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stuff.co.nz
Coronavirus: Expert says it may be a decade before NZ can stop isolating arrivals
Michael Daly15:25, May 09 2020FacebookTwitterWhats AppRedditEmail
5-6 minutes
POOL VISION
Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health, has confirmed the aim is to eliminate Covid-19 in New Zealand.
Trustworthy, accurate and reliable news stories are more important now than ever. Support our newsrooms by making a contribution.
Sweden's former state epidemiologist has suggested New Zealand runs the risk of having to spend a decade or more isolating arrivals, because of its approach to Covid-19.
And Johan Giesecke said efforts to stop the spread of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus were "all but futile".
He made the comments while defending Sweden's comparatively relaxed approach to the virus, which is in contrast to the much more restrictive policy adopted by New Zealand.
Joseph Johnson/Stuff
New Zealand's approach is to stamp out the virus then maintain strict border restrictions to be sure no new cases are imported.
Sweden, which has a population of 10 million - twice as many as New Zealand - has had 25,265 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 3175 deaths. Figures from New Zealand's Ministry of Health on Saturday put the number of confirmed and probable cases in New Zealand at 1492, with 21 deaths.
READ MORE:
* Coronavirus: The unusual symptoms linked to Covid-19 and what we know so far
* Coronavirus: Vigilance 'remains crucial' as nine new Covid-19 cases reported
* Coronavirus: NZ celebrities share the love for frontline Covid-19 health workers
Giesecke told Swedish newspaper DN that New Zealand would remain at risk of importing cases from overseas.
The only way to prevent that would be to quarantine all visitors for 14 days on arrival, a measure that would have to remain until a vaccine was found, he said.
Anders Wiklund/AP
Enjoying the spring sunshine at an outdoor bar in Stockholm.
That could take a decade or more, and even then there was no conclusive proof that catching coronavirus provided lasting immunity from the illness - meaning vaccines could prove ineffective.
In the face of such uncertainty, it was better to let the virus run its course provided infections could be suppressed enough to stop hospitals being overwhelmed, Giesecke said.
Countries neighbouring Sweden have had far fewer deaths - 217 in Norway and 514 in Denmark. But Giesecke said in a letter to The Lancet that he expected countries would have similar numbers of Covid-19 deaths in a year.
In it, he said it had become clear a hard lockdown did not protect old and frail people living in care homes, which was a population the lockdown was designed to protect.
"Neither does it decrease mortality from Covid-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries," Giesecke said.
PCR testing (to see if someone currently has the virus) and some straightforward assumptions indicated that by the end of April, more than half a million people in Stockholm county - about 20–25 per cent of the population - had been infected.
About 98–99 per cent of those people were probably unaware or uncertain of having had the infection - either their symptoms were not severe enough for them to go to hospital, or they had no symptoms at all. Serology testing (which tests for antibodies and can indicate previous infection) was supporting those assumptions, he said.
From that information he had concluded "everyone" would be exposed to the virus and most people would be infected. Covid-19 was "spreading like wildfire".
"It almost always spreads from younger people with no or weak symptoms to other people who will also have mild symptoms," Giesecke said.
He acknowledged effective drugs that could save lives might soon be developed, but they would have to be developed, tested, and marketed quickly.
Trying to stop the spread was "all but futile", he said. The most important task was to concentrate on giving optimal care to the proportion of people in which the virus caused severe disease, or death.
According to the Ministry of Health, New Zealand is "pursuing a version of an elimination strategy that seeks to eradicate or minimise cases of Covid-19 from New Zealand to a level that is manageable by the health system, until a vaccine becomes available to achieve population-level immunity".
After some confusion about the meaning of the word "elimination" in the context of coronavirus in late April, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield felt compelled to clarify that: "We haven't eliminated it, and we haven't eradicated it.''
Elimination was about having a low number of cases, and a knowledge of where they were coming from and identifying people early, he said.
Then it's a case of stamping out the virus and continuing to maintain strict border restrictions to be sure no new cases were being imported.
