"This is a preparedness exercise, it's going to be a high-level plan ... it's not going to be as prescriptive as the other plans we have rolled out in response to Covid because we can't crystal ball gaze about precisely what will turn up." - Ayesha Verrall
When the government relaxed Covid-19 public health measures, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was clear some may not be gone for good, kept "in the back pocket" in case of new and dangerous variants.
With the threat of those variants looming, Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall has asked Ministry of Health officials to draft up a plan outlining the response.
As well as being ready to roll some restrictions out again, it also means monitoring for new variants through genomic sequencing.
Photo: RNZ
With Covid-19 continuing to spread, new variants are an inevitability, and Verrall says we need a systematic way of assessing the threat they pose and what the response should be.
The World Health Organisation and other countries like Singapore and the UK are among those working on similar plans, she says, but New Zealand needs to be prepared to be part of the response, and match it to the severity of any new variant.
"We've taken steps to ... reduce down measures as we've had more protection due to vaccination and then with Omicron - because the clinical severity was less - we were able to go to the traffic lights framework, which is less restrictive."
Ministry of Health chief science advisor has been part of the team involved in the planning, and says new dominant variants are generally likely to be more infectious, but a very high severity could reduce infectiousness. Omicron's low severity means worse outcomes cannot be ruled out, however.
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Covid-19 modeller Dion O'Neale hopes improvements can be made to ventilation systems and practices, as well as a greater emphasis on masks.
ACT Leader David Seymour wants improved testing, tracing, PPE provision, vaccine rollout and ICU capacity.
Previous interventions like QR contact tracing and vaccine passes also cannot be ruled out. National Party Covid-19 Response Spokesperson Chris Bishop supports planning for new variants, but describes those as a "severe" response he hopes we've seen the end of.
"I think there's a fair degree of Covid fatigue at the moment and I would not like to see the reintroduction of compulsory vaccine passes ... QR codes coming back.
"There are people in hospital right now, and there are people in hospital every day and every month with particular illnesses."
The other part of the equation is surveillance. Bishop wants more use of genomic sequencing, and Verrall says the government is looking at further changes.
At the moment, labs sequence PCR tests of arriving overseas travellers who test positive. Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says officials also plan to ramp up the use of genomic sequencing closer to winter.
He says it would be expanded to people visiting their GP, hospital or a clinic for example, and should include a good spread across age groups and geography to get a good idea of the viruses that are circulating and where.
Verrall says the government has been criticised in the past for lack of consultation with groups like Māori, Pacific or disabled people, and the new variant plan will be taken to iwi leaders and the disability sector before public release.
National Māori Pandemic Group co-leader Rawiri McKree Jansen says it's reassuring the government is preparing.
In today's Focus on Politics podcast, Political Reporter Katie Scotcher assesses where the government's planning is for new and potentially more deadly variants.
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