National’s health spokesperson says whānau and hapū will find themselves in the front line of providing care for those with Omicron.
Shane Reti expects hundreds of new cases a day of the highly infectious Covid variant by early March.
While a smaller percentage of people will need hospital care, there will be a huge stress on primary care as people get through it at home.
“Cases will be pushed out to the community, so remote and rural areas, iwi-hapū, they will be responsible for managing their oved ones, so this is going to be a challenge as the numbers escalate,” he says.
Dr Reti says there will still be Delta cases putting pressure on ICU beds.
