New variants to push case numbers up

WELLINGTON: University of Otago epidemiologist Prof Michael Baker is predicting New Zealand’s Covid19 case numbers will rise again over the coming months — resulting in increased hospitalisations and deaths.

Prof Baker said he was not surprised at confirmation on Sunday that the BA.5 variant had entered New Zealand and expected it had already spread into the community.

On May 1, the BA.4 was confirmed to have reached New Zealand.

Prof Baker said new variants were among several factors that would force Covid19 numbers upwards this winter.

BA.4 and BA.5 are subvariants of Omicron.

‘‘[BA.5] has taken over the world,’’ Prof Baker said.

‘‘[In New Zealand] we saw the original BA.1 has now been replaced by BA.2, and we would expect to see more dominant — or we would say ‘fitter’ — variants gradually take over from the ones before.

‘‘This is natural selection taking place before our very eyes.’’

As more transmissible variants become dominant and there were more infections, Prof Baker said that was expected to translate to more hospitalisations and deaths.

‘‘The more people who get infected, the more who will get serious outcomes, go to hospital and unfortunately die. It’s the sheer number of people getting infected now.’’

Prof Baker said the loosening of border controls and other social restrictions meant the safeguards that could have protected against the spread of this variant were no longer in place.

Many countries were providing more boosters to the elderly and medically vulnerable, to help protect the population.

‘‘I think that’s going to be really important,’’ and whether boosters were needed for the entire population was something that should be looked at carefully, he said. — RNZ