There’s an urgent need for a big change in Government messaging as health officials deal with cases of Omicron in the community, an epidemiologist says.
The race is still on to pin down contacts of British DJ Dimension who is fully vaccinated but left self-isolation before getting the result of a day nine test back.
It turned out to be positive for Omicron and the DJ went to a private party at a downtown Auckland nightclub, restaurants and drank with neighbours on Waiheke Island.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said it was disappointing the rules weren’t followed and many more people are being found to be contacts when it could have been just a few.
It’s also emerged an Air New Zealand crew member who had the Omicron variant was in the community.
They worked on a flight from Sydney on Christmas Eve and the infection has been linked back to other cases on the plane.
Air New Zealand said the positive result was found in regular surveillance testing and it is confident protocols are being diligently followed.
There are no locations of interest for that case.
“We have a small time window where we can act and we can really change the course of this outbreak,” Otago University’s Amanda Kvalsvig told 1News.
“We’ve got lots of tools in the toolbox and we’ve got summer on our side, there are a lot of things that we can do,” she said.
Kvalsvig said she wanted to see further government action.
“The first thing that needs to start today is messaging about fresh air, that’s critical,” she told 1News.
“We need to be keeping windows open, meeting outdoors, nobody should be going into closed crowded areas at this time.”
“We’ve seen very little messaging from the Government about ventilation,” she said.
“That’s been a big gap in our response.”
“Overseas in the northern hemisphere we’re seeing huge super spreading events and climbing cases and that’s partly driven by the fact that everybody’s indoors with the cold weather. We can take advantage of our summer and stay outdoors.”
Kvalsvig also said vaccinating children needed to be accelerated.
“They’re very vulnerable,” she told 1News.
“There’s so much that we can do, the first thing I would like to happen is that messaging around ventilation, it needs to go everywhere, we need to be out in the fresh air,” Kvalsvig said.
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