August 15, 2023
Covid threat still around
The Government’s decision to drop all remaining mandatory Covid-19 restrictions is being questioned by science communicator Siouxie Wiles.
The University of Auckland microbiologist says she’s been dreading the day New Zealand removes protections such as wearing masks in medical settings.
She says while vaccines and anti-viral drugs have made cases easier to manage, there were still 5500 cases reported last week.
Rather than following overseas countries in dropping restrictions, New Zealand should have continued following its own path.
“There’s a new variant around and they’re starting to see case numbers rising overseas and the problem is once you lose a protection, it’s very hard to bring it back. People go ‘why do we need this any more?’ To me it sent the wrong message. It sent the message Covid’s like everything else and we know it’s not. It’s very serious and I wish we were still treating it that way,” Dr Wiles says.
Dr Wiles says people should continue getting their boosters to give themselves some protection from new variants such as the EG.5 strain of Omicron.