New Zealand needs to learn from other countries and do “a lot of preparation” for the arrival of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, Otago University epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says.
Omicron is fast becoming a dominant variant of the virus around the world, with New Zealand reporting it's first community case of Omicron in British DJ Dimension in late December, 2021.
But Baker thinks Kiwis have become "insulated" to the threat of the pandemic.
"I think we in New Zealand are very insulated from the force of this pandemic and how tough it can be, but we won't be insulated once the Omicron variant starts to circulate," he told 1News.
"So I think we do need to do a lot of preparation in terms of all our systems, access to testing, protocols, what the isolation and quarantine requirements will be and we can learn from the experience from other countries."
Baker said the reasons for New Zealand's success amid the pandemic was being cautious and learning from the experience of other countries.
"Now we've got this maybe only a brief window to learn particularly from Australia but also looking at the UK which has got very good data just so that we do the best we can for what is obviously a very different kind of pandemic to the one we've been managing so far."
Across the ditch, Baker gave an example involving his own family - he said his son and his partner struggled to get tested for Covid-19 despite both feeling "extremely ill".
"They found it extremely hard to get a test even though they were the absolute textbook examples of cases based on their symptoms," he said.
"Eventually early this morning they got to an emergency department and, reluctantly, I think one of the staff came out and did a rapid antigen test on her because she was much sicker and it was a positive test result.
"So it is just showing what happens when a system is really stressed by this fast-moving Omicron variant."
Baker urged Kiwis to get a Covid-19 booster vaccine dose "as soon as possible".
“We know that Omicron is on the horizon, we’ve seen what it’s doing overseas, New Zealand is likely to be in that situation at some point in the next few months, maybe quite soon, so really all New Zealanders need to get that booster dose as soon as possible.”
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