Coronavirus Update #16
I was really, really, really hoping that I was done with these, but that is not the case. Unfortunately, there have been a number of cases that have come in from overseas, and two sisters from the UK with special exemptions to attend a funeral tested positive after leaving a facility. The holes in the border have led to many revelations about the problems with New Zealand’s safety measures and the government is scrambling to patch them. Here are the list of issues that I understand so far:
51 people left isolation early without being tested. Included in this group are the two women who had positive tests later on. 39 of these people have since tested negative, there are still some pending tests, and 1 person has to be tracked down by police. While we may have gotten extremely lucky and the remainder are all negative, I don’t think that leaving things up to luck is a good plan moving forward.
Over 2,000 people left a managed isolation stations without being tested. Since this hole was found, a good number of them have been tested, but still 1,100 remain. The government is trying to say that they don’t pose much of a risk because they completed their 14 day stay in a managed isolation facility without symptoms. But this leads me to the next issue…
The managed isolation hotels don’t appear to be very isolated at all. Guests/travellers can mix with each other. There are reports of parties and mingling with locals who have no idea the people they’re talking to are in isolation. They’re packed onto busses from the airport to quarantine facilities. So even if they don’t have coronavirus when they arrive, it is completely possible they pick it up on day 11 of their stay when they’re having a cocktail with a new friend found in the hotel. I assumed when people went into managed isolation that meant that each person or family was contained to a hotel room and told to stay put. That isn’t the case at all and it seems like common sense would raise all sorts of red flags with this arrangement.
International air crew have different requirements for testing and isolation. This one I find particularly shocking since the large Bluff cluster was the result of a flight attendant. Changes have been made so air crew must stay at home and return a negative test before going out into the community, but I haven’t seen details surrounding what that means. Do they need to test on day 3 and day 12 like normal travellers? Are they home for 14 days, or just a couple of days? What are the rules surrounding other people in their household? There are too many questions left unanswered to feel confident that coronavirus can’t slip through this hole.
One the plus side, New Zealand is testing up a storm to make sure there isn’t any community spread. There has been a huge bump up in testing over the past week after the new cases arrived. Nearly 9,200 tests were done yesterday with 6,000 being a daily average. In the past week, over 50,000 tests were done in the Auckland community, all of them came back negative. Over 350,000 tests have been done overall. One of those tests was mine.
Yep, I started to feel wretched on Wednesday. My head was congested, mild fever, sneezing attacks. All of the signs of your typical winter cold. Normally I wouldn’t do much, just rest, binge Netflix, and stay hydrated to wait for it to pass, but I decided it was best to call Healthline and get their guidance on whether or not this merited a test. After a quick chat with the woman on the other end of the line, she recommended I go and get one as they are trying to collect as much community data as possible. We picked out the closest testing place (a drive-through facility in Panmure) and I set out to get a test.
The hardest part was finding the drive-through entrance as I hadn’t read the instructions online ahead of time. I needed to enter on Domain Laine, not on Queen Street, so I had to circle twice to enter properly. There were three cars ahead of me. A fully garbed nurse asked for me to hold up my license so they could get my details. They looked up my medical records, and I was told to pull forward. About a minute later, another nurse came up. I rolled down my window and she confirmed my details, then handed me a tissue to use before shoving a very thin, very long swab up my nose until my eyes watered. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. She gave me a page of information to read over and informed me that I would most likely have my results in two days, though it may be longer. If it was negative, I’d get a text. If it was positive, I’d get a call. In the meantime, I should shut myself up at home, which honestly I planned to do anyway because I didn’t want to spread this cold to the rest of the family. The whole process from beginning to end took about 5 minutes.
My test results were a case of under-promise and over-deliver. I was told to expect a two day turn around, but possibly as long as five days. But in only one day I got a text: negative! While I knew the chance of a positive was low, it was extremely reassuring to be certain. The whole process was quick and easy. I’m hopeful this is the last time I have to take a test, but at least I know what to prepare my kids for if coronavirus gets out into the community. My fingers are crossed that the border security and tracking and tracing are strong enough to keep New Zealand safe.