Don’t get too excited yet, professor warns

WELLINGTON: There is now only one active case of Covid19 in the country, but an expert on data modelling is warning there will be fresh challenges ahead.

For the seventh day in a row yesterday, no new cases were reported.

Auckland University professor Shaun Hendy said to have only one active case of Covid19 in the country with the possibility of that dropping to zero in a few days was quite an achievement.

But he said no country in the world was sure it had identified every case and the tricky thing about this disease was there could be people with almost no symptoms who may still be infectious.

He said there was a risk cases had been missed, although the risk was becoming smaller and smaller.

‘‘There’s still that chance that there might be that one or two unknown cases out there and as we come back together, as we go through these thresholds, get back into social gatherings, there is the possibility that we’ll have another spreading event and we’ll see more cases.

‘‘So it’s a risk management exercise at this point.’’

Prof Hendy said the model simulations are showing that New Zealand is very close to having zero cases, but that there could still be a handful of unknown active cases.

Once New Zealand had zero active known cases of the Covid19 the risk would start to shift to the country’s borders and people coming in from overseas, he said.

Prof Hendy said it would be a judgement call as to when the borders can start reopening.

He said it was important to step through the changes cautiously because now gatherings of up to 100 people were allowed under Level 2, that could put a strain on the country’s contact tracing resources. — RNZ