PM outlines next steps in New Zealand’s COVID-19 response

In a speech delivered in Parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern outlined a “plan in the event we have a new case of community transmission of COVID-19 in New Zealand,” she said. We present the relevant excerpts. Full text can be read here www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/next-steps-covid-response

“We have been 75 days without community transmission here in New Zealand, but COVID is now exploding outside our borders and every country we have sought to replicate or have drawn from in the fight against COVID has now experienced further community outbreaks. We only need to look to Victoria, New South Wales, Hong Kong, Singapore and Korea to see examples of other places that like us had the virus under control at a point in time only to see it emerge again.”

“The World Health Organisation this week reported the global infection rate is nearing 13 million cases, with over 215,000 cases reported globally on Tuesday. To put that into perspective when we closed our borders on the 19th of March there were 240,000 cases in the world in total. It’s fifty times worse than that now.”

“In the main the pattern of returnees carrying the virus reflects the state of COVID in the world, with our cases coming from places like India, the US and the UK. New modelling by Rodney Jones indicates there will be over 100,000 new cases a day in the US by the end of the month, nearly 70,000 cases a day in India and nearly 10,000 cases a day across Europe by early August. We will continue to welcome home New Zealanders from these places as citizens, as they have a right to come home to their legal place of residence. But with that right comes risk, and the need to continue ongoing stringent measures to keep them, and everyone around them, safe. Victoria in particular is a cautionary tale for New Zealand that we must learn from. It appears their current outbreak is linked to a managed isolation facility similar to the ones we run here and that the entire outbreak was seeded by just two cases.”

“And so today I am setting out the next stage in our COVID plan in the event we have new cases in the community.”

“So in the event of new community cases we would move immediately to implement our ‘Stamp it Out’ approach again.”

“There are three broad starting scenarios we can plan around - a case or a number of cases in a community, a larger number of cases or cluster in a region, and multiple clusters that have spread nationally.”

-TIN Bureau

A case or a number of cases in a community

Strong restrictions may be applied but only locally in a neighbourhood, town or city.

Local measures would include contact tracing and isolation of cases and contacts, scaled up and targeted testing of people connected to the case, such as workmates, people in the house or neighbourhood.

The rest of the country would likely remain at Level 1.

A larger number of cases or a cluster in a region

Increase in testing a priority

Health staff may go door to door to test people in affected areas

Much wider community testing on top of contact testing

Regional shift in alert level to restrict travel likely

Local restrictions on gatherings and people asked to work from home

Multiple clusters that have spread nationally

Likely a nationwide increase in alert level

(by Radio New Zealand)