As of August 15, the mandates ended for the seven-day isolation period and masks in health settings, with the Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall saying wastewater testing showed little trace of the virus.

Dr Verrall acknowledged many would still feel vulnerable.

“So it is on all of us to think well if we’re visiting an aged residential care home for example, that we do follow the recommended procedures there.

“Te Whatu Ora will continue to encourage people to wear masks when they go to hospital — they won’t be mandated.”

Covid cases accounted for just over 2 percent of hospital admissions, Dr Verrall said.

Last step on wind down
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ Morning Report this was the last step in winding down covid-19 restrictions.

“We waited until after the winter peak period. The health system overall, while it’s been under pressure and it’s still under pressure, had a much better winter this winter than last winter.”

He said it was on the advice of the director-general of health and there was never a perfect time to make changes to health settings.

General Practice New Zealand chair Dr Bryan Betty said practices like mask wearing and self-isolation should be encouraged for all viruses, not just Covid.

He told Morning Report people needed to continue with the lessons that were learnt from covid but which were applicable to all viruses that were spread from person-to-person such as influenza and RSV.

“Voluntarily staying at home if you do have a flu or a cold so you don’t spread it, and I think masking in public areas of health facilities voluntarily is something we should still keep in play.”

Health providers should consider ensuring masks were worn in places where sick people gathered such as hospitals or GPs’ waiting areas, Dr Betty said.

Vaccination still important
Vaccination would still play an important part in reducing infection and re-infection, he said.

“We do that every year for influenza, we are potentially going forward going to be recommending that for covid, especially for vulnerable populations.”

Employers should be considering how to support workers so they do not come into work sick, he said.

Employers should give people with colds, the flu or Covid the opportunity to work from home if they can to avoid spreading the illness around the workplace, he said.

University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker also urged people to stay home when they were sick with covid-19, even though all of the health restrictions had been lifted.

Professor Baker told Morning Report that covid had transitioned from a pandemic threat to an endemic infectious disease.

“Unfortunately that means it’s there the whole time, it is still in New Zealand among the infectious diseases, the leading cause of death and hospitalisation and we know that those infections and reinfections are going to add to that burden of long covid.”

Still vital to isolate
People must remember that it was still vital to isolate when they were sick and not go to work or school or socialise which spread the virus, he said.

People should also continue to wear masks in medical facilities and in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, he said.

New Zealand had come through its fourth wave of infection for the Omicron variant, he said.

“We are going to see new subvariants or lineage of the virus arrive, they will be better at escaping from our immunity, our immunity will wane of course unless you get boosted.”

The government needed to look at how to reinforce those behaviours that prevented covid from spreading now that the mandates had been removed, he said.

“I mean this could be running media campaigns or developing codes of practice say with employers, Business New Zealand, I mean this is a chance for them really to show leadership about how they’re going to support the workforce in New Zealand, self-isolating when they are sick.”

Hospitilisations and mortality rates showed that covid-19 continued to have an impact and watching those rates would indicate whether the mandates had been removed too early, he said.

Integrated approach needed
New Zealand needed to develop a coherent, integrated approach to dealing with all respiratory infections which were the infectious diseases that had the biggest impact, he said.

“They have a big drain on our health resources and so we do need to look at better surveillance for these infections that will tell us what’s happening and also really it’s just having a culture of limiting transmission of these infections.”

That meant staying home when sick and using masks in indoor environments with poor ventilation, he said.

Auckland Council disability strategic advisory group chair Dr Huhana Hickey said getting rid of masks at health care centres was extremely dangerous for immunocompromised people.

“The problem for immune-compromised people is we’re frequent flyers, but we’re being asked to go into a situation that puts us all at risk of not just dealing with what’s making us sick but risking getting covid, which could kill us.”

Hickey said scrapping the seven-day compulsory isolation period could result in more workers returning while still infectious, which she believed would mean immunocompromised people were likely to stay home.

“If they cannot stay home and employers require them to work, they’re going to spread covid as well, so that means I don’t go to restaurants now because I don’t know if the waiter’s sick, I don’t know if the chef’s sick.”

Minimal impact of numbers
University of Auckland mathematics professor and covid-19 modeller Michael Plank expected the lack of mask and isolation requirements to have a minimal impact on case numbers.

