Covid 19 coronavirus: Lockdown looming in Wellington? Very possibly, but depends how the dice roll

ANALYSIS:

There is justifiably a degree a nervousness in the capital.

A worst-case scenario is that the Sydneysider who spent a weekend in Wellington while potentially infectious has spread the virus far and wide.

A best-case scenario is obviously that he has infected no one.

Both are possible and, as always with this type of scenario, much of it is a roll of the dice.

Is he a super-spreader? Is anyone he might have infected a super-spreader? Did they already attend a super-spreader event in a different part of the country?

The case had received one vaccine dose, and the four close contacts have all tested negative – though the virus might still be incubating.

In this light, moving Wellington to level 2 right now might come across as a bit much.

But we know that we're probably dealing with the delta variant, which is at the centre of the outbreak in Sydney.

It is roughly twice as transmissible as the original variants of Covid-19. We've seen how easily it can be transmitted by fleeting encounters, and how it has led to a surge in cases in the UK despite 82 per cent of adults having received one vaccine dose, and 60 per cent being fully vaccinated.

Face masks were donned by commuters at Wellington Railway Station yesterday. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The delta variant also leads to 1.85 more hospitalisations, and vaccines are less effective against it, especially with only one dose.

There are also several indoor locations of interest where transmission could have easily occurred. An Irish bar to watch the Super Rugby final. An art exhibition at Te Papa. Several bars and cafes on Sunday which, despite the atrocious weather that day, may well have been crowded.

And much of Wellington is unvaccinated. Only 73,000 doses have so far been administered by Capital and Coast DHB, with 21,245 people fully vaccinated.

That doesn't mean cases will emerge here and lockdown is inevitable. Remember the guy who raged in the mosh pit at the Tool concert, or the nurse who huffed and puffed in three exercise classes? They were Covid-duds who didn't pass the virus on.

Officials with two fingers on the lockdown lever will be keeping a close eye on the level of testing today and tomorrow, as well as the number of cases, the nature of those cases – are they linked to existing ones? – and close contacts, and whether any are outside Wellington.

The testing and contact-tracing systems have worked well for us in the past - well above the gold standard for the February cluster - and there is nothing to suggest they won't do so again now.

There is evidence, however, to question the Government's response so far.

The ministry initially used the same terms, such as casual plus, that had confused the public during the February outbreak. This is despite advice from Sir Brian Roche's advisory group against using such terms, which were later removed.

The ministry also took its time to release a statement about the case's flights in and out of Wellington; it came six hours after the same information had been released by NSW health officials.

Locations of interest weren't made public until roughly 11 hours after Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins was first told about the case.

By then - just before 9am yesterday - many Wellingtonians had already left for work, wondering whether they might have shared a space with a delta-carrying person.

Time is clearly of the essence in letting people know if they should isolate.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announcing a move in Wellington to alert level 2 from 6pm Wednesday. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Hipkins was quick to say that those places were published as soon as possible, though his comment about the passing of a night in the interim will garner little sympathy from a public biting their fingernails.

An inevitable review of the response could look at whether that process needs to shift more towards telling the public what might be, and away from only putting out information after establishing a threshold of certainty.

Hipkins and health boss Ashley Bloomfield also defended not shutting down flights from Sydney sooner.

The first case in the Sydney outbreak came to light on Wednesday last week. It grew to four cases before masks on public transport were made mandatory.

By yesterday it was at 37 cases, yet restrictions similar to level 2 only came into effect at 4pm yesterday local time.

It would be unsurprising if health officials in Wellington were raising eyebrows at the relatively meagre restrictions in Sydney in the face of a delta outbreak.

Whether the bubble should have been paused before the case could have boarded a flight to Wellington is an open question, which hindsight always makes easier to answer.

But there were only four cases in Sydney at the time, and pausing the bubble based on the potential spread of the delta variant would have been overly cautious.

Hipkins is at least being relatively cautious.

The restrictions in Sydney, with dozens of cases, came into force at the same time as alert level 2 came into effect in Wellington, where there are no known cases.

Fingers crossed that it stays that way, and that if it doesn't, that our health teams continue to do what they've done so far - stamp out the virus wherever it emerges.