New Zealand’s rosy Covid19 picture does not look so good, once we do an analysis of excess deaths. Calculating excess deaths is the new statistical procedure to evaluate the true toll of Covid19. (I did an excess deaths’ Smithometer analysis of the 1918 influenza pandemic in New Zealand.)

For this chart, I have selected countries comparable to New Zealand, and for which the excess deaths analysis has been done. Australia, unfortunately, seems to be slower than the others in releasing its death statistics.

The first thing to note is that New Zealand, Australia and South Korea all had significant numbers of excess deaths pre-pandemic (although South Korea was getting some Covid19 deaths in March 2020). This suggests that both New Zealand and Australia have a social (or socio-economic) problem that is causing death rates to increase. While an aging population is probably part of the reason, this does not show up in Scandinavian countries which also have aging populations.

Norway had an early Covid19 outbreak, but got it under better control than European Union countries. So, in the second quarter of 2020, Norway had negative excess deaths despite having significant numbers of Covid19 deaths. Excess deaths plunged in New Zealand and Australia, thanks to the lockdowns in both countries; there were very few deaths resulting from winter influenza, and Covid19 deaths barely registered. It was only the big winter outbreak in Melbourne that caused Australia’s reduction in winter deaths to be less than New Zealand’s.

The most alarming feature of the chart is New Zealand’s huge resurgence in deaths in the spring and summer; a resurgence that barely abated in the autumn of 2021. New Zealand – essentially free of Covid19 – outstripped Denmark, which had a major Covid19 outbreak in the northern autumn.

New Zealand’s death surge will have been in part due to deaths postponed by the 2020 lockdown (lockdowns for Auckland). But, this is clearly only a part of the story. New Zealand’s significant socio-economic problems – especially inequality and housing – are almost certainly taking their toll. While something similar may be also happening in Australia, it would appear to be to a lesser extent there.

We compare the first chart with the chart that shows the official Covid19 death rates, for these countries.

We can see the deaths in the Scandinavian countries in the early days of the pandemic. And we can see Denmark’s huge December-January spike in Covid19 deaths. Yet that spike was matched in New Zealand by excess non-Covid19 deaths.

For Australia, we can see the early death toll (April 2020) and the much bigger August toll. And, unlike the other four countries in the charts, we see that both Australia and New Zealand had minimal contribution of Covid19 to its death statistics.

New Zealand has big problems which are being reflected in our mortality statistics. And that alarming death data would have been worse were it not for Covid19.

These two charts show the total number of cases and deaths, by country, over the seven days ended 2 May 2020. In these charts a number of countries with populations below 50,000 have been omitted; countries which have shown in earlier charts.

The first chart is sequenced by death rates (orange). Generally it shows the countries that have featured in the past, suggesting that the pandemic continues to be concentrated in the same places – the economically developed countries that were too slow to act. We note that, when we extend the United Kingdom to the British Isles, that Ireland and the Isle of Man make strong appearances reflecting their interconnectedness. Further, the Channel Islands and Bermuda – functionally part of the United Kingdom – match these British territories.

We also see the appearance of Latin American countries: Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.

The second chart shows the reappearance of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE; also, Singapore. And the inclusion of Saudi Arabia with them. These six countries continue to have low death rates. It seems likely that the Arabian countries will generally share the experience of Singapore; in many ways they are similar societies with similar economies. Also of note is the far-flung French enclave off the coast of Africa, Mayotte; the high-end tourist resort country, Maldives; a shipping, financial and tax avoidance centre in Latin America, Panama; and an ex-Soviet country which had previously pretended the problem did not exist; Belarus. And Russia. And another large Latin American country, Chile.

Here we see the incidence of Covid19 victims in hospital, classified as serious or critical. This is a good ‘flow’ measure of recent cases; contrast total cases and total deaths for which in many countries the data are now dominated by earlier cases. For this chart, I have excluded countries with less than 200,000 people.