He said the main drivers of infection were people who were asymptomatic cases or had not tested yet.

“I’m not sure than an isolation mandate is going to have a particularly large effect on infection rates in the long term.

“If we look at other countries that removed isolation mandates, like Australia, there’s really no evidence of a surge in numbers.”

Restaurant owners embraced the government’s decision.

The Restaurant Association surveyed more than 200 of its members, and 84 percent said they supported the idea.

But many planned to introduce their own requirements, chief executive Marisa Bidois said.

“Thirty nine percent of the respondents said they intended to mandate a five day isolation period for their employees,” she said.

“So that’s something they’re going to implement themselves as an internal policy.”

Many hospitality workers would also be expected to test themselves proactively.

“We also had 42 percent of respondents planning to require employees with any symptoms to undergo testing before returning to work.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The World Health Organisation’s decision to remove covid-19 as a global health emergency is the right move, epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says.

The organisation said the virus was now an established and ongoing health issue that no longer constituted a public health emergency of international concern.

Professor Baker said the global status change made sense at this stage, but it did not impact on whether covid-19 was still a pandemic.

Covid-19 was still New Zealand’s number one killer when it came to infectious disease and people should make sure they were vaccinated and take sensible precautions, he said.

“There might be some scaling down in the international reporting of cases, but really it doesn’t make a difference to somewhere like New Zealand.

“It makes no practical difference whatsoever to how countries manage this infection.”

1000 NZ deaths predicted this year
Professor Baker earlier said that this year covid-19 was on track to kill some 1000 people in New Zealand and hospitalise around 10,000.

The threat of long covid also loomed — with one recent study suggesting as many as one in five New Zealanders reported lingering symptoms after their first infection.

He emphasised the need for caution in easing our few remaining protections.

The latest vaccine was one of the best things people could do to guard against the disease, because it included protection against omicron — the current dominant variant circulating in the community.

“You have to always think why the World Health Organisation assigned it [a global health emergency originally] and it’s really related to these certain criteria.

“It is about how severe and how unexpected [the disease is], but it’s really about whether an international response is needed and whether there’s potential for international spread.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says Aotearoa New Zealand is experiencing its fourth wave of covid-19 infection and warns people to stay vigilant.

He said it was not as intense as the previous waves but it was definite, with a gradual rise in the number of self-reported cases every day, as seen in RNZ’s ongoing database of covid-19 information.

“It’s the first distinct rise, a sustained rise in cases this year.

“We’ve seen that numbers reached a low point in February and have been tracking up since then.”

The average number of daily cases sits at about 2000 at the moment, but Professor Baker said the actual number could be higher with people less inclined to test and report.

He said other indicators including the number of hospitalisations, people in intensive care units, deaths and traces of the virus in wastewater were also pointing to a new wave.

He encouraged people to get the new covid booster, isolate if they were infected, and mask up in poorly ventilated environments.

“It’s really important that everyone who has a position in authority thinks about the health of their workforce and their school population and the social venues that they operate in.”

Professor Baker also said that the Ministry of Education should provide monitors to reduce transmission in early childhood centres.

He also encouraged people to mask up on public transport.

“If you’re on a bus commuting … or train, you are going to be in that indoor environment for many hours every week and the ventilation is poor, so that would be a situation where I think masks should still be worn by everyone.”

Last week, cabinet decided to keep the few remaining covid-19 restrictions for at least the next two months.

Most pandemic rules have been scrapped, but people still have to self-isolate for seven days if they test positive, and masks must be worn in hospitals in some circumstances.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The New Zealand government has announced a Royal Commission into its covid-19 response.

The Commission will be chaired by Australia-based epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, former Cabinet minister Hekia Parata, and former Treasury Secretary John Whitehead.

It will start considering evidence from February 1 next year, concluding in mid-2024.

The Royal Commission will look into the overall covid-19 response, including the economic response, and find what could be learned from it.

Some things — like particular decisions taken by the Reserve Bank’s independent monetary policy committee, and the specific epidemiology of the virus and its variants — will be excluded.

Announcing the moves, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said a Royal Commission was the highest form of public inquiry in New Zealand and was the right thing to do given covid-19 was the most significant threat to New Zealanders’ health and the economy since the Second World War.

