Across the Tasman, New Zealanders who were told to shut down a single case of COVID-19 are now being asked to wear masks as the country records a seven-day average of almost 10,000 cases a day.
Key points:
- New Zealand’s current Omicron control setup goes further than Australia’s
- The country imposes masks in supermarkets, gas stations and post offices
- But experts believe not making masks compulsory in schools is ‘a loophole’
Authorities believe there is widespread community infection in all regions of New Zealand, driven by the highly transmissible Omicron BA.5 subvariant.
And for a nation of just 5.1 million people, attention is now turning to New Zealand’s daily death rate, which has been one of the highest in the world according to a World Organization measure of Health
Health authorities have refused to return to settings that would limit the size of gatherings, instead insisting that a three-pronged strategy of masks, vaccines and isolation will see the population through the winter.
With its borders now open and strict lockdowns a thing of the past, New Zealand is now riding the waves of COVID-19 as they crash around the world.
“I’m not sure where the current wave is going”
University of Otago public health professor and expert epidemiologist Michael Baker said New Zealand’s daily death rate was now “very worrying”.
“I think one of the things that is alarming … is the high mortality,” Professor Michael Baker said.
“Now it’s at the highest level we’ve ever seen, [with] a moving average of about 22 deaths per day. That’s in a population of 5.1 million. So it’s quite worrying.”
In the World Health Organization’s ranking of new daily confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people, New Zealand has been one of the worst performing nations this week.
New Zealand has announced a change to the way it will report its COVID-19-related deaths, moving to a model where cases are only counted in the death toll when the disease was the direct reason for the loss of lives
Stay up to date with the latest news on COVID-19 here
The new reporting system comes into force today and public health officer Dr Andrew Old said it would more accurately reflect the contribution of COVID-19 to deaths in New Zealand.
“Whether we’re counting deaths from or with COVID-19, New Zealand has a lower cumulative death rate from COVID-19 than many other countries because of our successes early in the pandemic,” Dr Old said in a media conference on Tuesday.
On Thursday, New Zealand reported 32 deaths related to COVID-19.
Masks are still required in New Zealand business establishments. (Reuters: Fiona Goodall)
New Zealand experienced a spike in new daily cases of COVID during its first Omicron wave in March, but deaths, as well as hospitalizations, are rising this time, according to Professor Baker.
“Our modelers are not sure where this current wave is going,” he said.
New Zealand’s current infection control measures are a far cry from the strict lockdowns introduced over the past two years.
But the across-the-Tasman strategy has some small but significant differences from the patchwork of Australian state and territory measures.
NZ controls ‘tighter than Australia’
Under the current setup, New Zealanders must wear masks in a number of indoor spaces, including commercial establishments such as “supermarkets, shopping centres, pharmacies, petrol stations and takeaways”.
New Zealanders must also wear masks in museums and libraries, on public transport, when using ride-sharing services and at post offices.
There are some mask mandates in place in Australian states and territories, but most are limited to hospitals and other healthcare settings, prisons, airports and nursing homes.
New Zealand still requires masks to be worn on public transport. (Reuters: Fiona Goodall)
Like New Zealand, most public transport users in Australia are also required to wear masks and South Australia has included one retail environment, pharmacies, in its mask mandate.
New Zealand still requires household contacts to self-isolate for seven days, even if they have no symptoms of COVID, while most Australian states and territories have moved to a close-contact system that only requires people self-isolate if they are symptomatic.
In addition to maintaining some mask mandates and isolation rules, New Zealand has also made medical masks and rapid antigen tests free for everyone, and has made it possible for more people to receive antiviral drugs in case of infect
New Zealand has no states and all regions are currently at the same alert level, so everyone must follow the same rules.
Dr Baker and Australian epidemiologist Tony Blakely looked at both countries’ strategies and, when looking at mask mandates, the availability of RATs, rules on isolation periods, as well as eligibility for antiviral treatments, New Zealand is doing better, but experts argued. there was still more that both countries could do.
