Infectious Thoughts

Why I’m confident there is no community transmission in NZ

Siouxsie Wiles • Jun 25, 2020

• border,
• community transmission,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• testing

Both the leader of the opposition Todd Muller and University of Auckland Professor Des Gorman have gone on the record as saying they suspect Covid-19 is spreading in the community in New Zealand once again. Let me explain why I don’t agree with them. As best I can tell there are two reasons Muller and Gorman have jumped to the … Read More

Why are we seeing these new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand?

Siouxsie Wiles • Jun 23, 2020

• border,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• quarantine,
• symptoms,
• testing

After weeks of no new cases of Covid-19, in the last week we’ve recorded nine. That’s sounds pretty scary, but here’s why there’s no reason to panic. For weeks now, almost every day there have been over 100,000 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 around the world. On two days last week that number topped 170,000. Sadly, it looks like the … Read More

Simple rules to play it safe at alert level two

Siouxsie Wiles • May 14, 2020

• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• level 2,
• social distancing

Today Aotearoa New Zealand wakes up in alert level two. It’s no secret that I would have preferred for us to stay at level three for another week or so. That’s because I’m worried we don’t quite yet know how effective level three has been at keeping us on our path to eliminate Covid-19. But the government has had … Read More

Why getting tested quickly matters so much

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 30, 2020

• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• symptoms,
• testing

For days now, the numbers of new confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 in Aotearoa New Zealand have been in single figures. But they haven’t been zero. Lots of people have noticed and have started asking me why, after all the weeks we’ve spent in lockdown, we still have people testing positive for the virus. It’s a good question … Read More

Magic numbers and the mystery of Covid-19 silent spread

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 29, 2020

• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• covid-19 testing,
• New York,
• serology

A few days ago it was reported that “2.7 million New Yorkers have already had coronavirus”. To put that 2.7 million in context, the Johns Hopkins University Covid-19 tracker records, as I write, 291,996 confirmed cases in New York, with 57,103 people in hospital, and 17,515 people having died. If the 2.7 … Read More

Welcome to alert level three. Now let’s finish what we started

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 28, 2020

• alert level four,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• lockdown

We wake today at alert level three. We are here because of the incredible job everyone has done while we have been in lockdown at alert level four. No one doubts how hard this has been for so many people. For their mental and physical wellbeing. For their livelihoods. This global pandemic has turned our world upside down. To everyone … Read More

What do we mean we talk about the ‘elimination’ of Covid-19?

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 24, 2020

• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• elimination,
• eradication,
• jargon

New Zealand is pursuing an ‘elimination’ strategy to counter the coronavirus pandemic. But that word, as with many terms in science, is not necessarily the same as its common usage. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand, our plan is to eliminate Covid-19. We have long since abandoned the “flatten the curve” strategy, which aims to slow the spread of the … Read More

Just how widespread is Covid-19 in people with no symptoms?

Siouxsie Wiles • Apr 22, 2020

• asymptomatic transmission,
• coronavirus,
• COVID-19,
• pre-symptomatic,
• statistics,
• testing

Did you hear about the testing of the general population in Iceland for Covid-19 that found that half of the people who tested positive didn’t have any symptoms? When I heard that, the first thing I thought was: shit, there are heaps of people walking around spreading Covid-19! And they don’t even know it, aaargh! I had a similar … Read More

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

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