“It had been over 100 years since we experienced a pandemic of this scale, so it’s critical we compile what worked and what we can learn from it should it ever happen again,” she said.

Fewer cases, deaths
“New Zealand experienced fewer cases, hospitalisations and deaths than nearly any other country in the first two years of the pandemic but there has undoubtedly been a huge impact on New Zealanders both here and abroad.”

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All mask wearing requirements in Aotearoa New Zealand — except in healthcare and aged care — will be scrapped, and household contacts will no longer need to isolate, the government confirmed today.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Covid-19 Response Dr Ayesha Verrall confirmed cabinet’s decision to scrap the Covid-19 Protection Framework — known as the “traffic light” system — and the majority of related public health restrictions.

The traffic light system will end tonight at 11.59pm.

Today’s media briefing.    Video: RNZ News

They said the changes would include:

• Mask-wearing only required in healthcare and aged care: including hospitals, pharmacies, primary care, aged residential and disability-related residential care
• People who test positive for covid-19 must still isolate for seven days, but household contacts no longer required to provided they take a RAT test every day
• All government vaccine mandates to end on 26 September 26
• Removal of all vaccine requirements for incoming travellers and air crew
• Leave support payments to continue
• All New Zealanders over age 65, and Māori over age 50, to get automatic access to covid-19 antiviral drugs if they test positive for Covid-19
• From Tuesday, case and hospitalisation number reporting becomes weekly, not daily

Ardern said it marked a milestone in New Zealand’s response to the virus.

She said people may still be asked to wear a mask in some places but it would be at the discretion of those managing the location, not a government requirement. Vaccination requirements would also be at the discretion of employers.

‘Claim back certainty’
“Cabinet has determined that based on public health advice we are able to remove the traffic light system and with that decision claim back the certainty we have all lost over the last three years,” she said.

“For the first time in two years we can approach summer with the much needed certainty New Zealanders and business need, helping to drive greater economic activity critical to our economic recovery.

She said there was no question the actions of New Zealanders had saved thousands of lives, but the risks were changing.

“When we moved into our first lockdown the objective was simple: To save lives and livelihoods,” Ardern said.

“I’m sure there will be many who over the years will pore over the details of every nation’s response including ours. They’ll certainly measure the outcomes in different ways but when you look at countries of our size and compare them, they’ll find the tragic loss for instance of 15,500 people in Scotland and less than 2000 in New Zealand.

“The most recent health advice now tells us that with the lowest cases and hospitalisations since February, our population well vaccinated, and expanded access to anti-viral medicines, New Zealand is in a position to move forward.”

New Zealand could move on with confidence that its actions had successfully managed cases down, she said.

‘Never to be taken alone’
“This pandemic was never one to be taken on alone, and it never was. And so today I say again to everyone from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

“I know there will be those concerned by the changes made today. I can assure you that we would not make them if we did not believe we were ready but we also need to remember that not everybody experiences covid or its risk — including to our disability community — in the same way.

“That’s why isolating covid cases to protect our most vulnerable is important, and why treatment is too.”

She said she hoped it would be the first summer where the “covid-19 anxiety can start to heal”.

“As a nation, covid has hurt us in many ways but perhaps the one we talk about less than others is the toll it’s taken on everyone’s mental health. I see that toll — I see it in my colleagues, in my community in Tāmaki Makaurau, and especially I see it in our kids.

“I don’t want people’s wellbeing to be the price of covid, but it is going to take a concerted effort from us as government and others for that not to be the case.”

Ardern said one of the byproducts of the pandemic had been that New Zealand now have some of the most advanced mental health tools in the world, and the government had taken a number of steps to improve mental wellbeing support.

Two apps a highlight
This included two apps she highlighted for anyone who may need them: Groove and Habits.

Ardern finished her statement with a line from when New Zealand first went into lockdown: “‘For the next wee while, things will look worse before they look better’. It turned out to be true, things did get worse, things did get hard, but it’s also true that finally they will and can be better”.

Ardern said looking back, decisions were often being made with imperfect information but the decisions were made with the best intentions and she stood by it.

She said the government had been open to the idea of an independent inquiry into the response but was still getting advice about what that would look like.

