There has been a mixed response to the Government's decision to slowly loosen Auckland's Level 3 restrictions using a new 3-step approach.
Below are comments from a selection of science experts and politicians.
For details of Auckland's plan, see this story.
Professor Shaun Hendy, Dept of Physics and Te Pūnaha Matatini, University of Auckland:
“This relaxing of restrictions will see more spread and more COVID cases in the community over the coming weeks. These new freedoms should reduce the risk of superspreading compared to Level 2, but still open up considerable opportunities for new spread. The government will be hoping that any growth in cases that result is slow enough that vaccination can get ahead of the outbreak, before it puts significant strain on our testing and tracing system, not to mention our hospitals.
“The next steps in the plan, which involve reopening retail and even some hospitality, really won’t be safe until the vaccination programme is very well advanced. This will probably not be the case until well into November. Until then or unless vaccination take-up accelerates, Auckland is unlikely to be able to return to Level 2 and there is a greater risk that restrictions will be needed in other parts of the country. The best thing we can do now is get vaccinated or encourage our friends and family to do so.
“Meeting other families and friends outside is lower risk, but definitely not zero risk, so it will be important that people who choose to do so exercise caution and wear masks. If you are not vaccinated I would suggest avoiding meet ups until you’ve at least had your first shot and if you are meeting friends or family ask them whether they have had theirs yet. Fully vaccinated people are far less likely to catch the virus if exposed and less likely to pass it on, so meet ups of vaccinated people pose far lower risks. This move really does put the responsibility for preventing spread in the hands of the public, so it is vitally important that everyone does their bit.”
Professor Michael Plank, Te Pūnaha Matatini and University of Canterbury:
"The roadmap for relaxing restrictions is a reasonable approach, starting with relatively low-risk outdoor gatherings and progressively reopening higher risk settings as the situation allows. But it will be crucial to remain adaptable and responsive to changes in the number cases and the healthcare demand they will generate. It may yet be necessary to adjust or tighten restrictions to prevent cases spiralling out of control. The Australian state of Victoria has gone from around 20 cases per day to 1500 in just 6 weeks, and there are currently 96 Covid patients in ICU. This could happen here and it would put immense pressure on our hospitals.
"The Auckland boundary will remain in place for now. But if, as is likely, case numbers continue to grow, it will become progressively harder to keep the outbreak contained to Auckland. The rest of New Zealand should prepare for the inevitability of community transmission. Regions that experience outbreaks may need to be put under restrictions like those in Auckland.”
National Covid-19 Response spokesperson Chris Bishop:
“The loosening of restrictions should be explicitly tied to particular vaccination rates. This will help motivate people to go out and get vaccinated.
“Ideally the Government would open up more activities to vaccinated people more quickly. This would act as a spur for people to go and get vaccinated and reward people who have done the right thing. But the Government’s incompetence in rolling out the vaccine authentication means this isn’t an option for now. The Government must move immediately to give New Zealanders a digital vaccine authentication tool so people who have been vaccinated can prove it, and enjoy the benefits of having done so.
“Second, we must vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. National has put forward 11 useful ideas to supercharge vaccination in our Opening Up plan and we urge the Government to act on them.
“Some sensible ideas that could be actioned straight away include allowing patient data held by DHBs and Primary Health Organisations to be automatically accessed by Whānau Ora providers like the Waipareira Trust so they can be contacted by those providers about getting the vaccine, mandating that all currently vaccinating GPs and pharmacists can vaccinate for COVID-19, and ramping up pop-up clinics, walk-in centres, 24-hour drop-in clinics for essential workers and vaccination buses.
“Third, it is clear that there is Covid in the community but surveillance testing via nasal PCR testing is just not picking up cases quickly enough. The Government should immediately contract private sector saliva testing companies like Rako Science to conduct surveillance testing. This would significantly increase testing capacity and make a real difference.
“Fourth, the Government should drop its ill-considered ban on rapid antigen testing and roll it out more widely to essential workers, particularly those crossing the Auckland boundary. The case of the Covid-positive truck driver is a perfect example of why rapid antigen testing is needed. He was infectious from September 28 but had his last test on September 24. Daily rapid testing would likely have picked it up sooner.
“Finally, given the cases now appearing at hospitals, there needs to be regular surveillance testing at our public hospitals. Private hospitals have been regularly testing staff for some time now but there is no coordinated, comprehensive plan in our public hospitals. This should be an urgent priority.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson:
“The current Delta outbreak in Tāmaki Makaurau is showing a long tail of cases – but elimination is still possible if we work together to stop the spread. Our public health system has held up so far, but we worry that easing restrictions too early could overwhelm the hard-working nurses and doctors who we rely on to keep us safe.
