A leading epidemiologist says it's time for New Zealand to relax some public health measures as the Government prepares to make an announcement on the future of COVID restrictions.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will make an announcement on whether the COVID vaccine passes and mandates will remain in place. Newshub Nation reported on Saturday that vaccine passes will be ditched by next month and mandates will be scrapped for most industries.
And relaxing such restrictions is the right approach to take at this stage of New Zealand's Omicron outbreak, University of Melbourne epidemiologist Tony Blakely said.
"You've gone up the tabletop mountain… now you're there, you can start to relax measures off," Prof Blakely explained.
"Exactly what recipe New Zealand uses will differ from other countries but it is time to start doing some relaxation."
He said New Zealand may have high COVID case numbers for some time after relaxing restrictions - but one thing has given us an advantage.
"Because you've had Omicron BA.2 - the new Omicron variant… [case numbers] may come down and stay a bit lower than what we're experiencing here [in Australia]," Prof Blakely told Newshub Live at 8pm.
He said, however, future restrictions cannot be ruled out should the virus mutate again into a more dangerous variant.
"We're actually extremely lucky that Omicron's come along at the point where we're all vaccinated and wanting to open up because it's less virulent; less likely… to give you serious illness.
"We hope that whatever next variant comes is also low on that hospitalisation/mortality rate and, by natural selection, be a little bit more infectious.
"Unfortunately, we cannot rule out the possibility of a variant coming along that is far more likely to put you in hospital and if that happens, we may need to go back into working at home and all those types of measures."
Ardern will announce the sweeping changes to New Zealand's COVID response at 11am on Wednesday.