Again we see the dominance of the usual suspects. Moldova, however, makes an unexpected appearance, suggesting an outbreak previously disguised by low testing. Indeed there are some other Eastern European countries that will probably appear on these charts if I repeat them next week.

Iran – an established Covid19 country – shows up here, suggesting that both its case count and death count are underreported. Brazil also shows up strongly, reflecting its status as a country that has underplayed Covid19. And Guadeloupe is a French outpost in the Caribbean, a region with a high Covid19 caseload, especially among the smallest Dutch, French and British outposts there. A number of the countries excluded because they are too small are in the Caribbean.

Finally, Canada is a country that features in all three charts. I am concerned for Canada. I was travelling through Canada at this time last year, and am somewhat distressed by Canada’s similar to the USA inability to manage the pandemic in time. Quebec and Ontario in particular reflect the high incidence of Covid19 in the northeast of the United States.

Predictions

It is dangerous to predict how pandemics will pan out. In Covid19 by the Numbers, Anatole Kaletsky (writing for Project Syndicate on 10 March 2020) used what looked like advanced analysis to conclude that at most 750,000 outside of China would contract Covid19. (He admitted he was wide of the mark in a subsequent March article, Averting Economic Disaster Is the Easy Part.)

The latest data shows a world tally of over three million known cases, which means about thirty million actual cases, mostly in Europe and North America. (If the eventual number of actual cases is 78 million, that would be one percent of the world’s population. And if one percent of actual cases die, that would mean a final world  tally of 100 Covid19 deaths per million (one per 10,000). Currently the official death tally is 27 per million, and is therefore probably about 40 per million given that many non-hospital deaths have not made the official statistics.

On Evening Report I have used charts – and accompanying conjecture – to make predictions and draw conclusions. On March 23 (and April 1),the day the ‘lockdown’ was announced, I predicted (optimistically, and based on by expectation that the restrictions would be effective) that the eventual case incidence in New Zealand would be “no more than” 25,000 and that deaths would finalise at about 100. (At the time people were projecting “tens of thousands” of deaths.) Later (April 9), too optimistically, I revised my prediction of deaths to ten. (The geometric mean of my two predictions – 100 and 10 – for New Zealand’s final death toll is 32 deaths; that is looking likely at present!)

One of the most common projective statements about Covid19 is that, eventually, it will hit developing (‘third-world’) countries hardest, because in these countries physical distancing is almost impossible and healthcare systems would be less able to cope than those of first-world countries. A variation of this expectation is – that in countries including Italy and New Zealand – the final toll could be worse in the poorer parts of those countries.

In New Zealand, that means Māori-Pacific tolls would be worst in the event that those groups do not receive greater levels of protection than might be deemed necessary for the country as a whole. Some Māori activists have justified community road blocks by noting that Māori death rates have substantially exceeded Pakeha death rates in previous epidemics; for example in the Black November Influenza of 1918. In those historical events, the reason for these higher death rates is that Māori and Pacific peoples had lower acquired immunity to these kinds of illness. The argument today is that, mainly for socio-economic reasons, these groups have lower actuarial life expectancies; meaning that a typical 65-year-old Māori faces a similar risk of death as a typical 75-year old Pakeha.

We might note that not only in the Black November Flu of 1918 did Māori die disproportionately, it also hit some Pakeha regions disproportionately, most notably Southland. Without aeroplanes, and with substantial quarantining, the 1918 virus spread very quickly throughout the country. Covid19 seems quite different.

Incidence and Spread of Covid-19 so far

On March 22 I identified Covid19 as a Jetsetter Disease, noting that tax shelters, financial centres, gambling centres, ski resorts, cruise ships and high-end tourist destinations were substantially overrepresented in early cases outside of ‘mainland’ China. (Many of these places are very small, so have fallen under the media radar.) While not as prominent as then, that pattern of Covid19 incidence continues to persist five weeks later. San Marino remains easily the worst affected country in the world, in both cases and deaths.

