Botany cases mean no reprieve for South

WELLINGTON: A group of five Covid19 cases in Botany has raised enough alarm for the Government to keep Auckland at Alert Level 2.5 for at least two more weekends.

The rest of the country will continue in Level 2 to mitigate the risk of travel in and out of Auckland.

Yesterday, Cabinet decided to keep the current settings until at least 11.59pm on Wednesday, September 16.

Cabinet will decide on September 14 whether to change the settings, which would not come into effect until after the following Wednesday.

Ms Ardern said Cabinet had discussed the impact on the South Island of staying in Level 2, but had decided being able to travel in and out of Auckland was of more importance.

The Government’s current position is that Level 2 is needed outside of Auckland to make sure if the Auckland cluster spread outside of the city it would not get far, Stuff reported.

Ms Ardern said moving the South Island to Level 1 remained risky when domestic travel was still allowed.

‘‘Even if we have no more cases, there’s still a chance of spread outside Auckland.

‘‘If that happens, Level 2 lessens the impact of any spread.’’

To mitigate the risk, testing stations will be set up around the country at tourism and hospitality venues.

Health officials will also be based at Auckland domestic airport to inform people about the health risks, and to remind departing Aucklanders to take level 2.5 with them and avoid gatherings of more than 10 people.

Depending on how well contained the 155strong outbreak is, at that stage Cabinet may decide to keep restrictions on Auckland and lift them for the rest of the country.

Ms Ardern said the Auckland

cluster, which has 153 cases, seemed to be contained ‘‘at this stage’’.

But while the Botany cases have the same Covid19 strain as the cluster, no epidemiological link has been found.

‘‘That means there could be other [Covidpositive] people we are missing,’’ she said.

‘‘That has happened to us before, and it doesn’t mean we can’t contain the outbreak around them successfully.

‘‘But it does give us reason to be careful, and it does give us reason to be cautious.’’

There are two cases in the outbreak outside the cluster — in Tokoroa — and three other

groups within the cluster with missing links in their transmission chains but they are older.

Ms Ardern said another reason for not lifting restrictions was because it took a week to see a change in the alert level settings reflected in test results.

That meant the current results revealed nothing about the spread of Covid19 from Auckland moving out of Level 3.

Modelling also showed that weekends, when socialising was more common, were the ‘‘greatest period of risk’’, she said.

Police will be out in force in Auckland this weekend to ensure the 10person social gathering limit is observed.

University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker applauded Cabinet’s decision.

One concern was unidentified close contacts in Auckland, who might have spent the last week spreading Covid19 under Level 2.5’s relative freedoms.

‘‘It’s far too early to know the full extent of the outbreak,’’ Prof Baker said.

‘‘It’s looking manageable at this point, but 12 more days and a high volume of testing will give us a better idea of how the outbreak is behaving.

‘‘With no more cases outside the cluster, in 12 days we could be a lot more confident that we may have eliminated it.’’ — The New Zealand Herald