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Shaun Hendy’s analysis: Why Pullman cases don’t appear to have spread Covid-19

February 1, 2021

Professor Shaun Hendy says it may come down to the symptoms people experienced.

A leading data modeller says the different ways people’s bodies react to contracting Covid-19 may be why the Pullman Hotel cases don’t appear to have spread the virus to their close contacts. 

Modelling from March and April last year showed only about one in five people who contracted Covid-19 passed it on to others, University of Auckland Professor Shaun Hendy told Breakfast today. 

He says this could be seen during last year’s “super-spreader events”, which were often held in an indoor area where there may have been a lot of singing or talking. 

“But your typical kind of interaction, there’s much lower risk [of spreading Covid-19],” Hendy says.

“It’s also perhaps to do with the way people react to the disease and where the disease really takes hold and presents in people … that can lead to different risks of transmission.” 

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield also said last week the Northland woman who contracted Covid-19 during her managed isolation stay at the Pullman didn’t report having respiratory symptoms. 

Karen Lynn stayed in the Auckland facility in September, 2020.

The close contacts of the woman, and the close contacts of two other people who also completed quarantine at the hotel and later returned positive Covid-19 tests, all tested negative. 

But, Hendy urged people living in Northland and Auckland to remain vigilant for the rest of the two-week infection cycle. 

“The concern that we still have is those cases were out in the community for some time.”

There was still “some risk” a casual contact may have picked up the virus, and it was “unlikely” they knew they were a casual contact, Hendy says. 

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