Sweden’s Covid19 epidemic came early and unexpectedly from the ski fields of The Alps (Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria, Bavaria); see The Grim Truth about the Swedish Model from Project Syndicate (and note Coronavirus: Sweden’s Unique Approach to fighting the pandemic, from AP.)

According to another AP article, Covid19 coronavirus, What went wrong in Italy?, “epidemiologists now say the virus had been circulating widely in Lombardy since early January”. Maybe it arrived in Milan via the World Economic Forum in Davos (21 to 24 January)? Maybe that’s where Greta Thunberg caught it?

After the Covid19 epidemics in Italy, Scandinavia and Spain, it spread through Switzerland, Germany and France, and then to Belgium and the Netherlands. (London and New York – big financial centres – also got it, and it spread from those centres through the United Kingdom and the United States.)

In Italy, it was widely predicted that Covid19 would spread en masse to Italy’s poorer south. It didn’t really happen. Covid19 spread from northern Italy to the rich north of the European Union; not nearly so much to the poorer south of Italy. The trains heading south from Milan transported much less viral load than the planes flying north.

When looking at the spread of Covid19 to northwest Europe, I noted that a comprehensive regional analysis of the European Union shows that – subsequent to the outbreaks in Italy and Spain – a corridor to the west of Germany, stretching from Switzerland to the Netherlands (and on to Brussels), has become Europe’s covid-central. Covid19 does not respect international borders within the European Union. Drawing a boundary around this worst-affected zone, gives an imaginary country that I have called Europia; a ‘country’ which is tantamount to the Federal Capital of the European Union. It suggests that European Union bureaucrats themselves have been one of the most important vectors in the spread of Covid19 in Europe.

The environments that seem to foster Covid19 are the ones that the top ten percent of ‘first-world’ people inhabit, at work and après-work. The cruise ship environment is already well documented. In the ski resorts, it will have been in the après-ski facilities in which the new coronavirus spread; people socialising in relatively crowded spaces with modern air-conditioning. Many of these people will have been managers, public servants and the like; people who work in medium-sized air-conditioned offices, and whose work tasks involve meetings and conferences in modern indoor facilities. And they will be people who have dined in restaurants; dining as part of work functions, and dining in restaurants après-work because they live time-poor lifestyles.

These virus-transmission spaces are substantially less prevalent in the poorer regions of ‘first-world’ and ‘third-world’ countries alike. These spaces are generally much less prevalent within ‘third-world’ developing countries.

As of 27 April 2020, Europe and North America together have had 78.1 percent of known cases of Covid19, and 87.8 percent of world deaths. The global figures are 393 known cases of Covid19 per million of the world’s population, and 27 deaths per million.

Africa, Asia, Latin America

On March 27 I wrote Covid-19 Virus: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the World.

In this commentary, I finished with “I have some confidence that Asia and Africa will end up with much lower rates of infection than Europe. I am much less confident about Latin America”.

In an earlier commentary, I said that we should watch Turkey. Turkey was very late to announce its first case, and has had possibly the post rapid exponential rise in cases since then. Nevertheless, Turkey has subsequently tested more intensively than United Kingdom, France and Sweden; and Turkey’s cases and deaths are stabilising at much lower incidences than in Northern Europe. So my sense is that the other large developing countries will have experiences comparable with Turkey; or even less severe.

If we look at Africa, by far the most affected countries (by cases) are the French territories of Mayotte, Reunion and Djibouti. While those with the most aggregate deaths so far are the Mediterranean countries of Algeria and Egypt, and also South Africa. Of these, only Algeria – with its French proximity and connections – has a death rate higher than New Zealand. I believe that, if Africa was to become as affected as Europe, the damage would be well underway by now.

South Africa still has just a quarter of New Zealand’s incidence of Covid19. Maybe it will catch up with New Zealand, but will probably not exceed New Zealand’s incidence by very much.

