How Aotearoa New Zealand rapidly revised its Covid-19 response strategy: lessons for the next pandemic plan. (31st May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kvalsvig, Amanda; Baker, Michael G.
• Is Part Of: Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Volume 51(2021)Supplement 1
• Page Start: S143
• Page End: S166
• Publication Date: 2021-05-31
• Subjects: Covid-19 -- pandemic plan -- public health -- epidemiology -- elimination -- ZeroCovid; Science -- Periodicals; 505
• DOI: 10.1080/03036758.2021.1891943
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0303-6758

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Public health lessons from one pandemic become the planning assumptions for the next one. Aotearoa New Zealand's 2017 pandemic plan was derived from past experience of influenza. When Covid-19 emerged as a major global health threat, it took time for the realisation to crystallise that this infection was so different from influenza that it required a completely new pandemic response strategy. In this paper we describe how early evidence about SARS-CoV-2 transmission from China led to the adoption of an elimination strategy in Aotearoa New Zealand, making it the first country to choose elimination as a specific policy response. We discuss how further evidence has shaped the selection and design of Covid-19 pandemic control measures such as border restrictions, case and contact management, hygiene practices and use of face masks, physical distancing, and vaccines. This experience demonstrates the need for a different approach to the design of the next national pandemic plan. We identify key early evidence that will be required to develop a flexible and appropriate public health response to a new pandemic threat. We present a framework for a new pandemic plan that aims to learn from the Covid-19 experience by making as few limiting assumptions as possible.