Border may need to close: doctor
AUCKLAND: New Zealand might need to close its border to the United Kingdom if cases of the new Covid19 variant there continue to skyrocket, a leading public health specialist says.
The comments come in response to news yesterday of 31 new Covid19 cases in managed isolation over the previous 72 hours, 11 of them the new highlyinfectious UK variant.
One case is linked to the South African strain.
‘‘I am very concerned, and this is possibly the most dangerous phase we have been in since the August Auckland outbreak,’’ epidemiologist Dr Michael Baker said.
The spike in cases, the largest seen in months, included 11 linked to a group of international mariners. Eight of these were linked to historical cases and just three were current.
Dr Baker said reasons for the increase were quite obviously linked to more people returning to New Zealand, and many of them coming from places where the pandemic was out of control, including the UK and parts of the United States.
It also made sense the majority of them were of the new, more infectious strain, of which 19 had been recorded in New Zealand since December 13.
The new strain has forced the UK back into lockdown, amid fears its health system will become overwhelmed.
On Saturday, the British Government reported the number of confirmed deaths had reached 80,868 — the highest in Europe and the world’s fifthhighest pandemic death toll. A day earlier, the country’s daily reported deaths had hit a record high of 1325.
‘‘It is just law of nature that we will see more of that here, but that is what makes it such a huge risk to New Zealand,’’ Dr Baker said.
This meant the country needed to up its controls to match the risk, he said.
At the high end of these controls New Zealand could ‘‘turn down the tap’’ of international arrivals.
He spoke of a ‘‘traffic light system’’, where countries with no or low community transmission could be green, while places like the UK and parts of the United States would be red, meaning flights from there would be suspended.
Canada had banned flights from the UK since December 21 to keep out the new strain.
France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Bulgaria all announced restrictions on UK travel.
‘‘That’s at the higher end, but we might get to a position where the risk is just too high and we need to suspend travel from those places for several months, until there is greater vaccine coverage or those travellers have been vaccinated,’’ Dr Baker said.
At a lower level, Dr Baker said every measure needed to be taken to ensure the current systems were all working the best they could.
‘‘We have had about 10 border failures in the past several months, so mistakes will happen and we need to plan for them. Now with this new strain, the risk is just so much higher.’’
From January 15 travellers from the UK or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result.
Brisbane will be in lockdown until at least 6pm today, after discovery of the new strain in a community case.
No new cases were recorded in Queensland yesterday, while New South Wales recorded three new cases.
LONDON: The official coronavirus death toll in the United Kingdom has risen to more than 81,000, while confirmed cases have passed the three million mark.
It comes as doctors warn that pressure on the health system could get worse in the coming weeks, and amid criticism the current lockdown measures are not strict enough.
The number of patients with Covid19 in hospital is also at a record high in England, and medics have warned the full impact of social mixing over the Christmas period has not yet been seen.
On Saturday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan declared a ‘‘major incident’’ in London, saying the spread of the virus in the city was now ‘‘out of control’’.
‘‘If we do not take immediate action now, our NHS could be overwhelmed and more people will die,’’ Khan said.
The Government emphasised its ‘‘stay at home’’ message by launching a new advert, fronted by England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty, urging everyone in England to ‘‘act like you’ve got’’ coronavirus.
Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace said the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh received their Covid19 vaccinations at Windsor Castle on Saturday.
Government figures showed a further 1035 people had died of Covid19 on Saturday (local time), bringing the UK total to more than 81,000.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK has reached 3.02 million.
Cases were estimated to have been as high as 100,000 per day at the peak of the first wave in April. Scientists advising the Government estimate there are now more than 100,000 new infections per day, possibly more than 150,000, which puts the number of daily cases at a higher level than ever.
Germany reported a record 1188 daily Covid19 deaths on Saturday, only days after further tightening a national lockdown amid fears a more transmissible variant of Covid19 may put additional strain on hospitals.
The Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases confirmed another 31,849 new infections on Saturday, one of the highest daily tallies so far.
The United States has recorded more than 4000 new coronavirus deaths in a single day for the first time ever amidst a catastrophic health crisis that continues to overwhelm hospitals and devastate families around the country.
The US continues to lead the world in the number of coronavirus infections and deaths, with more than 22.1 million cases and more than 372,500 deaths.
Many other countries continue to battle record numbers of cases, reporting health systems under severe strain and increasingly restrictive measures to try to contain the spread of the virus. In recent days this has included Spain, France, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Turkey, China, Japan, China, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Columbia. — BPA/Reuters/ New York Daily News