Guest Author • Feb 26, 2021 •
Michael Baker, University of Otago; Amanda Kvalsvig, University of Otago, and Nick Wilson, University of Otago Exactly one year ago today (February 26) the first confirmed case of COVID-19 arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand. Identified only as “a person in their 60s recently returned from Iran”, the case marked the beginning of an extraordinary period in the life of … Read More
Guest Author • Jan 21, 2021 •
Ilan Noy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington and Ami Neuberger, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology We will not be able to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us until the world’s population is mostly immune through vaccination or previous exposure to the disease. A truly global vaccination campaign, however, would look very different from what we are … Read More
Sarah-Jane O'Connor • Dec 24, 2020 •
Heading into Christmas in Aotearoa this year feels like living in a parallel universe. Tomorrow Kiwis will celebrate Christmas without thinking much about COVID-19, if at all. No tallying how many people are allowed to dinner, worrying about getting granny sick, or having immunocompromised loved ones stuck home alone. At last count, there are 49 cases of COVID-19 in … Read More
Public Health Expert • Dec 21, 2020 •
Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Michael Baker Aotearoa/NZ has responded very successfully to the COVID-19 pandemic by achieving elimination and the lowest death rate in the OECD. But there are ongoing risks – which may even be increasing with larger numbers of infected returnees in border facilities. In this final blog of the year we detail the critical actions needed to … Read More
Robert Hickson • Dec 20, 2020 •
Mutant and virus are two words that rarely go well together. Reports from the UK that a variant of SARS-CoV-2 has emerged (called lineage B.1.1.7), and may be more readily transmissible, aren’t what we want to hear just before Christmas, or any time. However, it isn’t necessarily a nightmare scenario. Coronaviruses have relatively low levels of mutation, … Read More
Katherine Hurst • Dec 18, 2020 •
“Always expect the unexpected” could be the Science Media Centre’s motto, but 2020 has proven more unexpected than most years. The novel coronavirus spread through all aspects of the SMC’s work: queries from journalists, media briefings, expert reactions to breaking news, and distributing recent scientific research through the Scimex website. Even the SMC’s … Read More
Dave Heatley • Dec 11, 2020 •
Is the Covid pandemic and our collective responses to it best framed as health vs. the economy? That is, are countries forced to make a horrible trade-off between: minimising Covid infection rates at high economic cost; and accepting higher Covid infection rates, this being the cost of maintaining economic activity? This framing underlies many of the popular narratives comparing the … Read More
Guest Author • Nov 27, 2020 •
Tootoooleaava Dr. Fanaafi Aiono-Le Tagaloa, University of Waikato Within minutes of news that crew members of the cargo ship Fesco Askold had tested positive for COVID-19, a social media storm broke across Samoa. COVID-free until then, the island nation’s anxiety was understandable. More so when you consider its history. Memories of the deadly 2019 measles outbreak were still … Read More
Guest Author • Nov 24, 2020 •
Matthew Jenkins, University of Otago and Elaine Hargreaves, University of Otago Periods of lockdown represent a massive disruption to people’s daily routines, but they also offer an opportunity to establish new habits. Our research focus is on what motivates people to change their behaviour, particularly when it comes to physical activity routines. We compared the levels of physical … Read More
Siouxsie Wiles • Nov 24, 2020 •
One of the good things about New Zealand pursuing an elimination strategy for Covid-19 (aside from the obvious) is that we are able to help answer some of the questions there are about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus transmits between people. Take air travel. As many people in the US start to head off around the country to spend Thanksgiving with … Read More