Australians over 30 can access their fourth dose of a COVID-19 vaccine if they choose, which is not yet available to the same cohort in New Zealand.
“In general, control measures in New Zealand are currently more stringent than in Australia,” Dr Baker said.
Despite having stronger mask mandates than Australia, there are calls for New Zealand to go further.
University of Otago Department of Public Health epidemiologist Amanda Kvalsvig said the need for wider use of masks and the “vital protection” they would provide was urgent.
“Masks are key protection in the winter of 2022 because they work for any respiratory pathogen, protecting against new variants of COVID-19 and more familiar seasonal infections like influenza and RSV,” he said.
“These outbreaks combined are proving to be much worse than a normal winter season and we are just beginning to see the long tail of chronic illness and absenteeism that COVID-19 is causing in other countries.”
Read more about the spread of COVID-19:
The lack of a school mask forces “a gap”
Like Australia, the use of masks in schools is “at the edge of the debate at the moment”, according to Dr Baker.
Outgoing Health CEO Dr Ashley Bloomfield said there was a “very strong recommendation” from the New Zealand Department of Health for schools to adopt widespread mask use among students and staff.
“Our strong advice has been, and masks have been distributed to schools to help support this, particularly in the first four weeks of this next term… consider asking all students and staff to wear masks ” Dr Bloomfield said on Tuesday.
Dr Baker believes the lack of a mask mandate for New Zealand schools is “a loophole”.
“I think mandates are needed if you want to get high membership,” he said.
“And one of the reasons schools are so important is that the students are generally pretty adherent … and they’re also great educators.
“So if the kids [are] by getting used to wearing masks properly in schools, they can take them home and educate families.”
Fatigue is a common problem
New Zealand might be living under its normal COVID environment, but at a media briefing on Tuesday, Dr Bloomfield said the country was “not out of the woods yet”.
“It’s still a global pandemic – it’s not just what’s happening in New Zealand, it’s what’s happening globally,” he said.
“We are still seeing subvariants develop and there could be a time when one is more severe.
“We have to keep our wits about us.”
During the first two years of the pandemic, New Zealand was heralded around the world for its strategy to eliminate COVID-19 and for its commitment to public health: closing international borders even to its own citizens and making meet strict blockades that went so far as to ban food. deliveries
Although some sections of the community protested the restrictions, there was widespread acceptance that the measures were necessary for the greater good.
In December 2020, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was returned to power with a large majority, a result widely seen as a resounding endorsement of her decision to lift border controls and protect “Fortress New Zealand ” from the rest of the world.
Dr. Kvalsvig said that moving to a strategy that “transfers control of the pandemic to the people” weakened attempts to suppress the Omicron wave.
“Mask use is most effective when it works at the population level: everyone who can wear a mask does,” he said.
“That way you have two-way protection: source control: people don’t breathe viruses in shared spaces. And respiratory protection: people don’t breathe viruses from the air around them.”
New Zealand’s alert level 4 lockdown conditions were among the strictest in the world. (AFP: Marty Melville)
There are also fears that fatigue has set in and there is little appetite to go further with mask mandates or limit the number of meetings.
“Some political parties and … the business sector are saying, ‘We’re over it, we’ve got to move on.’ [and are] saying ‘the rest of the world has moved on’, which is of course not correct,” Dr Baker said.
“Many countries are struggling with this increase at the moment.
“So I think that’s the difficulty for our political leaders, and I feel it’s similar in Australia.”
The country first operated with a series of alert levels, but this year moved to a traffic light system where it remains in the orange setting.
There have been some calls to go red, where New Zealanders would once again face limits on the number of people allowed in gatherings.
But Dr Bloomfield and the minister for the COVID response have insisted that the current set-up is sufficient, as limiting the number of gatherings would not prevent transmission in the home or workplace.
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