New Zealand changes tack on surging COVID-19 cases : NPR

A well being employee provides out fast COVID-19 antigen self-test kits on the Waipareira Belief drive-in COVID-19 testing station in Auckland, New Zealand, on Tuesday.

Brett Phibbs/AP

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Brett Phibbs/AP

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Again in August, New Zealand’s authorities put your complete nation on lockdown after a single neighborhood case of the coronavirus was detected.

On Tuesday, when new every day circumstances hit a file of practically 24,000, officers instructed hospital employees they might assist out on understaffed COVID-19 wards even when they had been mildly sick themselves.

It was the most recent signal of simply how radically New Zealand’s strategy to the virus has shifted, shifting from elimination to suppression and now to one thing approaching acceptance because the omicron variant has taken maintain.

Specialists say New Zealand’s typically counterintuitive actions have possible saved 1000’s of lives by permitting the nation to largely keep away from earlier, extra lethal variants and shopping for time to get folks vaccinated. The nation of 5 million has reported simply 65 virus deaths for the reason that pandemic started.

However virus hospitalizations have been quickly rising, hitting a file of greater than 750 on Tuesday and placing pressure on the system.

Throughout the nation, the explosion in circumstances has left folks shocked. Only a month in the past, case numbers had been round 200 per day. Now, the outbreak is affecting everybody from frontline employees to lawmakers.

Opposition Chief Christopher Luxon grew to become the very best profile politician but to announce he was contaminated on Monday, saying he felt positive and would proceed working from residence.

One issue that hastened the outbreak was the return of 1000’s of college college students to campuses across the nation final month.

A well being employee provides a COVID-19 booster shot on the Waipareira Belief drive-in COVID-19 testing station in Auckland, New Zealand, on Tuesday.

Brett Phibbs/AP

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Brett Phibbs/AP

A well being employee provides a COVID-19 booster shot on the Waipareira Belief drive-in COVID-19 testing station in Auckland, New Zealand, on Tuesday.

Brett Phibbs/AP

Ralph Zambrano, the coed president at Victoria College of Wellington, mentioned the virus had unfold quickly by way of a whole bunch of scholars in residence halls, taking a toll on their psychological well being and well-being.

“The campus would normally be buzzing right now of 12 months nevertheless it has a really eerie feeling to it,” he mentioned, including that almost all college students had been opting to be taught remotely. “There’s numerous nervousness and pressure.”

He mentioned the outbreak had strained the meals provide system within the halls, with some college students being supplied solely a protein drink for breakfast or a chunk of chilly meat and a few peas for dinner.

The college mentioned case numbers within the halls had been now decreasing as college students recovered.

Professor Michael Baker, an epidemiologist on the College of Otago, mentioned the variant had proved as ferociously infectious in New Zealand because it had in different nations.

He mentioned circumstances gave the impression to be plateauing and even beginning to dip within the largest metropolis of Auckland, whereas nonetheless rising elsewhere.

Whereas a lot of the world was respiration a sigh of reduction after two years of horrible issues, Baker mentioned, New Zealand was at its worst level but within the pandemic and was coming to phrases with the very fact the virus would stay within the nation completely.

He mentioned he was involved well being authorities had misplaced the power to correctly observe the outbreak, as they struggled to shift from a system the place they fastidiously monitored a number of circumstances to coping with 1000’s of self-reported outcomes from fast antigen exams.

Dr. Caroline McElnay, the director of public well being on the Ministry of Well being, instructed reporters the variety of hospitalizations would develop, however that sufferers with omicron usually had much less extreme sicknesses than earlier sufferers had skilled with the delta variant.

She mentioned the rising variety of each sufferers and contaminated well being employees had prompted the comfort within the guidelines round when well being employees might return to hospitals.

She mentioned contaminated employees would solely be allowed to work with sufferers who already had the virus, and if there have been no different choices.

“It is an additional device that allows our well being system to maintain operating,” she mentioned.