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Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has held his final Covid-19 press briefing, announcing the “formal end” of all pandemic-related public health orders.
The last remaining pandemic orders, due to end at midnight on Monday, were a seven-day isolation order for people infected with Covid-19, and a requirement to wear masks in health facilities.
Business groups welcomed the decision, while some public health experts questioned the Government’s rationale.
Familiar faces of the pandemic response such as Professor Michael Baker said it was an “understandable” decision, but they urged people to take sensible precautions when ill.
Hipkins called the announcement “a significant milestone”, saying he’d “longed for this particular day” back when he was the Covid-19 Response Minister.
But during his regular post-Cabinet new conference when he finally announced the end of the country’s Covid-19 response, he said it was “a bit of an anticlimax”.
“As we draw the final line and our emergency pandemic response, and we mark the incorporation of Covid-19 into the business as usual role of our health system, I want to say one last thank you to New Zealanders at home and those spread around the globe,” he said.
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announces the end of pandemic-related public health orders.
He remembered the particularly difficult response measures, including Auckland’s long lockdowns, MIQ, and the separation of families through border restrictions. He said these measures had impacted national unity.
“While there were no doubt fractures in our collective sense of unity, I believe New Zealanders can be enormously proud… There is absolutely no question that we saved lives,” he said.
Hipkins also updated the national Covid-19 death toll, saying 2035 people had died.
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Infectious diseases and pandemic expert Professor Michael Baker says smart precautions should continue.
Baker believed there was a public health argument to maintain isolation requirements, but politically he understood why they were being removed. He said people should stay home, regardless, when they had respiratory symptoms – Covid or not.
Professor Michael Plank, who had been a Covid-19 modeller, agreed “staying at home when sick is just common sense”.
He said it was “reasonable” to remove the final Covid specific restrictions, rather than maintain special law for this virus.
“The benefit of having isolation would be marginal long-term, because the main factor is the level of immunity – from vaccines and previous infections – which swamps the other factors,” he said.
“Singling out Covid-19 for isolation increasingly doesn’t make sense.”
Professor Nick Wilson, Department of Public Health, University of Otago, said the Government was wrong to end isolation requirements.
“The Government is so keen to pretend it’s all over, despite people dying daily in hospital. It’s not trivial,” he said.
He said in the last week nearly three people had died each day and 171 people were in hospital.
He had hoped that instead of a full seven days, the system would change to a “test release” with a negative test ending a person’s required isolation.
“It’s still highly infectious. The average person is still infecting more than one other person. If they go to work, it will affect productivity,” he said.
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Chris Hipkins thanked the former Covid response leaders who he’d worked with during the pandemic.
Dr Siouxsie Wiles, one of the public faces of the Covid-19 response who was named New Zealander of the Year in 2021, said she was disappointed by the Government’s decision.
“Gutted by today’s news that masking in healthcare settings and mandatory isolation are goneburgers,” she wrote on Twitter.
“Sending hugs to everyone who understands what this means. I’m going to keep doing all I can because that’s all we’ve got left right?”
In an opinion piece for The Post on Monday, Wiles wrote, “We should keep what little protections we have until better vaccines are available and we’ve upgraded our ventilation standards to get the virus out of the air… These protections will help keep future Covid waves to a minimum.”
But business groups, including Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the news.
Chamber boss Leeann Watson said the leave requirements had added extra cost to business owners and exacerbated workforce pressures.
Hipkins said the Covid-19 measures had saved lives and described it as one of the most extraordinary periods of New Zealand history.
While he described Monday as “the formal end of what was a uniquely challenging time”, he urged people to consider taking their own precautions as appropriate.
“It’s always been the case if you’re sick, try not to infect other people. Stay home. Get better. Wear a mask, potentially… These are just things that you do because you’re a good human,” he said.
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