Asia includes Turkey, Iran, Korea and China. It also includes the Arabian Peninsula which has had substantial new caseloads. Also Singapore and Japan have had renewed outbreaks. Turkey has had the most cases in Asia, followed by Iran and then China. Qatar has the highest known incidence in Asia (and tenth highest in the world), though has reported fewer deaths than New Zealand.

The places in Asia that have the most potential to add most to the world’s Covid19 deaths are in the Arabian Peninsula, and now better fit the ‘first-world’ rather than ‘third-world’ moniker.

While many Latin American countries are in North America, the North American Covid19 statistics are still overwhelmingly dominated by the United States and a yet-to-stabilise Canada.

By caseload, the worst affected in Latin America are, in sequence: Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Chile. These all have known caseloads above the world average. The rest, including Brazil, have below average caseloads. On deaths, it’s the same story, though Chile and Peru are below average. Mexico is well-down, below Chile though higher than Algeria, Africa’s worst.

Panama and Ecuador are easily the worst-affected countries in Latin America. Panama we easily recognise as a jetsetter tax haven, with lots of modern air-conditioned office spaces.

Ecuador has a huge outbreak in its coastal city of Guayaquil; its high altitude capital (Quito) is much less affected. The Guayaquil outbreak is probably random – much like a wedding cluster in New Zealand – and is in a hot and humid part of the world. While I have not been to Ecuador, I have been to Cusco and La Paz. These high-altitude tropical cities – which are also tourist cities – have congenial all-round climates, and require little heating or air-conditioning. Unlike Guayaquil. In Peru, Latin America’s third-most affected country, most cases are in Lima; there are also high instances in the steamy parts of that country; the north and the Amazon northeast. These places in Peru are the places where there are built environments that are the most modified relative to their outdoor environments.

It’s a similar story in Brazil. Worst affected are Brazil’s economic capital (São Paulo), and its Amazon capital (Manaus). Manaus is now a very modern city (surrounded by equatorial rainforest); like Panama City. If Covid19 was going to decimate Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, we should be seeing more of that by now. (Likewise Mumbai’s slums, in India; I just don’t see that happening.)

Conclusion

From all the evidence I have seen so far, Covid19 is very much a ‘first-world’ disaster, spread by relatively entitled people, and most prevalent in ‘first-world’ built environments.

This may be the most important lesson we can draw, when thinking about how the world’s socio-economy could and should develop in the future. The pandemic and unsustainability crises appear to be related, and should be addressed together. The prevalent and entitled life-styles (work styles and leisure styles) and life-assumptions of the first-world’s ten-percenters (the most privileged ten percent) need to change.

By Dr Crispin Maslog in Manila

As fake news on Covid-19 spreads faster than the virus, scientists call for a halt to the “infodemic”.

As China admits that the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) is now the worst public health crisis that the country has faced since its founding, a group of scientists has sent out a piercing appeal for sobriety in media coverage of the epidemic.

The scientists in a statement published on February 19 in one of the world’s leading science journals, Lancet, appealed for support for the scientists, public health professionals and medical professionals.

VIEW: The coronavirus world map

“We are public health scientists who have closely followed the emergence of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and are deeply concerned about its impact on global health and wellbeing.

“We have watched as the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China, in particular, have worked diligently and effectively to rapidly identify the pathogen behind this outbreak, put in place significant measures to reduce its impact, and share their results transparently with the global health community.

“This effort has been remarkable,” the scientists said in a formal statement which they asked the public to endorse and sign.

Fighting the ‘infodemic’
This appeal cannot be timelier. It comes at a time when the coronavirus “infodemic” is overshadowing the coronavirus epidemic itself.

I had started to worry when my driver asked me the other day if it is true that China’s government officials are killing people who are sick of the coronavirus there just to get rid of the virus.

I proceeded to interrogate him on where he got the information and scolded him, saying this is fake news. But what really got me worried was when no less than a senator of the Philippines played back in a public hearing in February in the halls of Philippine Congress a conspiracy theory video that claimed the coronavirus to be a form of “bio-warfare” developed by the US against China.

