Infectious Thoughts

About those cries of ‘over-reaction’ on NZ’s Covid-19 response

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 15, 2020

• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• herd immunity,
• lockdown,
• Pandemic

A group of six New Zealand academics yesterday announced their “vision for a balanced response” to the Covid-19 pandemic. They are calling that vision “Plan B”. They even have a website and a PR firm attached. They are clearly serious. Their plan is for New Zealand to return “to normality as soon … Read More

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Should we all be wearing face masks to prevent Covid-19 spread?

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 06, 2020

• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• face masks,
• mask

Maybe you’ve seen the graph that says those countries where everyone wears a mask are the ones that have managed to keep Covid-19 under control? The first thing to say about that claim is that those countries also did lots of other things, too – they acted fast, with intense testing, contact tracing and quarantine. The reality is, when it … Read More

A note on apartments and bubbles

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 03, 2020

• apartment,
• bubbles,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• isolation,
• quarantine

As Aotearoa enters week two of lockdown, it’s clear we’re all still working out what our “bubbles” look like and how to stay in them to stop the spread of Covid-19. New to the government’s Covid-19 website is some good guidance for people living in apartment blocks. Recent decades have seen New Zealanders in increasing numbers … Read More

Why those bubbles are so important

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 01, 2020

• bubbles,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• Infectious disease,
• isolation,
• lockdown

For almost a week now, every one of us who isn’t an essential worker has been confined to their bubble. We are allowed to go shopping for groceries, to visit the doctor, and to get a bit of exercise if we stay local. The reason we are doing this is to stop the spread of Covid-19 and to save … Read More

When will we know the lockdown is working?

Siouxsie Wiles • Mar 27, 2020

• #COVID19,
• coronavirus,
• level four,
• lockdown,
• Pandemic,
• WHO

Just before midnight on Wednesday March 25, Aotearoa New Zealand entered a countrywide alert level four lockdown. For at least the next four weeks, everyone who isn’t an essential worker is confined to their bubble. We are doing this to stop the explosive growth in people contracting and dying from Covid-19 that so many other countries are experiencing. Over … Read More

What does ‘level two’ mean – and why does it matter?

Siouxsie Wiles • Mar 22, 2020

• alert system,
• COVID-19,
• physical distancing

For the last few weeks, I’ve been urging you to prepare yourself, your family, business, and community for Covid-19. Now it’s time for real action.  Yesterday the director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced another 13 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand, bringing our total to date to 52. Those cases include two that … Read More

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How testing for Covid-19 works

Siouxsie Wiles • Mar 18, 2020

• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• diagnostics,
• testing

With confirmed cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand up to 12, many influential people are writing open letters and opinion pieces and doing press conferences asking why we aren’t pulling out all the stops and testing thousands of people a day like they are in South Korea. The thing is, testing for Covid-19 isn’t like a pregnancy test. You don’t … Read More

After ‘Flatten the Curve’, we must now ‘Stop the Spread’. Here’s what that means

Siouxsie Wiles • Mar 14, 2020

• 2019-nCov,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19

Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris and I recently introduced you to the concept of #FlattenTheCurve. Now we want to get you thinking about a more ambitious idea: #StopTheSpread. But first, a quick recap. During an outbreak, if we can’t control the spread of the disease, then the number of sick people quickly rises. For Covid-19 we know this: about two out … Read More

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The three phases of Covid-19 – and how we can make it manageable

Siouxsie Wiles • Mar 09, 2020

• 2019-nCov,
• containment,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• epidemic curve,
• herd immunity,
• Hospitals,
• transmission,
• vaccination

In a post last week, I showed you a picture of how the Covid-19 outbreak has played out in China. It was a graph of the number of cases reported each day, something we call an epidemic curve. It looked a bit like this. We can use the epidemic curve as a visual way to think about how Covid-19 … Read More

How to get rid of Covid-19 from surfaces the right way

Siouxsie Wiles • Mar 07, 2020

• 2019-nCov,
• cleaning,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• disinfectant,
• Hygiene,
• virus

This week several more people in New Zealand have been confirmed to have contracted Covid-19, and the number of confirmed cases globally is approaching 100,000. We’ve been talking a lot about how this coronavirus is droplet spread so here’s the answers to a few questions people have been asking about that. But before I get on to that, I just … Read More