On Wednesday evening, New Zealand health officials reported detecting the country’s first case of Omicron outside of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) hotels used to isolate people arriving from other countries.
The infected person, a DJ named Robert Etheridge, recently arrived from the UK and posted on social media that he received a positive test result two days after spending the required 10 days in isolation – seven days at MIQ and three days in “self-isolation” on Waiheke Island near Auckland.
Etheridge had already tested negative three times in an MIQ hotel, before receiving his last test on the ninth day of the isolation period. He did not wait for the result of his test – received three days later, on December 27 – to visit restaurants, a bar and a nightclub in Auckland, potentially exposing many more people to the highly infectious variant of COVID -19.
On Thursday, the Department of Health confirmed that a second person had tested positive for Omicron in the community: an Air New Zealand staff member who was working on a flight between Sydney, Australia and Auckland. The crew member arrived on December 24, on a flight with three other Omicron cases, and tested positive on December 27. They were then transferred to an MIQ facility.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told media on Thursday that up to 100 people considered close contacts of Etheridge were being tested and asked to self-isolate. However, Hipkins said the government has no plans to reinstate a lockdown in Auckland, or bring back a limit restricting travel to and from the city.
The minister said New Zealand was “in a quite different position from much of the rest of the world, in that we have very low circulation of COVID-19 in the community, we have no Omicron in circulation… and we want to keep it like that as long as we can.
In fact, the Labor led government has adopted a policy that allows COVID-19 to spread, as Hipkins has essentially admitted. He encouraged complacency, saying, “I don’t want to overreact to this. We are heading to a point where traffic will be freer at the border… We are now heading to a different space, where we are going to have COVID-19 in the community. “
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ended the country’s previous phase-out strategy in October, and since then all businesses and schools have been allowed to reopen, with minimal public health restrictions.
Yesterday, there were 1,226 active confirmed cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19, and the total death toll in New Zealand is 51. Although still very low by international standards, the number of Deaths have risen sharply since the elimination of elimination: 23 people have died from the virus in the past two months. Since the start of the Delta epidemic in August, 564 people have been hospitalized, including 43 under the age of 10.
There are over 70 active cases of Omicron among returning travelers staying at MIQ. The Omicron variant is much more transmissible and can infect a person who has received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. In New Zealand, 91% of people over the age of 12 have been doubly vaccinated, or 77% of the population. Only about 6 percent of people received a third dose.
Internationally, including the United States, Europe and Australia, Omicron has fueled an unprecedented rise in the number of cases since it was identified as a worrying variant in November, and hospitals are overwhelmed. In a December 30 briefing, the World Health Organization warned that the “tsunami” of COVID-19 cases was paving the way for new variants that could be even worse.
Governments refuse to impose containment measures and other necessary public health measures, instead allowing the virus to spread and kill thousands of people every day. They are acting on behalf of big business, which demands that workers sacrifice their health and their lives, so that profit extraction can continue uninterrupted.
The New Zealand government has adopted the same criminal strategy of allowing COVID-19 to become endemic. Despite the presence of thousands of Delta cases and the possibility that Omicron has already started to spread, the government last night lifted some of the remaining public health restrictions in Auckland.
The city’s “traffic light” setting has been lowered from red to orange, as part of the “COVID-19 protection framework”. This means that the big events of New Year’s Eve can now take place without limit of attendance.
Professor Marylouise McLaws, an epidemiologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, told TVNZ last night that with the lifting of restrictions after two people in Auckland were found to have Omicron, “I would be concerned “. She pointed out that the Delta outbreak in New Zealand started with a single positive case, and with Omicron, it would be even more “difficult to find cases before they inadvertently pass them on to others.”
University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker told Radio NZ that Etheridge may not be contagious because his roommates on Waiheke Island have tested negative, but there is still more of people to test.
It is still unclear why Etheridge tested negative twice before going positive. Baker said he could have had a “historic infection” and the virus “residue” triggered the positive result. Another possibility is that Etheridge contracted the virus while staying at MIQ. The government has refused to establish MIQ facilities specifically designed to reduce the risk of transmission within them.
University of Auckland microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles told the New Zealand Herald the population must “prepare for the worst”. She urged, “If people are not feeling well, they should stay home and get tested. We really don’t want New Years Eve to be a super mass broadcast event and then it will be very difficult to control cases. “
The government, however, by recklessly lifting the restrictions, created the conditions for such a disaster. This encourages the false belief that vaccination alone is enough to prevent a significant number of deaths and illnesses. As Hipkins indicated, the government also intends to dismantle the MIQ requirements in the coming months. From the end of February, Australian travelers will be allowed to bypass the MIQ, inevitably allowing more Omicron cases to enter the country.