Vicente Sotto, whose claim to fame before he was elected senator was as a broadcast personality, alleged his office had received the video anonymously and found it was “somehow very interesting, if not revealing”. The theory has been debunked by experts.

What happened next was just as interesting. Instead of first asking the opinion of the health experts present, Senator Sotto turned to Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin for his comments. Locsin, a veteran journalist and publisher, immediately rejected the theory as the “craziest video”.

But it was also crazy that Senator Sotto did not immediately ask for the opinions of the health officials present at the Senate hearing, particularly Health Secretary Francisco Duque III or WHO country representative Rabindra Abeyasinghe. It seems that Senator Sotto was looking for sensational angles rather than scientific opinions and who better to ask than a journalist?

This is a tendency to which most of us in the public are now inclined as we read and talk about the origins, nature and spread of Covid-19.

As of March 10, barely two months after the confirmation of the first case of corona virus (31 December 2019), in Wuhan, China, there were at least 67,773 confirmed cases in the mainland China province of Hubei, bringing the world total to more than 118,745, with the death toll at 4284. Major outbreaks have also developed in Iran, Italy – with a quarantine of its population of more than 60 million – and South Korea with thousands of confirmed cases and multiple deaths.

How to protect yourself against Covid-19. Video: World Health Organisation

Reprise Sars and Merscov
This Covid-19 epidemic that started in China and now threatens to be a worldwide pandemic brings to mind two epidemics in our lifetime — Sars and Merscov.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) was a viral respiratory illness that was recognised as a global threat in March 2003, after first appearing in southern China in November 2002.

It reached Singapore on February 25  and I had personal experience coping with public hysteria for months until the high-quality Singapore medical system and responsible media licked the virus three months later in May.

A total of 238 probable Sars cases were reported in Singapore between March and May 2003, 33 of whom died. The first case was on February 25 while the last case was 5 May 5.

Although away from my family as a visiting professor in Singapore, I overcame my initial jitters and later felt safe enough to go out to the market, take the bus to my office and make occasional forays downtown. It did cramp my social life, however.

The crucial thing to remember is to be informed, collected and aggressive in combating false information.

Pandemic in digital age
What makes Covid-19 different from Sars and Merscov, however, is not only its initial size but the milieu into which it was born. Covid-19 is now at a stage when it is likely going to be declared a pandemic and described with many others — thanks to social media.

When Sars and Merscov were infecting people, the younger generation were only beginning to surf the internet and use the original cell phone. Social media was still an infant.

But now, a WHO official warns that false news was “spreading faster than the virus”. Claims are made that the virus is spread by eating bat soup or could be cured by garlic. A WHO official has met officials of tech companies at Facebook’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, including those from Google, Apple, Airbnb, Lyft, Uber and Sales force.

Earlier he held talks with Amazon at the e-commerce giant’s headquarters in Seattle.

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus was labelled a public health emergency, books on the disease have popped up on the e-retailer. And when users search for the word coronavirus on Amazon, listings for face masks and vitamin C pop up.

Vitamin C has been listed as one of the fake cures for coronavirus.

In response, Facebook on February 27 announced that it was banning ads that “create a sense of urgency” about Covid-19 or suggest cures or preventive measures” and “will remove posts that contain false information about the virus”.

Most likely unintended, but in the foreseeable future we may have to fight the coronavirus on two fronts — the viral epidemic and the informational epidemic fronts.

Rather than be passive recipients of news, we have to become critical and push back on all information that sounds “crazy” and “conspiratorial”. The educated class should take the lead in doing this.

Schools should be involved and introduce courses on media information literacy, starting with identifying fake news especially in relation to science and health.

This is quite a challenge to both the medical scientists and the communication scientists. May both groups of scientists win.

