The Government will remove its ability to impose lockdowns or close the borders but no changes to current Covid-19 settings have been suggested, Marc Daalder reports
Analysis: Seven-day isolation periods, free rapid tests, financial support for isolating people who cannot work from home and masks in healthcare settings will all remain requirements after the epidemic notice expires on Thursday, Chris Hipkins has announced.
Newsroom first reported that no changes would be made to settings on Tuesday morning.
These are the final handful of Covid-19 measures that are still in effect. While ministers considered scrapping the isolation payments, which support about a quarter of cases to remain at home each week, they ultimately decided to make no substantive changes to any settings.
The Government will also legislate to remove its ability to impose lockdowns, close the borders or implement other, more stringent health protections.
With Covid-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall out of the country, Hipkins was left to announce the results of the latest monthly review of Covid-19 rules.
It comes as the epidemic notice which has been in force since March 2020 and which undergirds some of the remaining restrictions is set to expire on Thursday. That end-date was set by Jacinda Ardern in September when she dismantled the traffic light system. Under the Epidemic Preparedness Act 2006, the Government granted itself special powers as long as the effects of the virus "are likely to disrupt or continue to disrupt essential governmental and business activity in New Zealand significantly".
However, in 2020, the Government passed new legislation specifically to deal with Covid-19, which will be used to support the remaining rules. This law, the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act, will be trimmed down to allow for just a handful of health protections, Hipkins said Tuesday.
The ability to implement lockdowns, MIQ, border closures, vaccine passes and mandates and a range of other rules will be stripped from the legislation.
Only isolation periods, mask use and a few entry requirements at the border will stay.
The streamlined Covid-19 legislation will continue to be in place until new, general pandemic legislation can be passed through Parliament.
"When Covid arrived we had limited legislative tools to respond and new ones had to be created. It is critical that a legacy of this pandemic is a fit for purpose piece of pandemic legislation like we have for civil defence and natural disasters," Hipkins said.
If lockdowns are needed to response to a heightened Covid-19 risk in the interim, new emergency legislation would have to be passed or provisions of the Health Act could be used for a short period of time.
It's unclear how long it will take for the general pandemic law to come to fruition and what might happen if it isn't in place before the Covid-19 act expires in May.
Newshub reported on Monday that the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has urged the Government to extend this legislation through 2025, to ensure the country is still able to respond to changes in the pandemic environment.
The move is part of the Government's pivot to a response to the virus that can be maintained over the long term, balancing health and business needs. It also sets New Zealand apart from other Western countries, which have abandoned all measures and moved to ignore the virus, while aligning more closely with Japan, Singapore and other Covid-cautious nations.
Ministers and officials made the decision to extend existing protections partly in light of a sudden surge in Covid-19 in Europe. Cases are up by 50 percent over the past month, driven by waning immunity, the end of summer and new, more transmissible Omicron subvariants.
Data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control shows subvariants like BQ.1.1 and BA.4.6 now make up a quarter of virus sequences, up from 10 percent a month ago.
New Zealand is also seeing a rise in these new variants and an uptick in cases. The seven-day rolling average of new cases is the highest it's been since September 1, according to Newsroom's up-to-date Covid-19 dashboard. BA.4.6 and BA.2.75 represented a quarter of sequences at the end of September, the latest period for which data is available, and had tripled in prevalence in a week.
While this factored into Cabinet's choice to keep the existing measures in place, Newsroom understands there was never any serious consideration given to scrapping or reducing isolation requirements. Modelling shown to ministers said a five-day isolation period would likely prompt a spike in cases and hospitalisations because a significant number of people entering the community would still be infectious. A five-day period was described as being little different from having no isolation whatsoever.
Publicly available modelling also indicates shorter isolation periods lead to more cases. While isolation is occasionally cited as a burden on businesses, the research suggests businesses would lose more staff and patients to the virus if it were reduced or scrapped.
Ardern said on Monday that isolation was the most effective way to reduce transmission.
"At the moment the protections we have in place are very slimmed down but they are the things that we believe, with the current variants we have and Covid at the stage it's in, make the biggest difference," she said.
"They are simply asking people who have Covid to stay at home and when you go into environments like healthcare settings, to wear masks. I think New Zealanders really understand and appreciate why they continue to be really important steps."
The Prime Minister declined to say when Covid-19 measures might be fully repealed. Waves of Covid-19 will continue to come, potentially forever. The remaining measures are light touch and easier to preserve over the long term than controversial restrictions like vaccine passes and mandates.
The move to preserve a baseline level of protections and the means to reintroduce more stringent measures if needed is prudent in the face of ongoing uncertainty.
