Another incursion highlights the risks

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Concerns about New Zealand's border defences against Covid-19 and our inability to have best-practice contact tracing as a secondary line of defence have been dramatically increased with the community case in Northland announced yesterday.

A group of epidemiologists including Professor Michael Baker have been expressing serious doubts for some time about the security of New Zealand's systems.

Yesterday's announcement that a 56-year-old woman who came out of managed isolation on January 13 has since tested positive for the virus has alarmed the country and justified their concerns.

The woman visited 30 sites around Northland and fortunately was an assiduous user of the tracing app, so authorities know her movements. Nevertheless, a group of businesses, their employees and customers will be feeling anxious today.

Baker has been calling for tighter border controls for some time and was one of those who prompted the Government to start requiring pre-departure testing. Last night he called for the Government to stop allowing in people from countries where the virus is out of control.

He and his Otago University colleague Professor Nick Wilson have advocated moving quarantine facilities out of Auckland and stopping the use of shared spaces, as well as reducing the number of border arrivals. Without tighter measures they say New Zealand is vulnerable to another outbreak.

Joining them in their concerns is former associate dean of the Auckland Medical School Professor Des Gorman, who earned a rebuke previously for saying New Zealand had been caught with its pants down. He believes political risk has driven a culture of “best in show”.

We are the envy of the world and while it is a persuasive culture it is the wrong one, he says. The culture we should have is how we do better tomorrow than we did yesterday.

The emergence of new, more transmissible strains of Covid-19 had already heightened fears about the quality of New Zealand's border controls. Continuing reports of people in isolation mingling and smoking together have made New Zealanders uneasy.

According to MBIE figures there are 5800 people in five managed isolation facilities across the country. The next available spot as of the weekend was March 13.

With vaccinations of our border and managed isolation workers not due to start until March at the earliest, the country remains in a vulnerable position.