The end of Covid elimination in Auckland requires more effective measures to avoid wider outbreaks, illness, and heavy pressure on the public health system, according to new research from The New Zealand Initiative.

The think tank’s new research note, Safer Arrivals and the Path to 2022, covers a range of measures to strengthen New Zealand’s Covid response.

Report author, Dr Eric Crampton says:

“New Zealand’s vaccination rates remain alarmingly low. Less than 70% of our population has had a first vaccination dose. In Alberta, Canada, where just over 71% of the total population has had a first dose, 263 Covid patients are in Intensive Care – out of a population of 4.4 million. The vast majority of Alberta’s ICU patients are unvaccinated.

“Shifting to active and vigorous suppression of cases requires a strong emphasis on vaccination. At-school vaccination for students and their families should be available as soon as Auckland’s schools re-open. But broader measures are needed.”

Recommendations in Safer Arrivals and the Path to 2022 include:

• Employer vaccination mandates
  Clarifying legal pathways so employers can require vaccination as condition of employment, and so that venues and facilities can require vaccination as a condition of entry.
• Stronger testing systems
  Preparing for regular saliva-based PCR testing in schools; readying rapid antigen testing for deployment where suitable.
• Targeted restrictions
  Augmented Alert Levels should maintain tighter restrictions on numbers for venues catering to the unvaccinated, while allowing greater numbers where vaccination requirements reduce risk.
• Improved school and facility ventilation
  Schools should be equipped with monitors that indicate how well they are ventilated, which would help reduce transmission risk in classrooms.
• Strengthened border systems
  The government should introduce more testing and data-gathering from people entering MIQ, to reduce time in isolation and free up more space for subsequent arrivals.
• Covid treatments
  Effective Covid treatments in use abroad are not yet available in New Zealand. Government must signal procurement interest and progress MedSafe approval to ensure we have access when it is needed.
• Infectious Disease Agency
  As part of the Government’s restructure of the health system, they should establish a dedicated Infectious Disease Agency, as exists in Taiwan, to monitor and coordinate New Zealand’s pandemic response and to guard against new threats that might emerge.

“Elimination allowed Kiwis to spend most of 2020 and 2021 in freedom, barring restrictions at the border. But it was always fragile due to unnecessary risks at the border, particularly around inadequate testing.

“As Covid now risks being established in Auckland, stronger systems are needed to keep Covid heavily suppressed while the vaccination roll-out completes.

“We hope the Government is already considering measures like these, and progresses them quickly,” concludes Dr Crampton.

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