As Cases Skyrocket, New Zealand Finally Faces Its Covid Reckoning
By Pete McKenzie, March 3, 2022, NYTimes

For much of the past two years, Covid-19 was a phantom
presence in New Zealand, a plague experienced mostly through
news reports from faraway lands. Now, suddenly, it has
become a highly personal threat.

New Zealand is being walloped by a major outbreak of the
Omicron variant, with the virus spreading at what may be
the fastest rate in the world. On Thursday, the country
reported 23,194 new cases, a once unthinkable number in a
small island nation of about five million people where the
record daily case count before the current wave was in the
low hundreds.

The explosion in cases has come as the government, under
political pressure, loosened its strict regulations meant
to prevent the spread of the virus, and as the highly
transmissible Omicron reduced the effectiveness of the
controls that remained.

That has filled many New Zealanders with anxiety as they
learn to live with the pandemic-related risk that the rest
of the world has grappled with since early 2020.

“For the vast majority of the pandemic, most New Zealanders
didn’t know anyone who had Covid-19. That’s changing massively
now,” said Siouxsie Wiles, a microbiologist at the University
of Auckland. “This is the first time most New Zealanders are
dealing with Covid-19 in their own homes.”

While the ever-growing case numbers may be unsettling, New
Zealand was perhaps as well positioned as it could have been
for its deferred reckoning with the virus.

Earlier in the pandemic, before the population was widely
vaccinated, the country kept infections and deaths very low
through a stringent quarantine system for incoming travelers,
lockdowns during outbreaks and significant isolation periods
for those who tested positive or were close contacts.

Caseloads often stood at zero, and life for long periods
resembled a time before the pandemic. Even after New Zealand
began to shift away from a “Covid zero” strategy following
the emergence of the Delta variant, case numbers remained
relatively small.

By the time of the arrival of the Omicron variant — which is
more contagious but often produces milder symptoms — the
country was well protected. 95% of New Zealanders over age 12
have been vaccinated, and 57% have had a booster shot.

With this combination of strict measures and widespread
inoculation, the country has reported just 56 virus deaths
throughout the pandemic — by far the lowest rate of any major
democracy.

But New Zealand’s initial caution toward the virus became
politically untenable this year as citizens living overseas
protested limits on their return and business advocates
called for fewer restrictions.

In response, the government weakened its pandemic controls.
Last week, it removed many self-isolation requirements, and
on Monday it announced that vaccinated New Zealanders could
freely enter the country without isolating or quarantining.
New Zealand remains closed to international tourists.

With the virus now spreading rapidly, the country has been
forced to undergo a “big psychological shift,” said Michael
Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago in Dunedin.

While the approach to managing the virus was once one of
“collective protection,” Dr. Baker said, it is now one of
“much more individual and family responsibility.”

The government has tried to prepare the public for this
shift by warning that New Zealanders’ experience of the
virus would change. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern noted
last week that “very soon we will all know people who have
Covid-19 or we will potentially get it ourselves.”

Modelers estimate that each Omicron-positive New Zealander is
infecting an average of 4.64 other people — the highest rate
among 180 countries analyzed. Experts believe that half the
country could be infected within three months.

“We’re finally experiencing the difficult side of exponential
growth,” said Dr. Wiles, the University of Auckland micro-
biologist. “I feel quite nervous about the rest of the year.”

Jin Russell, a community and developmental pediatrician at the
University of Auckland, said that some vaccinated New Zealanders
just wanted to get on with their lives.

But for families with members who are at heightened risk from
the virus, it’s an unnerving time. “And then there are other
people who continue to mourn the elimination strategy and are
living quite restricted lives as they try to avoid or delay
catching the virus,” Dr. Russell said.

Approximately 40% of New Zealanders are now working from home,
according to Brad Olsen, a senior economist at Infometrics, a
consultancy in Wellington. On Tuesday, lawmakers participated
remotely in parliamentary debates for the first time.

Major outbreaks have also occurred in other countries, like
Australia, that loosened strict pandemic measures. Australia’s
spike, however, occurred during the Southern Hemisphere summer,
which Dr. Baker said significantly slowed the virus’s spread.

New Zealand’s outbreak, by contrast, has come as workplaces
settled into the business year and students headed back to
school and college. Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-
general of health, has called it a “nationwide superspreader event.”

At the University of Otago, for example, students hosted a
series of large parties at which hundreds of people were
exposed to an Omicron-positive person. The police intervened to
prevent another party at which Covid-positive students intended
to invite dozens of friends who were also infected.

“Police advised them that this is a stupid idea,” Anthony Bond,
a senior police sergeant, said at the time.

While these were a minority of students, over the weeks since,
the virus has spread rapidly in large apartments with multiple
people, according to the president of the local students
association, Melissa Lama.

By Tuesday, there were over 3,200 active cases of Covid-19 in
Dunedin, with many hundreds more people self-isolating as
household contacts. Students are anxious about the virus’s
spread and frustrated with the individual pressure they feel
about managing it, Ms. Lama said.

Elsewhere in the country, anger over the government’s Covid-19
response produced a different kind of superspreader event. In
Wellington, the capital, hundreds of demonstrators opposed to
vaccine mandates occupied the grounds surrounding Parliament
in an occasionally violent protest that lasted for over 3 weeks.

After serious clashes between the police and demonstrators,
multiple officers began reporting Covid-19 infections. Partly
because of the health risk, officers battled protesters to
clear the occupation on Wednesday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/world/australia/new-zealand-covid-omicron.html

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