Health authorities haveٴfor Wellington, from 6pm today until midnight on Sunday, after an Australian traveller who visited the New سԹcapital at the weekendon their return home.
The news comes only hours after New Zealand, following ten new community cases in Sydney linked to the Bondi cluster.
Genome sequencing will determine if the Australian visitor carries the more infectious delta variant of COVID-19, but the developments highlight how quickly things can change.
The emergence of more transmittable variants and the complacency of New Zealanders after a 100-day period without community transmission now provide ideal circumstances for a large outbreak.
New Zealand’sԻhave drawn worldwide attention. At this point, the country remains one of few places in the world without community transmission since the end of February 2021.
Countries likeԻ, once also success stories, have seen significant and rapid surges in cases and hospitalisations. What is happening in Taiwan, Fiji and other countries such as Vietnam should be a wake-up call for New Zealand.
Culture of complacency
should serve as a constant reminder of New Zealand’s privileged position.
Calls onto make themandatory, at the very least in higher-risk places where large numbers of people meet indoors, will likely grow stronger now.
Low and decreasingmake it more difficult to, which leaves us at greater risk of an outbreak, particularly if a more transmissible variant enters the country.
Variants and vaccination
The emergence ofhas already hit close to home with the recent.
New variants are more transmissible and may also decrease the effectiveness of some public health measures. For instance, compared to the original alpha variant, the delta variant is, making it harder to keep up with in terms of contact tracing. According to, it is also twice as likely to lead to hospitalisation.
New سԹis relying on the, but the rollout has been slower than in other countries around the world. The good news is thathas shown the Pfizer vaccine to be 96% effective against the delta variant.
The problem for New سԹis that less than 10% of the population is now fully vaccinated and there is. If an outbreak were to occur with a more transmissible COVID-19 variant, it could spread easily, unless stringent public health measures are in place.
Vulnerability at the border
On the more positive side, the elimination of COVID-19 has allowed researchers valuable time to identify(see map below) and model. This helps inform responses to future outbreaks and.
Such research should help mitigate potential inequity, which has been evident in many aspects of thearound the globe.
New سԹexperienced eight known failures of its COVID-19 border control system between August and November last year, suggesting a. Since then, mitigation strategies have been put in place and border staff have been vaccinated, but that doesn’t mean the risk is zero.
One possible omission in making travel bubbles safe is the absence of pre-departure testing requirements for those travelling to and from Australia. Pre-departure testing is no guarantee, but New سԹshould consider extending it to all travellers, not just those from higher-risk countries.
While New Zealanders wait to be vaccinated, we need to do our bit and keep scanning in,on the NZ COVID Tracer app,and getting a test if required.
Acting quickly makes it easier to stop theand stamp out cases of COVID-19.
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