NZ ‘elimination day’

New Zealand could officially claim today as Covid-19 ‘‘elimination day’’ but health officials have backed away from that idea.

However, leading epidemiologist Michael Baker says the ‘‘countdown’’ was not correct because the country had already officially reached elimination last Monday when the county moved into level 1 and there were coincidentally no active cases.

He is urging the Ministry of Health to release further data to prove this.

Yesterday marked 23 days since New Zealand recorded its last case of Covid-19 but just when the Government will deem the virus ‘‘eliminated’’ from the community has become contentious.

And it looks unlikely it will make that declaration.

Elimination is defined as the absence of a disease at a national or regional level. Eradication refers to its global extinction.

To claim elimination of Covid19, health officials have said they want to be sure two full cycles of the virus’s transmission – 28 days – have passed since the last case of community transmission left selfisolation.

But University of Otago Professor of Public Health Baker said it should be 28 days from when the last case of community transmission went into isolation, and we’re well past that, he said.

He urged the Ministry of Health to release its data showing the last locally acquired case was put into isolation and were no longer a source of other cases.

‘‘Based on some accounts I have heard and reference dates from the ministry, it pretty much coincided with last weekend. By the time Cabinet met on Monday, it was a pretty reasonable time to say elimination has been achieved.’’

There had been a focus on active cases, but the thing that was most important was the likelihood