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With lockdowns easing for the rest of New Zealand, Auckland becomes the elimination frontline

In an article on The Conversation, University of Canterbury Professor Michael Plank and University of Auckland Professor Shaun Hendy take a look on the latest Covid-19 community case numbers and the related R number, and explain what it takes to move Auckland down to Alert Level 3.

Photo by Sulthan Auliya on Unsplash

After a peak in case numbers during the weekend of August 28-29, the Ministry of Health reported only 20 new cases for three consecutive days, of which most were already in isolation during their infectious period.

This downward trend shows alert level 4 restrictions and contact tracing are working, bringing the effective reproductive number of the Delta variant down well below 1.

Our latest estimates suggest the R number is about 0.4, very close to the value observed in the March-April outbreak in 2020, the last time the entire country was under the strictest lockdown.

We know that Delta is as much as twice as infectious as the original wild-type variant, but the level 4 lockdown measures are proving just as effective so far.

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