“The Government’s planned roadmap out of COVID-19 has serious risks for our vulnerable communities – including Māori and Pasifika, as well as people with underlying health conditions – who have disproportionately been impacted by lockdowns. The Government must focus all its resources on these vulnerable communities to ensure high vaccination rates.
“Local hapū and community groups have been doing a fantastic job of encouraging their whānau to get tested and vaccinated. The Government must direct as much resource as possible to these groups to empower them to continue the important mahi of protecting our whānau.
“We must continue on our elimination path until vaccines are approved for and rolled out to under-12s, and high coverage is achieved for all age groups, geographic areas, and population groups.”
ACT leader David Seymour:
“There’s been no contrition, no certainty and no end game. To summarise the Prime Minister’s “road map” Auckland will go to Level 2 gradually at an unspecified timeframe. And there will be picnics.
“Jacinda Arden should admit she was wrong, give us a proper plan and let Aucklanders know when the finish line is in sight.”
50 Comments
Around 93% is herd immunity for delta. 20% of a whole population is a large number of people unvaccinated and vulnerable to serious complications of getting infected. They pivoted to endemic spread with inadequate vaccination coverage. The question is how do we get to that number when most countries plateau at 80% or so before deciding to live with delta?
Disaster looms. The Government long ago ought to have pushed through a public health emergency act overriding all restrictions on excluding the vaccine-defiant from workplaces and anywhere else they might endanger the public. We need a vaccination passport now, without which no one except the medically exempt or age-exempt can enter any enclosed public space, nor cross the boundaries of infected areas. Why are there still unvaccinated health workers, police, ambulance staff, and firefighters? The Government is nervous of offending people, and endangers us all. A No jab: no job; no jab: no play mandate will change the minds of all but the most resolute anti-vaxxers.
Why stop at no jab no job. Why not ban things like drugs and alcohol? Is the jab really the lifesaver it's made out to be. What if in 5 years after several boosters it's declared dangerous? Will you compensate people. You sound like a fascist from the movie Equilibrium.
He won't because that evidence doesn't exist. Pfizer is about 40% effective at preventing infection after 6 months. The r value of delta is about 7. So with 100 vaccination rates the r value will be about 5 if every man, woman & child gets vaccinated. We will all get infected over 4 months instead of 3. Read the below.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/07/23…
I provided a source? This source is the Israeli health ministry. It is based on in depth empirical analysis. The vaccine just isn't effective in the long term at providing protection against infection. However it still appears to be doing a good job in the medium term (6 to 12 months) against hospitalisation/death. What ever happened to critical thinking?
What selective take? To achieve herd immunity though vaccination the vaccination needs to be able prevent against infection & transmission in the medium/long term. This is the case with the smallpox vaccine but this is not the case with covid19. My conclusion is based off empirical analysis on breakthrough infections carried out by the Israeli Health Ministry. You can't really get higher quality evidence than large scale empirical analysis by a reputable government health ministry. If you can provide evidence to the contrary please do so.
Donny you are right on the money.
Israel was one of the first countries to get vaccinated. NZ needs to learn from their experience that the Pfizer vaccine dramatically loses its effectiveness from getting infected from Covid-19 in about 6 months after getting fully vaccinated.
As an example people who were vaccinated in January 2021 only have about 16% protection from getting Covid-19 in July 2021. This is also known as the waning effect.
If they get infected, known as a breakthrough infection, they are just as contagious as an unvaccinated person. They may or may not have symptoms but are unlikely to get hospitalised. This is bad news because booster shots will be required if people want to remain protected from passing on the virus on to others.
Note the Pfizer vaccine still provides good protection from hospitalisation & death after 6 months but won’t provide much protection from getting infected from Delta or getting symptoms.
See last page of link below for graph showing waning effect depending on month you were vaccinated. (Link takes 30s to download)
Exactly. When you raise the comparison to other nations, Norway, Denmark etc you get a barrage of horrid data, mortality rate, daily cases and on. But the point is those countries, even the USA, have accepted both the past and the present, are coping, living with it and moving on and out. And invariably the problems of new cases & deaths still ongoing are dominated by the unvaccinated. That’s their pathways, and they are well down them, where’s ours then? If they could do it, why after the hugely advantageous platform that was first created here, why can’t NZ.
The problem is foxglove is we are too idealistic over covid19. All things considered elimination then vaccination then reopening is not a bad strategy. The problem is that to implement this strategy successfully you have to be pragmatic & realistic with your approach. Further you have to accept the strategy is not a silver bullet & you have to temper peoples expectations as such. I think the next 6 months is going to be an absolute shambles as the government does not seam capable of implementing the reopening part of the strategy in an intelligent manner.