Stuff
Coronavirus: Expert says it may be a decade before NZ can stop isolating arrivals
Michael Daly15:25, May 09 2020FacebookTwitterWhats AppRedditEmail
5-6 minutes
POOL VISION
Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health, has confirmed the aim is to eliminate Covid-19 in New Zealand.
Trustworthy, accurate and reliable news stories are more important now than ever. Support our newsrooms by making a contribution.
Sweden's former state epidemiologist has suggested New Zealand runs the risk of having to spend a decade or more isolating arrivals, because of its approach to Covid-19.
And Johan Giesecke said efforts to stop the spread of the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus were "all but futile".
He made the comments while defending Sweden's comparatively relaxed approach to the virus, which is in contrast to the much more restrictive policy adopted by New Zealand.
Joseph Johnson/Stuff
New Zealand's approach is to stamp out the virus then maintain strict border restrictions to be sure no new cases are imported.
Sweden, which has a population of 10 million - twice as many as New Zealand - has had 25,265 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 3175 deaths. Figures from New Zealand's Ministry of Health on Saturday put the number of confirmed and probable cases in New Zealand at 1492, with 21 deaths.
READ MORE:
* Coronavirus: The unusual symptoms linked to Covid-19 and what we know so far
* Coronavirus: Vigilance 'remains crucial' as nine new Covid-19 cases reported
* Coronavirus: NZ celebrities share the love for frontline Covid-19 health workers
Giesecke told Swedish newspaper DN that New Zealand would remain at risk of importing cases from overseas.
The only way to prevent that would be to quarantine all visitors for 14 days on arrival, a measure that would have to remain until a vaccine was found, he said.
Anders Wiklund/AP
Enjoying the spring sunshine at an outdoor bar in Stockholm.
That could take a decade or more, and even then there was no conclusive proof that catching coronavirus provided lasting immunity from the illness - meaning vaccines could prove ineffective.
In the face of such uncertainty, it was better to let the virus run its course provided infections could be suppressed enough to stop hospitals being overwhelmed, Giesecke said.
Countries neighbouring Sweden have had far fewer deaths - 217 in Norway and 514 in Denmark. But Giesecke said in a letter to The Lancet that he expected countries would have similar numbers of Covid-19 deaths in a year.
In it, he said it had become clear a hard lockdown did not protect old and frail people living in care homes, which was a population the lockdown was designed to protect.
"Neither does it decrease mortality from Covid-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries," Giesecke said.
PCR testing (to see if someone currently has the virus) and some straightforward assumptions indicated that by the end of April, more than half a million people in Stockholm county - about 20–25 per cent of the population - had been infected.
About 98–99 per cent of those people were probably unaware or uncertain of having had the infection - either their symptoms were not severe enough for them to go to hospital, or they had no symptoms at all. Serology testing (which tests for antibodies and can indicate previous infection) was supporting those assumptions, he said.
From that information he had concluded "everyone" would be exposed to the virus and most people would be infected. Covid-19 was "spreading like wildfire".
"It almost always spreads from younger people with no or weak symptoms to other people who will also have mild symptoms," Giesecke said.
He acknowledged effective drugs that could save lives might soon be developed, but they would have to be developed, tested, and marketed quickly.
Trying to stop the spread was "all but futile", he said. The most important task was to concentrate on giving optimal care to the proportion of people in which the virus caused severe disease, or death.
According to the Ministry of Health, New Zealand is "pursuing a version of an elimination strategy that seeks to eradicate or minimise cases of Covid-19 from New Zealand to a level that is manageable by the health system, until a vaccine becomes available to achieve population-level immunity".
After some confusion about the meaning of the word "elimination" in the context of coronavirus in late April, Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield felt compelled to clarify that: "We haven't eliminated it, and we haven't eradicated it.''
Elimination was about having a low number of cases, and a knowledge of where they were coming from and identifying people early, he said.
Then it's a case of stamping out the virus and continuing to maintain strict border restrictions to be sure no new cases were being imported.
Stuff
