If the more infectious variants of the coronavirus are troubling news for countries with high rates of Covid-19 infection in the community, they are even worse news for New Zealand.
There is a high chance that we may start suffering from our success.
The so-called UK and South African variants have been followed by a third one detected this month in Japan, and the latest one detected in a patient from Ohio. This is a lot to take in, even for the scientific community.
In New Zealand there was no policy response to this new risk until recently – well after the Christmas and New Year break. During this time, we relied on our Managed Isolation and Quarantine facilities to tackle, restrain and combat the virus and they did a fantastic job. But the policy settings they were left with before our government decided it was time for a vacation, left them vulnerable and resulted in the new variants landing on our shores.
The UK variant is known to have existed since at least September, and the South African one since October. When the number of cases of these new variants skyrocketed, only then the high transmissibility of these variants and the real risk they posed was realised.
The Japanese variant has one of the same mutations that is also present in the UK and South African variant, and the variant which has been detected in a patient from Ohio has a mutation like that of the UK variant but is likely of United States origin, implying these variants could have high transmissibility as well. Scientists are working to establish some preliminary knowledge.
It took only a matter of days for strong action to be taken by many countries when the UK and South African variants were publicly acknowledged as of higher risk last month.
In New Zealand there was no policy response to this new risk until recently – well after the Christmas and New Year break. During this time, we relied on our Managed Isolation and Quarantine facilities to tackle, restrain and combat the virus and they did a fantastic job. But the policy settings they were left with before our government decided it was time for a vacation, left them vulnerable and resulted in the new variants landing on our shores.
Both the UK and South African variants are already in our quarantine facilities.
The new measures announced will add to the existing layer of protection but will not add another much-needed layer.
We urgently need both layers of protection from these new more transmissible variants: the first being tight surveillance measures, and the second to try and achieve herd immunity against Covid-19.
The surveillance approach – monitor, detect, intervene to stop the spread and contain until it vanishes – has been a great approach for us in New Zealand, and would have continued to remain the only approach if there were no vaccines available. The new measures put in place of a pre-departure negative test and a test on day 0/1 are again part of the same surveillance approach, adding to the first layer.
Despite all the new measures announced this week, no one can say for sure that these new more transmissible variants cannot sneak out into the community. Where is the next layer of protection other than the possibility of the unpopular move of upping the lockdown levels when it does get out in the community?
The available data shows about 1.2 percent of the world’s population has been infected by this virus by now and the numbers are increasing every minute. Towards the end of the last year, the World Health Organization’s estimate of actual infections was of more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases. This was taking into account the possibility of huge numbers that remain unreported or simply the fact that some under-developed countries don’t have the systems to ensure up-to-date records.
The situation here in New Zealand is very different. We have had only around 0.04 percent of the population test positive, which is great. Furthermore, we haven’t had any community transmission since late November – again, this is great.
But it shouldn’t be about what we have achieved; instead it should be about what we wish to achieve in terms of long-term protection of New Zealanders. The rate at which the new variants are emerging, it is important that our plans evolve.
Based on the scientific reports so far, it is hard to say for how long any natural immunity to coronavirus infection may last, If there was any natural immunity, we have negligible amounts of it here. The situation with the vaccines is not much different: we don’t know the period of immunity they impart, but at least when mass-administered they will help us achieve herd immunity – a much-needed second layer of protection in case of an accidental exposure to the virus.
Also, it is not yet established whether people who become immune can still spread the virus. This means it’s not an option to ease up on people who are vaccinated or recovered from Covid-19. All the recovered or vaccinated people arriving into New Zealand bring no relief to our Managed Isolation and frontline staff and their families, until these staff and their families are vaccinated.
This also means that just vaccinating Managed Isolation and Quarantine and other frontline staff and their families is no guarantee of it not leaking into the community.
We cannot just rely on one layer of protection. Those very reasons we are the nation to have suffered the least so far – the nation perceived to not need the vaccine as urgently as other parts of the world – is in fact the very reason we need the vaccines now.
No matter how thick this layer of surveillance is, we are more susceptible to the new variants than nations where there is high community transmission and fast vaccine roll-outs.
If these variants get out into our community, we will need the second layer of protection. We need natural or acquired immunity to protect us, and we have neither.