Confusion is being heaped on confusion. The Green Party for instance says elimination is still possible. Might be on their planet not ours. My take is that this government has no idea other than holding Auckland in this quasi lockdown indefinitely, forever in other words, and as other parts of the country are inevitably struck with Delta, ie beyond Waikato, so too will they be locked down. The government have not given one iota of an indication as to when New Zealanders can expect to commence a lifestyle such as Norway, Denmark, Ireland for example. A year ago NZ had a running start on all of them. At the moment NZ sits at 38th on the Bloomberg rating of nations of recovery/resilience. Soon NZ will not even be in top 100, sitting at the far end of the globe, isolated and forgotten, a team of 5 million hermits.
The govt is a basketcase.
As I have said before *if* they insist on heavy restrictions- which they still are - then 'pay up'.
Why are they so resistant to giving more financial support?
Do they not understand the pain many SME's in Auckland are in?
So much for 'kindness'.
The Govt just know that the health system has been under-funded for decades and no one wants to pay to improve it....... you can blame them all you like, but NZ Inc is responsible for this. I think all their options are all poor because if this simple fact. Red, Green, or Blue the same path would have been taken IMO.
New Zealand growth in Q2 2021 confirms the Zero-Covid strategy outperforms the mitigation strategy of the G10 countries: 44 times less deaths, pre-crisis GDP exceeded, mobility and daily freedoms better preserved.
https://www.institutmolinari.org/2021/09/21/new-zealand-growth-in-q2-20…
How weak are you, even disabled people can handle multiple years of lockdown before covid and that is on poor incomes with hardly degrading housing. Many did not see family or community events for years. You should take a leaf out of the books of those less fortunate than you because the skills to handle being trapped for years is often being handled the most by those less capable to escape poverty. Perhaps experiencing poverty and homelessness first will help you build that strength to withstand a puny couple months of lost income and loss of housing. Truth is you can survive beyond it all. But at least you get to come out of lockdown eventually something most of those poor disabled people never get to do for decades while still working day to day.
Where there is a chance, there is hope, no matter how dumb.
I love NZ and never thought I would leave, but I did and I don't regret it one bit. Both NZ and Aussie are quickly becoming, I'd argue they are, the laughing stock of the world.
It's time to wake up and smell the roses Jacinda, everything you do from here on in is just delaying the inevitable, IT'S TIME TO OPEN UP.
We're operating on the basis that Covid will be in our area (Hawkes Bay) within a few weeks and we've stocked up for a lockdown accordingly. Too many lawyers escaping Auckland for fun and games - I hope the NZLS is sending out some very stern comms - and the freight industry is sadly a strong vector through no fault of their own.
We've also told our children that eventually we will all catch it, vaccine or no vaccine, and that they will likely barely notice while my spouse and I may be a little sicker. We have all chosen to be vaccinated in an effort to reduce the downtime.
We're matter-of-fact about it. It's not the end of the world for the vast majority of people, but the hysteria, misinformation and disinformation is doing far more damage to NZ than the virus.
Chris Bishop:
“The loosening of restrictions should be explicitly tied to particular vaccination rates. This will help motivate people to go out and get vaccinated."
Yeah, nah. You can easily wax hypothetical the exact opposite: give people a target and it's becomes a target only for others' to do. "Near enough, I don't need to ."
typical A type personality pity more kiwis are B type that is why we are known for our laid back nature
Type A Personality Traits: Overview, Comparison to Type B, and More (healthline.com)
‘The Australian state of Victoria has gone from around 20 cases per day to 1500 in just 6 weeks, and there are currently 96 Covid patients in ICU. This could happen here and it would put immense pressure on our hospitals.”
The question that has not been answered, is how many spare ICU beds do we have in Auckland today?
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was less than 10.
It is not good enough for the government to say no amount of ICU beds will make a difference.
There should be much more pressure put on the government to increase the number of spare ICU beds in Auckland to say 100.
Staffing of these beds should be a priority & INZ needs to prioritise & fast track residency for this group of specialists & pay needs to be higher for this group than what’s being paid in Australia.
The cost of increasing spare ICU beds is a drop in the bucket compared to the $100+ billion being borrowed to fight this pandemic.
Tony they could of started this a year ago, instead 50 billion has gone where, into the housing market, that's all we have to show for that money. Instead yes they could of built two isolation areas, for covid patients, one in North and One in the South to take them out of the mainstream hospital system.
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