“We do want to learn from this period and I think you’ll see that we’ve been taking that approach all the way through.”

Asked if it was the end of the covid response, Ardern said she hoped the change would give people huge confidence and optimism.

“We are moving on because this pandemic has moved on.”

The traffic light system used things like gathering limits but that was no longer fit for purpose, she said.

“We don’t need those extraordinary measures, so we won’t use them.”

Right time to remove ‘traffic lights’
Dr Verrall said New Zealand had succeeded in avoiding the devastation caused by the pandemic overseas, and now was the right time to remove the traffic light framework and begin a new approach to managing the virus.

“Together we have got through this with one of the lowest cumulative mortality rates in the world.”

She announced another 40,000 courses of antiviral medication had also been purchased and would be freely available to older New Zealanders.

“Anyone over the age of 65, and Māori and Pacific people over the age of 50, or anyone who meets Pharmac requirements, can access the treatment in the early stages of contracting the virus,” she said.

“This means more than double the number of New Zealanders will be able to access these medicines if they need them than previously.

She acknowledged that lessening the restrictions caused concern to disabled and immune-compromised people.

“I want to reassure those Kiwis that we are making these changes because risks are lower, in fact cases are more than 10 times lower than what they were earlier in the year and we now have layers of protections in place.”

She said the support was not ending and hoped that removing the remaining vaccine mandates would ease the staffing pressures disability services have been under.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Kathryn Ryan: “Why is there a six-month gap between boosters?”
Siouxsie Wiles: “I can’t answer that for you. It doesn’t make sense based on the data that we have. … In Israel they got it at least four months after, for the over-60s at least. It was really good at preventing hospitalisations and deaths. … I would have thought that, based on that data, we would have been looking at four months. … I’m not eligible for that [just announced] booster dose. If I were I would be getting it.” Science: Covid vaccines saved millions, RNZ Nine-to-Noon, 29 June 2022.

As an over 65-year-old, I belong to a covid-vaccination priority group. So do my parents-in-law. I got my third (‘booster’) vaccine dose in February. I could have had it in January, but waited so as to be maximally protected for the Omicron-wave which was forecast to take-off in late February or March. And I waited, to give me a five-month gap between my second and third shots, which seemed to be about optimal. I am now waiting to be able to get my fourth shot (‘second booster’).

Late last month I was happy to hear that second boosters were being offered to priority groups, such as older people; though I wondered why it took the government until the end of June to authorise these vaccinations. After all, there was not a supply problem. I presume there was some official awareness that the school holidays were less than two weeks away, and that a new wave of covid was starting. An important feature of school holidays is that people travel (eg through busy airports); and in the winter school holidays travel is based more on whanau than on tourism. To put it bluntly, July is one month in which children visit their grandparents, or vice versa.

I sought to get a vaccination on 28 June, because I was travelling the coming weekend. My plan had been a mix of long weekend and whanau visiting prior to the school holiday rush. But I was politely turned down. I would have to wait until August. Indeed, when early this week I sought to make a booking for August, the bookings at my local health centre were full-up until and beyond my six-month due date.

The Media and the Booster

On Morning Report this morning (Auckland pharmacist seeing high demand for Covid-19 boosters), Susie Ferguson asked pharmacist Vicky Chan: “What about people who are heading off for holiday or anticipate being at larger gatherings. Are they quite keen to get their fourth shot?” Chan answered that “many had not quite met the criteria for their second booster, so we have to politely reject them.” Unfortunately Ferguson did not pursue this point further; rather she then went on to ask about those younger people who are not so much an issue at the moment.

At about the same time on Morning Report, Kathryn Ryan was promising that, in the next hour, she would ask an expert to get to the bottom of this issue. It seemed that, finally, I would get an answer as to why I and my parents in law are not able to access vaccine protection these school holidays.

I was disappointed with the subsequent interview on Nine-to-Noon (New Omicron wave: Why second booster is only for over-50s). The website headline and synopsis indicate that I should not have been too hopeful. The synopsis says: “As Omicron case numbers and reinfections rise, could the country benefit from making a second booster shot more widely available? The answer from one immunologist is a firm, ‘no’.” The interviewee was Dr Nikki Turner, generally known as a strong advocate for vaccination as a public health measure.

