Covid 19 Omicron outbreak editorial: Virus spreading by stealth

The Southseas Healthcare drive-thru Covid testing site in Otara last week. Photo / Michael Craig

Editorial

EDITORIAL

Wellington has grabbed the headlines in New Zealand lately over anti-mandate protests, but once again it's Auckland that's at the heart of another Covid surge.

On Sunday, the country passed 2000 daily new community cases for the first time, with Omicron the dominant variant.

Of those 2522 confirmed cases, 1799 were in the three Auckland district health boards, following a pattern seen all last week where the region had the lion's share of cases.

Various trends in the outbreak suggest that efforts to help people avoid getting Omicron infections should be concentrated on the Auckland region.

There were 11,620 confirmed cases reported in the seven days from February 13 to February 20. Of those, 8350 were in the Auckland area and 3270 throughout the rest of the country.

Ministry of Health data revealed last week that 63 per cent of daily cases recorded within the region between February 9 and 15 were in Counties Manukau. Ministry Pacific health director Gerardine Clifford-Lidstone said: "At the moment, about 50 per cent of the cases are Pacific people and mainly in the Auckland region."

Booster rates have been slipping nationally in recent days to 40,000 and 35,000 on Thursday and Friday. Uptake across Auckland's DHBs could be better: They have the lowest rate for third shots in the country, at 62 per cent of the eligible population aged over 12. The national rate is 65 per cent.

It's not surprising that the country's most populous region would have by far the most cases. And with Omicron, confirmed case numbers are an indication of a bigger problem - they're an undercount of infections as a lot of people with no or few symptoms won't end up being tested as the wave builds.

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker estimated that only one in five infections caused enough symptoms to prompt someone to get tested.

He said Auckland's soaring outbreak was due to the city getting the virus earlier.

"Now it's got a head start of one to three weeks on the rest of the country ... It's even more important people get boosted there, because the numbers are doubling very rapidly - maybe every four days at the moment."

A huge amount of data has been collected overseas about Omicron and it consistently shows that as long as a person is both double-vaccinated and boostered, it's a manageable threat for most. The more who get boostered in the city, the less risk there is of the hospital system being overwhelmed because of the flood of infection.

The number of people in hospital nationally with Covid hit its highest level of the pandemic yesterday with 116, with just one in ICU.

While Omicron case figures are still on the rise, it is best for Aucklanders in particular to be cautious about their behaviour and to mask up. As with the annual flu, just because it's out there doesn't mean people have to catch it.

That's even as some public figures suggest a more relaxed attitude to this variant compared with Delta.

With case numbers growing, not enough people boostered and the potential impact on hospitals unclear, it's best for people in the region to keep a watchful eye on how the outbreak develops.