The Ministry of Health's chief science advisor Ian Town, chief testing advisor Kirsten Beynon, and lead science advisor Fiona Callaghan have provided an update on surveillance measures being used to monitor new variants of Covid-19 in Aotearoa.
Watch the update here:
Four cases of the Omicron subvariant BA.5 and one case of BA.4 were detected in the community with no clear link to the border last Friday.
Epidemiologist Michael Baker subsequently said he was not surprised new Omicron subvariants were found in the community as the new variants were more infectious.
Ministry of Health lead science advisor Fiona Callaghan said currently the BA.2 variant was responsible for over 95 percent of the reported community cases in New Zealand.
She said new variants - BA.4 and BA.5 - were "beginning to show early indications of increasing in prevalence".
The possibility of people catching Covid-19 every year was an area of active discussion, she said.
"It is quite possible we may be seeing, over a long time period, repeated infections, particularly if new variants emerge."
Callaghan said apart from RATs and PCR tests, wastewater testing helped monitor the level of infection in the community.
Chief science advisor Ian Town said there were still further waves of Omicron around the world: "New Zealand has been experiencing exactly the same thing with additional subvariants being detected over the recent weeks."
"There is a small chance that in the future a more aggressive variant may be found in New Zealand but in general we will have seen that emergence overseas and that's where our international surveillance plays an important part.
"Covid is not going away. It is a continual challenge for us as it is in many other countries. Our response has been continually adapting and responding to new evidence and new information."
The ministry was initially working towards "an elimination strategy but in December last year that changed and we're now working in the Covid-19 Protection Framework environment", he said.
The current orange settings, which were about protection and surveillance, would be reviewed next week, he said.
Although case numbers peaked earlier in the year, case numbers were still high and the health system would continue to feel the pressure as winter colds and flu cases increased, he said.
Town said there was concern in the medical and scientific community that "there may be long-standing damage to various organs and some of the symptoms that people have experienced - aches and pains, brain fog - some of those other symptoms almost certainly represent some impacts on those organ systems. We don't have any New Zealand data on that at the moment".
The ministry's chief testing advisor, Kirsten Beynon, said surveillance measures included surveying "travellers entering New Zealand, individuals and wastewaters in our communities and those who are sickest in our hospitals".
"We can triangulate this information to understand the collective burden of disease."
While Omicron continues to circulate in the community, "open borders will bring new variants", she said.
"We therefore need to be vigilant at our borders and within our communities."
Many countries had stopped testing at borders, she said, but "in Aotearoa, we are maintaining a high level of testing at our borders".
People crossing the New Zealand border self-test on days 0/1 and 5/6.
Beynon said the numbers were encouraging. For example, of the 37,000 people who arrived in New Zealand in the week ending 5 June, "75 percent completed and reported two RATs".
"Of the people tested, approximately 2.3 percent were positive for Covid-19."
About a third of the positive new arrivals were getting PCR tests for whole genome sequencing, Beynon said.
The country was building its whole genome sequencing capacity, she said.
Town said the ministry was currently conducting a request for proposals for research to help us learn from our past experience but also to plan for the future.
"We have $9 million available and that RFP closes this Friday. We expect to make an announcement about the successful projects in August this year.
"Vaccination remains at the heart of our protective framework and is the best way to protect us and our whānau including vulnerable population groups for the worst effects of Covid-19."
