It's possible we may never know how Covid-19 returned to the community, but that doesn't mean we can't emerge out of the current alert level restrictions, says microbiologist Dr Siouxise Wiles.
The University of Auckland Associate Professor says the opportunity may've passed to find the origin of the latest Covid-19 cluster in Auckland.
"What we have lost is the opportunity to know how it happened, or what gaps need plugging," Dr Wiles told NZME.
"But at the same time, we have to remember that nothing is 100 per cent guaranteed to work all of the time."
Since August 11 when the new Auckland Covid-19 outbreak was made public, experts and officials have desperately chased the beginnings of the cluster through exhaustive contact tracing and large scale testing.
Yesterday, the government announced 175,000 tests had been conducted since the start of the outbreak.
Dr Wiles says the huge amount of testing has revealed the cluster is "pretty tight" and that it's "not a big deal" if we never find out the origin.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said extensive testing of border staff turned up no leads.
"We have asked those who have been our earliest known infections in this cluster whether they have any links to overseas travel, airline crew or border workers, to try to establish links through contact tracing," she said.
There are now 89 confirmed cases in the community, 88 of which have been linked to the Auckland cluster and one remains under investigation.
Despite new cases of community transmission every day this week, Jacinda Ardern and Dr Ashley Bloomfield say the signs are encouraging. (Source: Other)
Ms Ardern echoed predictions by Dr Wiles, saying while we may not find the answers, that doesn’t mean we can’t downgrade restrictions.
"So as long as we have the cluster contained, we can still lift our restrictions eventually," Ms Ardern said.
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