Dr Crispin C. Maslog, a former journalist with Agence France-Presse, is an environmental activist and former science professor at Silliman University and the University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines. He is a founding member and now chair of the board of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC), Manila. This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s Asia & Pacific desk.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Marchio Irfan Gorbiano in Jakarta

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has announced that two Indonesians have tested positive for the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the first two confirmed cases of the disease in the country, reports The Jakarta Post.

Jokowi said that the two people, a 64-year-old and her 31-year-old daughter, had been in contact with a Japanese citizen who tested positive in Malaysia on February 27 after visiting Indonesia earlier in the month.

“When we received information [about the Japanese citizen] a team in Indonesia immediately traced who the Japanese citizen met with,” Jokowi told reporters at the State Palace on Monday.

“We checked [the two people] and this morning I received a report from the health minister that they tested positive for the coronavirus.”

READ MORE: Three people in Singapore latest to test positive for COVID-19 after visiting Indonesia

He said the government was well-prepared to handle COVID-19 cases.

“We have prepared over 100 hospitals with isolation rooms with good isolation standards. We also have equipment that meets international standards,” he said.

Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto, who was also at the State Palace, said that the two women were residents of Depok, West Java, and were currently being treated at the Sulianti Saroso Infectious Diseases Hospital (RSPI Sulianti Suroso) in Jakarta.

Prior to this announcement, Indonesia had no confirmed cases of COVID-19, raising concerns about the country’s detection ability.

Republished from The Jakarta Post.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Colin Peacock of RNZ Mediawatch

Authorities and the media alike knew it was just a matter of time before New Zealand had its first case of the new coronavirus. But panic-buying sparked by the breaking news prompted more headlines this weekend that undermined the message to keep calm and carry on.

“Please – if you’re feeling anxious, try and maintain some perspective. Channel your energy into prudence,” Jack Tame told his Newstalk ZB audience on Saturday morning.

“This morning, as supermarkets are apparently overwhelmed by people stressed out about … a looming threat we can’t see, I think it’s a good opportunity for us all to strike a balance between prudence and perspective,” he said.

READ MORE: Coronavirus ‘getting bigger’  – Al Jazeera updates and infections map

It wasn’t prudence and perspective that needed to be balanced – but facts and fears.

Moments before he said all that on air, ZB’s traffic report warned of car congestion around supermarkets.

The ZB news at the top of the hour began with reports of panic-buying in Auckland supermarkets that morning, quoting one shopper’s description of a “zombie apocalypse.”

“It’s just nuts,” Alexia Russell told ZB news after visiting Wairau’s crowded Pak ‘n Save for supplies for a party.

Alexia Russell is also the producer of daily news podcast The Detail for RNZ and Newsroom.co.nz.

Misinformation examined
Two days earlier an entire edition of it was devoted to misinformation about Covid-19 and how it could provoke fear.

Meanwhile, on RNZ National, Kim Hill told her listeners: “I’d be panic-buying in Auckland too if I’d seen the screaming front page of the Weekend Herald.”

The front page of the paper on sale in Auckland yesterday was indeed startling.

Under the banner headline ‘First NZ Coronavirus case: PANDEMONIUM’ there was a big photo of a man in protective gear washing down an underground train.

But it wasn’t taken at Britomart station in Auckland – it was from Tehran, the capital of Iran and the point of origin of the New Zealand citizen who’d tested positive in Auckland on Friday.

There was also a smaller photo at the bottom of the page showing empty shelves at an unnamed Auckland  supermarket. The caption claimed “shelves across Auckland” were being cleaned out.

“Panicked shoppers had descended on supermarkets across Auckland, stocking up for what one labelled ‘the apocalypse’,” said the Weekend Herald.  

Panic-buying – but how bad really?
Panic-buying in several locations was certainly newsworthy, but how bad was this really?

The Herald story quoted one resident as saying his local Pak ‘n Save was “weird” from the outset – as it was hard to find a park at 9.15pm.

