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NZ ready for Level 1 move after 'amazing' effort fighting Covid-19 - Dr Siouxsie Wiles

June 8, 2020

However the microbiologist voiced concerns as New Zealand looks to set up a travel bubble with Australia.

Microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles believes it is the right time for the country to move to Covid-19 Alert Level 1, but she wants Kiwis to be ready to move back up levels if new cases crop up.

Today, Cabinet is meeting to decide on when New Zealand will move down from Alert Level 2 to Level 1.

At Alert Level One, all rules and restrictions on businesses and services will essentially be lifted. Community sport could also restart with no physical distancing required, while border restrictions will remain in place.

"It's just shows our lockdown was the right thing to do, the stepping down the levels slowly was the right thing to do and it looks like today they're going to be in a position to say we should move [to Level 1]," Dr Wiles told TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning.

"What we've been looking at is every time we've moved levels or changed numbers it's sort of opened up our chances of transmission and we've had nothing so it really does look like we've done it which is kind of amazing."

When making the move down levels, Dr Wiles said the number of Covid-19 cases and where they came from needed to be considered.

"What I was concerned about was that the previous weekend when our numbers at gatherings increased, we also had the demonstrations, and so those were opportunities - lots of people coming together - those were opportunities for transmission to happen. 

"It's been now over a week and there's been absolutely nothing come from those things so I would say in a few days time we'll be fairly confident that that means that there is no virus out there that we don't know about which is just an absolutely amazing position to be in globally because we're one of very few countries that have done that."

It comes amid ongoing pressure from businesses and the Opposition to get the country up and running again.

Dr Wiles said if she was being conservative, another week at Level 2 would "be fantastic", but she also said she thinks it is time to move down to Level 1.

"What's been clear is that people have had enough and then they're starting to behave in ways that are not helpful," she said. 

"The best thing is for us to appreciate the scale of what's happening overseas and to then think looking forward, how can we all help make sure we don't see [Covid-19] cases again.

"It shows we're still vulnerable now to what's happening in the rest of the world and so it's going to be about how we control the borders, how we stop the virus coming into the country and how we all behave in case it does."

When asked about talks of New Zealand and Australia opening a trans-Tasman travel bubble, Dr Wiles said we need to be clear that we don't want new cases of Covid-19 brought into New Zealand.

"First thing is for everyone who is yelling for opening of the borders, that takes us back to having clusters here, having deaths here, so I think we'd all agree that's not what we want, especially after what we've just experienced.

"So it's got to be about control of the virus, in countries where the virus is widespread it's going to mean quarantine.

"In the next six months it could all be completely different but if we're going to do these bubbles with countries with low incidents or no incidents then that will be different.

"The important thing is how do we behave so that if the virus does come in, how do we really quickly stamp it out?"

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