The better the mask and fit, the bigger the reduction. That’s why we should all be upgrading to respiratortype masks. A new study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface suggests wearing masks, especially at large gatherings will prevent new variants from taking hold.
Researchers from the United States used mathematical modelling to explore how super-spreader events contribute to the emergence of new variants. Their simulations show that most new highly infectious variants will fizzle out if they only infect a few people but if these variants meet a super-spreading event, they are more likely to gain a foothold in the community. That means reducing super-spreading events should help delay or even prevent the emergence of some new variants.
South Africa’s world-leading genome sequencing efforts have detected two new versions of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5. So far, they have been found in South Africa, Botswana, Belgium, Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Both appear to be more infectious than BA.2, the dominant virus circulating in New Zealand. With our borders opening and the orange setting of our Covid-19 response allowing unlimited gatherings, keeping masks at such events and in our classrooms and lecture theatres makes good sense.