Leading scientist Sir Peter Gluckman says the greatest threat to the effectiveness of Aotearoa's level four alert amid the coronavirus pandemic will be the behaviour of New Zealanders.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern raised New Zealand's Covid-19 coronavirus alert level to level three. Alert level four will come into effect at 11.59m on Wednesday, effectively meaning New Zealanders will be required to self-isolate at home.
Level four is put in place because of a risk of sustained level of virus transmission. Contact between people is largely eliminated, the public urged to stay at home. Essential services, such as supermarkets, healthcare, service stations and media, will remain in place though.
Ahead of the announcement, Sir Peter was among many calling for the Government to raise the level which was at level two at the time.
This morning, Sir Peter told TVNZ1's Breakfast stricter border controls were needed in New Zealand, but the biggest threat to the transmission of coronavirus was individuals themselves.
"I think the greatest threat that affects level four will be the behaviour of New Zealanders. If we behave well then we should be able to keep on top of it with good tracing, good testing regime, high level contact tracing, we should be able to keep on top of it as Singapore, Taiwan have done."
Sir Peter had been following what's been happening overseas.
"Clearly, it is very difficult once it (coronavirus) gets into the community to stop that exponential rise which everybody talks about. No matter how good our health services are, we could not cope well with that rise.
"Once it gets out then the exponential rise is just gonna be like a bomb."
However, he added, "because of our geographical position we have a chance, a small chance, to manage it in a way that Singapore and Taiwan have done. Let's try and do that because that's the best thing for our population even though it has economic and social costs."
Sir Peter was the first chief of science adviser to the Prime Minister. He is also the current chair of the international network of government science advice, as well as president-elect of the International Science Council.
He told Breakfast a lot of people had asked for his advice on the Covid-19 outbreak, so he was calling for a greater, more rigorous and more controlled enforcement of the quarantine period after people return to New Zealand.
"We are still relatively lax in our border control and I think that if we could manage, as other countries have done, to ensure proper quarantining at the border for people that must come back to New Zealand, then I think we can keep on top of this for a long period of time.
"It would make a lot of difference."
Sir Peter also said, "there's a lot of things individuals can do and they have to be very responsible in this situation and I think one of the concerns is ... the general failure of social distancing in many countries like Britain, like Australia and I think in New Zealand."
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