A public health expert says New Zealand is in its ninth wave of Covid-19.<\/p>\n
The latest Health New Zealand figures show 50 hospitalisations and 19 deaths with the virus in the past week.<\/p>\n
In the Southern health district, which covers Otago and Southland, there have been 27 recorded cases, five admissions and one death.<\/p>\n
With booster uptake falling and little tracking of long Covid, experts are warning the real impact of the virus may still be underestimated.<\/p>\n
University of Otago professor of public health Michael Baker told RNZ’s Morning Report\u00a0that waves of Covid-19 had been a pattern seen since the Omicron variant started spreading widely in 2022.<\/p>\n
In the past four years, there had been roughly two waves per year.<\/p>\n
Baker said the waves weren’t seasonal – being equally distributed between winter and summer.<\/p>\n
But this wave wasn’t following the pattern of a new subvariant emerging, which suggested a wane in immunity.<\/p>\n
Baker said people were not getting booster shots and for many, it had been quite some time since they were last infected and antibodies were dropping.<\/p>\n
It was enough to give the virus “the edge”.<\/p>\n
Baker said the virus was still New Zealand’s most impactful infectious disease – equating to about 1000 deaths a year – compared to influenza which accounted for about 500.<\/p>\n
Covid-19 was also filling up hospitals – and everyone needed to “act to reduce impact”, he said.<\/p>\n
Baker said there was no data to show if people were still testing but many had become more complacent.<\/p>\n
Tests were no longer paid for by the government making them unaffordable for some people.<\/p>\n
“I think that’s a problem,” Baker said.<\/p>\n
Apart from getting boosters – which were available every six months for people over 30 – Baker said self-isolation was the next best way to stop the spread.<\/p>\n
He said if people had respiratory symptoms, they should stay home and get a test if they can afford it.<\/p>\n
Covid-19 was being tracked through wastewater and hospitalisations – which were currently showing a “big wave”.<\/p>\n
The amount of Covid-19 in wastewater peaked in February to the highest point since July last year in Queenstown.<\/p>\n
In Dunedin Covid-19 in the wastewater climbed to the highest level since September last year before dropping back down in the later half of the month.<\/p>\n
As well as topping up antibodies, Baker said getting regular boosters reduced the risk of\u00a0Long Covid.<\/p>\n
The “disabling illness” was not being monitored at all In New Zealand which Baker said was a “gap” in tracking the virus.<\/p>\n
He suggested periodic surveys would be enough to track how many people are living with it.<\/p>\n
\u00a0– Additional reporting Allied Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A public health expert says New Zealand is in its ninth wave of Covid-19. The latest Health New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-319826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}