Coronavirus Update #17
Well, the second wave cometh. After 102 days of community-spread free life, coronavirus is back in New Zealand. I don’t think anyone is surprised, but I was shocked to wake up on Wednesday morning with an inbox full of school cancellation notices, texts from friends bemoaning a return to home schooling, and a lot of catching up to do. Apparently going to bed really early and not watching TV made me the last person in New Zealand to know about the nearly immediate return to Level 3 in Auckland. (The announcement came at 9:15 on Tuesday evening that Auckland was heading to Level 3 at noon on Wednesday for three days.)
Four people in a family mysteriously fell ill and tested positive at the beginning of the week. By Thursday, there were 13 other connected positive cases, but still no one knows how they got it as there are no connections to flying overseas or with people working at the border or in quarantine facilities. The best guess is that somehow the virus survived on refrigerated cargo and infected one of the workers at the Americold facility. Other theories floating around are that there was a breach in the quarantine protocol that the government didn’t catch or that one of the border workers - who apparently haven’t been tested regularly!!!!! - got it and passed it on undetected. After genomic sequencing, we know that the strain that is out now is not related to any of the existing known cases in quarantine but it is closely related to strains floating around the UK and Australia.
On Friday, another 13 cases were announced. They all seem to be connected to the original four family members. There have been a record number of coronavirus tests done over the past 48 hours, and the only positives are the ones in this cluster. The speculation about what the government will announce at a highly anticipated 5:30 speech on Friday is all over the place.
Will the whole country move to level 4? It seemed possible until the Health Director said Friday morning that this wasn’t on the table.
Will all of the north island move to Level 3? This is my bet.
Will Auckland stay at 3 and the rest of New Zealand at 2? This seems unlikely given the spread to a couple of other cities, but perhaps it is the easiest option to stay with the status quo.
Will Auckland move down to level 2 with the rest of the country? I hope not!
There appears to be very little mask wearing going on. When we’ve gone out for walks, I’d say 10% is a generous number for the amount of people actually wearing them. I’ve made sure the kids are wearing their masks when we go out, and we get some funny looks. This doesn’t make me feel very secure in our ability to eliminate the virus again if we don’t go into level 4. People seem very blasé about wearing masks, and even the people who are wearing them, don’t seem to fully appreciate that your nose can’t be popping out of the top for it to be effective.
So everyone cross your fingers, toes and all the things and hope that this is a small blip in the Kiwi coronavirus experience. I’m hopeful people will take it just as seriously and we’re able to get back to normal in a month or two. In the meantime, I’ll be pulling my hair out and trying not to lose my mind homeschooling two kids. And I’ll try to remember to be grateful for the three months of normalcy that we got and the knowledge that we can get back there. I know that’s a luxury many people haven’t had.
