Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says the emergence of the new Covid variant, Omicron, is “depressing”, but more information is needed before its danger can be assessed.
Speaking to Breakfast on Monday morning, Baker said Omicron was worrying given the changes to its spike protein and how quickly it appeared to be spreading.
"It's clearly more infectious than the Delta variant in parts of South Africa where it's starting to take over. At the moment I think it is quite worrying that it has travelled so far," Baker said.
"We need a lot more data before we can make any conclusions about how this is going to behave in the real world."
New Zealand currently has approximately 85 per cent of its eligible population fully vaccinated against Covid-19, although there are concerns the new variant may be immune to existing Covid-19 vaccines.
However, Baker says it is too early to tell.
"At this stage we don't know it's going to be a problem for vaccination. It's highly likely the vaccines will still be very effective against it but we just need to get that tested out."
"New Zealand is fortunate in that it is still in a small group of countries that is managing its border tightly. We can keep this variant out but it might affect how we loosen travel restrictions in the New Year, but it all depends on how serious this variant is."
On Saturday night, the New Zealand Government placed nine Southern African countries where the variant had been spotted on the high risk travel list, and Omicron cases have popped up in several European countries.
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