Next days critical for contact tracing
Transtasman researchers warn perils rising even with vaccinations
A leading epidemiologist says the next few days will be critical for contract tracing, after yesterday three new cases of Covid-19 were reported in the community.
University of Otago epidemiologist Michael Baker said it’s always worrying when there are cases in the community — and the next few days would be critical in understanding more about the latest cases.
“The information you really want to know is, amongst those contacts, whether any of them test positive. If those in their immediate work environment don’t test positive, that’s generally quite good news. It doesn’t mean you’re in the clear but that would be a good sign,” he said.
“That’s the sort of information that would be helpful for working out what happens next.”
University of Canterbury professor Michael Plank said it’s not surprising to see other cases emerge from an already infected household.
“We know the virus spreads easily so it’s not surprising we get more cases within a household once we’ve identified one case. The good news still is that these students haven’t been back to school since the start of the outbreak. If you’ve got kids at Papatoetoe High School, you don’t need to worry.”
He said this showed why the contract tracing system and Covid Tracer app were so important.
“If you’ve scanned into Kmart [Botany, where one of yesterday’s cases worked] you’ve got that reassurance that you’ll get the message if you were there . . . when this case was also in.”
He said it would be useful to confirm the epidemiological link between the case that was identified earlier yesterday and the ones that were identified previously.
“We know they go to the same school but they weren’t close contacts, they’re not in the same classroom. It would be useful if we could try and identify exactly when that contact occurred.”
An infectious disease physician at Auckland City Hospital, Mark Thomas, said the chance other contacts at the store test positive is “relatively small”.
Meanwhile, Auckland University associate professor Dr Siouxsie Wiles wants Auckland to be moved to alert level 2 following the latest cases.
She told Stuff this would place limits on gatherings, to “stop superspreaders” from infecting others.
“The question will be whether they can contain the cases through track and tracing,” she said.
“The best move is to go to level 2 to stop super spreaders.”
New Zealand faces an “unacceptably high” risk of as many as nearly three border breaches each month — and by some measures the country is more threatened than Australia.
That’s according to a new analysis by public health researchers on both sides of the Tasman, who warn that risk of new Covid-19 incursions is growing even with vaccinations.
The researchers looked at nine border failures in New Zealand, including the August Auckland cluster that resulted in around 180 cases and three deaths, and seven in Australia — six of which led to lockdowns.
Using the estimated number of people who went through both countries’ hotel-based quarantine facilities up to the end of January — along with the equivalent number of positive cases — they calculated a combined failure rate of one per 20,702 travellers.
That also worked out to one failure per 252 positive cases in quarantine and one outbreak leading to a lockdown per 47,319 travellers.
When broken down by country, NZ had 15.5 failures per 1000 positive cases going through quarantine, compared with two per 1000 in Australia — a seven-fold difference. The researchers noted that, given the proportion of cases per 1000 had risen to 9.1 in NZ and 16.3 in Australia, that equated to 1.8 and 0.7 expected failures per month, respectively.
Moreover, if travellers came with a variant that could be around 50 per cent more infectious, those respective rates climbed to 2.8 and 1.0 — assuming a linear increase in risk.
The researchers said New Zealand’s comparably riskier rate could be down to either a “lower-quality” approach — or possibly better detection, from testing more border workers over a longer period.
Still, they added that since December the proportion of positive cases among international arrivals was still greater in Australia than in NZ.
Their calculations came with some caveats, given that control approaches varied by state and country — and that estimates could be subject to “chance variations” because of the low number recorded of failures, with the potential they’d been under-estimated.
But the researchers still saw a need for major changes, namely capping travel from nations with a high spread, and requiring more testing, or a stint in quarantine, before travelling.
Study co-author and University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Nick Wilson said harder measures could also include daily saliva testing of all MIQ workers — and potentially also travellers — along with moving facilities to military bases outside of cities.
“I’d argue the current risk is unacceptably high, given that we know it can lead to something like the Auckland August outbreak, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
“Even Auckland’s recent lockdown would have cost tens of millions of dollars, and stressed a lot of people out,” Wilson said.
“Given all of those things, more investment in improving the facilities just seems to make pure economic sense — and pure public health sense.”
A newsletter distributed to prisoners praising the Waikeria riot for reforming “the prison to the ground” has been referred to the police over concerns it could incite a riot.
And Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has accused Te Paati Māori of condoning the pamphlet because it quotes co-leader Rawiri Waititi.
Waititi rubbished Davis’ claims and said the quote used in the document was actually one often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States from 1801 to 1809.
The February newsletter from abolitionist group People Against Prisons Aotearoa’s (Papa) was reported to a Corrections officer by an inmate at Spring Hill who was concerned about its contents.
After reviewing the document, Corrections referred it to police.
The newsletter — seen by the Herald — describes as an “uprising” the six-day standoff over the new year period at Waikeria Prison which saw 17 men burn down part of the facility.
It tells prisoners how peaceful and persistent collective action could effect change and urges them to form political committees to discuss grievances and work as a group to address them.
The document also calls for unity and prisoners’ persistence.
“The prison director will look like a cruel bully if they ignore your collective action. The point of these actions is persistence. You are showing you are united, strong and will not give up.”
A section underlined by a prisoner reads: “We will not tolerate being intimidated any more.”
Further on, it says: “They were burning the unit down to take a stand for future generations.”
“It might seem extreme that the Waikeria Uprising protesters gave up on the complaints system and torched the unit instead. But they succeeded where everyone else has failed.”
After quoting some of the rioters’ manifesto, the newsletter attributes the quote “when injustice becomes law, defiance becomes duty” to Waititi. Waititi told the Herald it was a quote favoured by Martin Luther King and often attributed to Jefferson.
The Māori Party is writing to the Speaker of the House to ask the record of yesterday’s Question Time be amended after an attack from Davis following a patsy supplementary.
“I said from the beginning that politicians involving themselves in some Corrections matters would only serve to embolden and encourage more events that endanger the lives of prisoners and staff,” Davis said in the House.
Waititi went to Waikeria during the riot to meet the inmates and offered to negotiate a surrender. But he had “no idea” about the newsletter.
He suspected Davis’ attack was an attempt to draw focus from questions about the judge ruling a female inmate’s treatment was “inhumane” and that conditions at Waikeria were found to be unacceptable in 2019.