It’s time to stop the ‘omicron is mild so may as well let it rip’ narratives. The government’s current pandemic response is clearly to slow spread and protect the health care systems (not just hospitals but places like aged care facilities, and general access to health care).
But it’s also to protect humans. It’s not inevitable to get omicron (or delta). In countries that have had widespread covid, there are still many people who haven’t had the illness. This matters because any variant of covid can cause hospitalisation, death, or long covid. Long covid is the thing we are not talking about but the risks is still high. The gist from my previous post, it’s a numbers game,
The more people we have infected, the more risk of health care system overload and deaths in the short term, and the more likelihood of increasing numbers of post-viral chronically ill people in our families and communities and systems over the coming months and years.
It also matters because it protects vulnerable people who are most at risk from hospitalisation or death.
Ashley Bloomfield at the announcement of move to Phase three on Thursday (RNZ),
… act as if you have Covid, and look to protect others around you
On omicron and vaccination,
“You are far less likely to end up in hospital if you get Covid-19 if you’ve had a booster.”
He says modelling of the low-transmission scenario assumes high booster uptake. Bloomfield says two new studies confirm the vaccine protects against getting infected in the first place and protect against severe illness.
“One of the studies, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that compared with being unvaccinated the odds of contracting Omicron after receiving three doses dropped by 67 percent – two thirds – and for Delta the risk declined by a stunning 93 percent.”
“So a highly-boosted population here will serve us all well.”
In other words, a highly boosted population protects individuals from contracting covid and limits spread. This is how we do public health.
Bloomfield from the video,
Boosters, the Minister has mentioned… our modelling of the low transmission scenario… assumes high rates of booster uptake. At the moment, nearly 70% of eligible people have done so, we need to increase that.
(starts 15m 20s)
Another point Bloomfield makes is that up to 30% of people with covid are asymptomatic, hence we should be acting as if we have covid in relation to other people. Those particularly at risk are elderly, people with chronic health conditions, and those not vaccinated or boosted (for whatever reason). Now is not the time to visit elderly relatives, and please tell those around you if you have symptoms or have been in higher risk situations. Not all at risk people wear it on their sleeves.
All of which is to say: what we do next matters.
This is the knife edge for New Zealand: do we lapse into neoliberal “I’m ok Jack”, and not worry about others? Or do we step up and act collectively to protect us all?
We have agency here: vaccination/boosting, well fitted masks, hygiene and social distancing, scanning, appropriate self isolation are all things that help us all.
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