Kathryn Ryan starts: “As Omicron case numbers and reinfections rise, should the country benefit from making a second booster shot more widely available and shortening the six-month timeframe? The answer from one immunologist is a firm, ‘no’. … At the beginning of the year the six-month timeframe was shortened first to four months and then to three so that more of the population would be boosted before its peak. So is that option being considered again now, and if not, why not?”

First question to Dr Turner: “What we discussed with the first Omicron wave was that if we are going to reach a peak before everybody was boosted, didn’t it make sense to bring forward the booster, even if the efficacy wasn’t going to be optimal? Why is it different this time?” After a minute not addressing the question posed, Turner starts to answer as follows: “A second booster, particularly for people over 60, does add more protection … after six months, by about twice to reduce the effect from severe disease. What we see is rapid waning [for protection] from mild disease. … Our focus now is on protecting people from severe disease. … There is an important group of people whose immunity wanes earlier than six months, particularly to severe disease. Those are the ones for which a second booster is worth having.” So far nothing about why many of this “important group of people” are being (‘politely’) denied that second booster at this critical juncture in time. At this point Ryan tried to intervene, but suppressed her intervention as Dr Turner went on to talk about “other [ie non-priority] people”.

After nearly a minute, Ryan then asks: “So that’s the argument against broadening to people under 50. But I want to just examine again this question of the booster for the over 50s again. Let’s absolutely agree that the priority groups … are the priority. But if there’s not an issue with vaccine supply, the question is whether there is any benefit for the over-50s being able to access before the perceived second peak, which might be August, some modelers are saying. Now the reason to delay to the six months, do you get a better immune response? … Explain that logic again.” Turner: “Yeah, so two different questions, which age group, and second is the gap. … It was obviously [my emphasis] brought forward [in the summer] when you needed to urgently protect people. … Now we have this disease with us throughout our community going forward, for healthy people who have had the primary course plus one booster, protection against severe disease is holding up, hence the six-month gap. That does not hold for people with significant medical problems.”

Turner then goes off-track, discussing the age criterion, not the gap criterion. But note that, according to Turner, it would be “obvious” that “people with significant medical problems” should get boosted now, without having to wait six months. And presumably this also applies to those people in the priority groups (like me and my mother-in-law) who do not have ‘significant medical problems’. But the other problem on Dr Turner’s response is that she appears to believe that Omicron-covid is already an endemic rather than an epidemic disease, and that therefore there is no winter wave, either imminent or taking place right now. So Turner leaves us none the wiser about my predicament, and the current predicament of most older people; and, for that matter, and the present predicament of those grandparents and others with ‘significant medical problems’.

Ryan again: “In Israel they did [second] boost after four months, didn’t they?” Turner: “It was a mixture … but] yes.” The interview goes on for another eleven minutes, in some cases with repetition of the less important points. But even Ryan moved on, except for one brief rhetorical [and hence unanswered] question. “We heard this morning from the pharmacy, you’ve got people knocking on the door saying I’m going on holiday, I’m getting on a plane, can I not bring this forward’? It’s a very obvious question to ask, Nikki, and so it’s good to answer it.” Turner: “Yes, absolutely.” Then Ryan cut over any further answer that Turner might have given, taking the interview away from this issue.

I still have no idea why I must wait until August before I can get my booster. New Zealand is on course for more than 400 more covid deaths between now and my scheduled booster date.

Who’s Dying?

We are no longer hearing much about the demographics of the many nameless people who are now dying with or of Covid19. But, looking up the raw data on the Ministry of Health’s Covid19 website, I see that 61.5% of people dying with Covid19 have had all three vaccination shots. I also note that 63 percent of the population aged over 12 have had three shots; so, at least in the raw age-unadjusted data, the death rate for three-shot-vaccinated people is similar to the death rate for the population as a whole. While this could be interpreted as indicating that the vaccine is ineffective, what it does indicate is that most deaths are of older people (who are more likely to be three-shot-vaccinated) and also that the much of the effectiveness of vaccinations has waned. While the data does not separate people who have died recently from people who died months ago, I have noted that the percentage of deaths being three-shot-vaccinated people is rising; it was below sixty percent last week.

