One may be forgiven for being over-optimistic to assume that New Zealand has been able to achieve what has been unachievable for the rest of the world – controlling the rapid spread of highly transmissible Omicron-variant of Covid-19 virus in the community.
Their optimism may be rooted in seemingly modest, but highly deceptive Omicron numbers currently released by the Ministry of Health – only 116 confirmed cases in the country – in the last week since it was first detected that Omicron has leaked in the community.
Even yesterday (Saturday, January 29) there were 97 new Covid cases in the community - 11 of which had been confirmed as the Omicron variant.
Experts warn of any misplaced optimism
However, experts are clearly warning of any misplaced optimism that some New Zealanders may be harbouring with the seemingly similar number of infections arising in the last week of the Omicron outbreak in the community as in the previous Delta outbreak.
To make it clear, currently, both Delta and Omicron are circulating in the community, with the number of Omicron infections projected to rise dramatically. Many experts had earlier projected that at the height of the Omicron Outbreak NZ can see around 10,000 cases every day.
It is against these early projections of gigantic numbers and the seemingly small numbers in multiples of tens that New Zealand has seen in the first week of the Omicron outbreak that some may start ignoring the transmissibility of the virus and become slightly less careful.
“Genome Sequencing” is taking more time for actual numbers to come out
However, several modellers of infectious diseases are thoroughly confident that the numbers will soon start rising dramatically, in the range of several thousand per day as earlier projected.
They are pointing out that the current highly restricted number of Omicron cases arising every day (in Ministry of Health releases) is due to delay in the process of “genome sequencing,” which is far slower and takes far longer than the PCR test that determines a Covid-19 positive sample.
Doubling time of Omicron infection remains 3 days
Experts are saying that most countries around the world have seen a doubling time of around three days once you see an Omicron outbreak had started.
By that logic, if New Zealand is sitting around 116 Omicron cases by this weekend, then it is highly likely that by next weekend cases will rise to around 500 and will grow rapidly from there onwards.
Omicron spread is tracking as expected
University of Otago expert in infectious diseases, Professor David Murdoch, has told NZ Herald that Kiwis should not be reassured by the stagnancy of Omicron numbers the past few days and says the outbreak is tracking as expected.
"It's nice to see we haven't seen the explosion in detected cases but we need to be aware that may still come,” Prof Murdoch was reported saying.