“We have been doing our groceries on Friday evenings for the past four years. Never seen anything this bad,” said another.

Another told the Herald it was “worse than Christmas Eve” in the aisles – but the Christmas crush at Countdown doesn’t usually make the news.

Interestingly, that PANDEMONIUM headline didn’t appear on Weekend Herald editions on sale outside Auckland.

And the panic-buying didn’t feature at all on the front pages of the other weekend papers in The Herald’s stable around the North Island.

Further South the Otago Daily Times – which shares copy with the Herald – led with “First case of virus in NZ.”

But queues and car park crushes in Auckland shops weren’t part of the picture.

Dramatic stuff but misleading
The business section of the Weekend Herald had the banner headline “World War V” and a huge picture of a health worker in a gown and facemask.

Dramatic stuff, but the pic was from Turin, Italy – and the actual story was an otherwise sober – and sombre – assessment of what coronavirus might do to our economy in the coming months.

Just as health authorities here have been planning for a case of Covid-19 on our soil, news media were ready with “what you need to know”-type explainers which were rolled out online when the news broke.

Radio stations had public health experts on hand to go on air.

“It’s absolutely business as usual. Go out and enjoy yourselves and do your usual things,” Otago University’s professor of public health Michael Baker said on NewstalkZB on Friday soon after the news of the first case was confirmed.

He could have added we should stick with trusted sources of news and information – but take panicky headlines like PANDEMONIUM and WORLD WAR V with a pinch of salt.

Colin Peacock is presenter of the RNZ Mediawatch programme. This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By RNZ News

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed today that a suspected case of Covid-19 coronavirus has tested positive in New Zealand.

Ardern said the person was in their 60s, and was a citizen of New Zealand who had recently travelled from Iran via Bali. The person had previously tested negative for Covid-19 twice.

The person was in an improving condition in isolation in Auckland hospital after arriving on Wednesday night before going home in a private car.

READ MORE: Covid-19: What it is and how to protect yourself

Minister of Health David Clark said the person “followed all of the steps you would hope would be followed”.

Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the person arrived this week from Iran, where the virus had been rapidly spreading.

He said the first two samples which were taken from the throat, or nasopharynx, were negative but the patient’s symptoms were much more suggestive of a lung infection.

Dr Bloomfield said the risk of widespread infection was low at this point.

Close contacts
“Public health officials have begun tracing the patient’s other close contacts to ensure that appropriate measures are in place and this includes a group of people who were on the flight involved, particularly for the final leg from Bali to New Zealand.

“The people who the public health service will be contacting are the people who were in the same row as this individual or the two rows ahead or behind.”

He said they would be required to self-isolate for 14 days and that self-isolation would be under regular communication with the public health units.

The Ministry of Health spokesperson said anyone who was on the final leg of the person’s flight – Emirates EK450, which arrived in Auckland on February 26 – and is concerned should contact the Covid-19 Healthline number on 0800 358 5453.

He earlier said five people were being tested for the virus in New Zealand, but only this person fit the definition of a suspected case.

The New Zealand government earlier announced it was expanding its travel restrictions because of the virus to those travelling from Iran.

The restrictions mean non-New Zealanders travelling from Iran are barred from the country, while New Zealanders travelling from there would have to go into isolation for two weeks.

130 tests in one month
He said 130 tests for Covid-19 had been done this month, all of them negative except this one.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said it received the test results about 4.15pm today.

The chances of community outbreak remained low, the ministry said, and public risk from the new infection was being well managed because of the public messaging, awareness of Covid-19 and public health response to managing cases and contacts.

However, there remained a “high likelihood of sporadic cases”, the statement said.

“Household contacts are in isolation as a precautionary measure,” it said.

“Public health officials have begun tracing the patient’s other close contacts to ensure appropriate protection measures are in place, including on the flight involved which originated in Tehran and came via Bali.”

The travel restrictions for Iran and China are reviewed every 48 hours.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz