Reality check: Global Infections still ‘raging’

‘‘The pandemic is not over, the pandemic continues to grow.’’

Although life in New Zealand somewhat resembles pre-Covid-19 times, Kiwis have received a stern warning: the pandemic is far from over, and managed isolation and quarantine is sticking around.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and DirectorGeneral of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield yesterday issued a reminder that the virus was still raging around the globe.

‘‘The pandemic is not over, the pandemic continues to grow, in fact,’’ Hipkins said. ‘‘I think we always need to remind ourselves of that.’’

He thought New Zealand was in a ‘‘very fortunate position’’ where, for the most part, the last year hadn’t felt as though the country was in the midst of a global pandemic. ‘‘That puts us in a very different position to many other countries around the world, but the pandemic is still raging, it’s not over yet.’’

Bloomfield said his views aligned with that of the World Health Organisation (WHO), that had expressed concern over many people ‘‘mistakenly’’ seeing the pandemic as coming to an end.

‘‘[The WHO] are warning that it isn’t, and that would be certainly my view on this as well. Cases are on the rise in many countries.’’

Bloomfield said there had been ‘‘rapid rise’’ in Covid cases worldwide since the start of July, with data showing in the last fortnight to July 17, cases increased by over 30 per cent with more than 500,000 cases reported daily.

The United Kingdom was among those reporting a spike in cases, coinciding with a suite of restrictions being eased recently. Last week, it reported 50,000 new cases per day for two days. The majority of cases were confirmed to be that of the highly infectious Delta variant.

‘‘While we are seeing the

impact of vaccination in the UK with deaths and hospitalisations far lower than the peaks seen in earlier waves there, practically all the sequenced cases in the UK have been the Delta variant, and it’s very clear that this is now the main variant that is causing problems in a number of countries.’’

Due to the global spike, Hipkins anticipated stringent border measures remaining key to protecting New Zealanders for the remainder of 2021 and part of 2022.

‘‘I’m still working on the basis that certainly for this year, people will be in MIQ for 14 days, probably into early next year as well, but we haven’t made any firm decisions on that yet.’’

He said there wouldn’t be a ‘‘magic point’’ where alternative isolation methods for international arrivals – like home isolation – would be brought in, but considerations would be made in the distant future. These options were already being looked at by epidemiologist Professor David Skegg and the six-person scientific advisory group he headed.

‘‘That’s a way away, it’s not gonna happen this year I don’t think, and certainly in the early part of next year, I imagine things are going to continue much the same way as they are now,’’ Hipkins said.

The Government was yet to release a detailed roadmap out of the pandemic – something its Australian and UK counterparts had already done – but it was in the works.

‘‘Cabinet has certainly been doing a lot of work on thinking about what the future looks like and mapping out all of the different scenarios,’’ he said.