In addition, the website gives death percentages by ethnicity, both for people dying with Covid19 and for people dying of Covid19. Currently, 75% of deaths are Pakeha (a category which includes a few – but not many – people from Africa, Middle East, and Latin America). Thus, in the raw data, Pakeha appear to be overrepresented in the Covid19 death toll; this is confirmed by the fact that 74.5% of those who died of Covid19 are Pakeha. And it should be noted that both of these percentages have increased since last week. And it should be noted that significantly less than 75% of the New Zealand population is Pakeha. (Though it may be the case that over 75% of the superannuation-eligible population are Pakeha.) The narrative that Covid19 is mainly a Māori-Pacific problem is far from reality.

It should be a relatively easy exercise to estimate the cost in deaths this July and August that will arise from vaccine providers having to ‘politely decline’ many of their requests from older and co-morbid people for winter anti-covid boosters. I would estimate it to be in the ‘hundreds’, though it could turn out to be in the thousands.

The government cannot plead ignorance. It is fully aware of the problem that delaying vaccinations to willing vaccinees, this and next month, will cost lives.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

University of Otago covid-19 experts are not immune to the increasingly vitriolic attacks dished out to scientists commenting on New Zealand’s pandemic response.

Among a litany of attacks University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker has endured over the course of the pandemic, at the start of this week a caller told him he had “a target on his back”.

Professor Baker said he kept the caller on the line for about 20 minutes and asked him what that meant “in real terms”.

The caller was an anti-vaxxer who was accusing Professor Baker of propaganda on behalf of pharmaceutical companies, telling him vaccines were dangerous, especially so for children.

The caller had half-baked information gleaned from various sources that did not really make sense, Professor Baker said.

“He had these slogans he was throwing at me, but when I asked him what he meant he didn’t really have any answers.”

This week it was revealed University of Auckland professors Shaun Hendy and Siouxsie Wiles have argued to the Employment Relations Authority their employer was not doing enough to protect them as they shared their expertise with the public.

Professor would call police
But Professor Baker said he had not raised any concerns for his safety with his employer, the University of Otago.

If anyone made a threat where he felt he or his family was unsafe he would not hesitate to involve the police.

The Wellington-based scientist received the occasional phone call where a caller delivered a stream of abuse and hung up, but Professor Baker said he was most likely to receive abuse in the form of emails, averaging a few attacks by email every day.

As an exercise, Professor Baker began classifying the forms of abuse he received into “five categories of insult”, he said.

There were the incoherent streams of abuse, which were easily dealt with, he said.

Some people had major grievances but did not know where to go, and contacted him to vent and, in some extremely sad cases, he would reply and express sorrow and sympathy.

There were anti-vax propagandists whose positions were not based on facts, which he ignored.

There were those with ideological stances who disapproved of the government’s overall strategy, who at times delved into conspiracy theories.

Personal attacks stream
Finally, the group he found the hardest to deal with came as personal attacks from a small stream of people who persistently contacted him, and tried to undermine his ability to comment.

“Talking about how you look, or how you appear – they’re obviously making quite a concerted effort to look at where you might feel a bit vulnerable,” he said.

The attacks had never made him question his role of speaking publicly about the pandemic response, Professor Baker said.

University of Otago evolutionary virologist Dr Jemma Geoghegan said she, too, had not raised any concerns with her employer.

She said “no” to about 90 percent of media requests because the issues were not related to her field of expertise.

In limiting her media exposure, she had limited the number of people who wanted to harass her about her expertise, Dr Geoghegan said.

“I don’t generally speak about vaccines, so [that] abuse isn’t aimed at me,” the Dunedin scientist said.

‘Weirdly strong views’
However, she had published on covid-19 origins and people had “weirdly strong views about that”.

The issues dealt with by her Auckland counterparts were not surprising though and she had sympathy for them.

“This is happening all around the world,” Dr Geoghegan said.

“I’ve got international collaborators that … I think their mental health has suffered.

“Before covid, or at the start of covid, they were really prominent on Twitter and stuff like that, and now they’ve had to delete their accounts because of the amount of abuse they’ve got.”

Hamish MacLean is an Otago Daily Times journalist. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ and this story first appeared in the Otago Daily Times

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz