spinofflive
Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

SocietyJuly 17, 2022

How are Australia and NZ managing the Covid wave – and is either getting it right?

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

A pair of Covid experts from either side of the Tasman compare and contrast the two nations’ approaches.

New Zealand, Australia and many countries are experiencing a further omicron wave driven by the latest BA.4/BA.5 subvariants. Our response to this threat is remarkably laissez-faire compared with past approaches, as society has pivoted to “living with the virus”.

But in both New Zealand and Australia, there’s a real risk current policy settings will be insufficient to prevent health services being overwhelmed – and more will need to be done in coming weeks.

We might squeak through under current policy settings if many more of us get vaccinated, wear masks, and isolate well when sick.

So, how do New Zealand and Australia compare on key policy settings?

Free masks? And what kind?

New Zealand: Free masks for all in Aotearoa – available from testing centres, marae and community centres, and provided directly to schools. Some 16 million surgical masks have been distributed in the last two months, as well as 3 million N95 masks (the latter to high risk and vulnerable people).

Australia: Free masks are occasionally distributed to certain groups (for example, some schools might have them). But access is extremely variable. (Also, one of us – Tony Blakely – has been in both Australia and New Zealand in last 10 days, and can report mask wearing is much higher in New Zealand.)

Rapid antigen tests – who gets them for free? (Image: Tina Tiller)

Free Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs)?

New Zealand: Access is similar to masks. Approximately 10.4 million free RATs have been distributed in last two months.

Australia: The federal government will not extend free rapid antigen tests for concession card holders past July 31. Victoria makes RATs available for free for some under certain circumstances. But nationwide, access to free RATs is variable and limited. (One of us – Tony Blakely – received four free RATs on arrival in New Zealand, and zero on arrival in Australia.)

Accessing antivirals (and do you need to go to the GP)?

There are two oral antivirals available in both countries: Paxlovid and Lagevrio.

Both are effective at preventing disease progression (for example, stopping you ending up in hospital) if taken within five days of symptom onset.

New Zealand: Available to higher risk groups – access has been expanded from 2% to 10% of cases. Available by prescription from GP and directly from pharmacist. No cost if you’re eligible.

Australia: Available to certain higher risk groups. Prescription needed from GP. Co-payment of A$42.50 ($6.80 with a concession card).

When it comes to vaccines, the difference is mainly in the approach to second booster doses. (Image: Archi Banal)

Vaccines?

Both countries are gradually widening access. Differences at one point in time may not be present in a few weeks. That said, as of mid-July 2022:

New Zealand: Primary course (that is, the first two vaccines) available for all people five years and older. First booster available to all 16+ year olds. Second booster (that is, the fourth dose) available to all 50+ year olds (but targeted more to 65+ year olds, unless Māori or Pasifika, in which case all 50+ year olds prioritised). Free. Vaccines mandatory for health and disability sector workers.

Australia: Primary course and first booster eligibility the same as in New Zealand. However, second booster encouraged for immunocompromised and all 50+ year olds, and available to 30-49 year olds if they wish. Free. Vaccines mandatory for some workers in some settings.

Income support for people who test positive?

New Zealand: Several forms of assistance, including Covid-19 Leave Support Scheme for people who need to self-isolate.

Australia: Very restricted availability.

Mask mandates?

New Zealand: Mandatory for public transport, retail, visiting health care and aged care facilities, and public venues.

Australia: Mandatory in aged and health care settings, on public transport and some other settings (but compliance is low).

Actual mask wearing is higher in indoor environments in New Zealand, based on direct observation in both New Zealand and Victoria by one of us – Tony Blakely – during July.

Mandatory self-isolation?

New Zealand: Mandatory seven days self-isolation following positive test result. Household contacts also need to isolate for seven days, unless they have had Covid-19 in the last three months.

Australia: if you test positive for Covid-19 you must immediately isolate. However, the circumstances under which you can leave isolation may depend on which state you’re in. Household members in many places don’t have to isolate, as long as they have no symptoms.

Is either country getting it right?

Based on the above criteria, New Zealand is clearly “winning”. But getting policy settings right over the long haul is about more than just having the most favourable assessment on some selected (but important) criteria.

If the goal is to minimise hospitalisations, deaths and long-term illness, there is an argument for minimising infections by shifting from mitigation towards a suppression strategy.

Longitudinal studies are increasingly showing high rates of reinfection, which carry many of the same health consequences as the initial infection.

As the pandemic goes on (and on and on) we need to increasingly consider cost-effectiveness.

Giving out free RATs to all is a cost to governments, and carries sustainability consequences. Such interventions need to be effective and compared with alternative approaches.

These are complex decisions – and hard to quantify. We do not have a good enough crystal ball to know what is “right” now; we will, unfortunately, only know with the benefit of hindsight.

Tony Blakely is professor of epidemiology at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne and Michael Baker is professor of public health at the University of Otago

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Keep going!
Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

SocietyJuly 17, 2022

Have you seen the walking, talking tree of Wellington? 

Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

Alex Casey talks to street performer Jared ‘Woody’ Wood, who works full time on the streets of Wellington as a flute-playing tree. 

Jarrod Wood had just changed into his tree costume in an alleyway when he came across a young woman in distress. Through tears, she told the walking, talking, life-sized tree that she had just lost a close family member. “I sort of consoled her and said ‘mother nature loves you’ and gave her a hug as the tree,” Wood explains. “That person never forgot me. They still always come up and give me a hug when they see me.” 

It is far from the first time that Wood has experienced Wellingtonians opening up to Tree, his leafy, flute-playing alter ego that can be spotted mooching about with a donation box on Cuba Street, Oriental Bay and along the Wellington waterfront on a good day. “People feel much more free to open up to me in the tree avatar,” he says over the phone. “People going through breakups, immigrant families explaining their problems in New Zealand, all sorts of things.” 

Before Tree, he was just Wood. Starting his performing career as a musician in the navy, he moved to Palmerston North in the mid-90s to teach music in secondary schools, before shifting to Wellington to work as a “DJ and saxophone player combined”. In 2005, he travelled to India to study Indian bamboo flute, an instrument he would train in and perform with for the next 14 years. “That was just amazing, I was doing so many performances because they have a very vibrant party culture, and I got music in Bollywood movies.”

Image: Instagram

But Bollywood has nothing on Wellywood, the place where Wood would finally become Tree. He returned home to New Zealand in 2019 to visit his parents and, like many, couldn’t leave the country when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. So, also like many, he took to YouTube to pass the time in lockdown. That’s where he discovered the prank genre of people wearing tree costumes to scare members of the public. “They scare the crap out of people, but then you see how they burst into laughter afterwards. That positivity created was very interesting to me.” 

Wood also thought the people of Wellington could do with a bit of lightening up. “The lockdowns made a lot of people quite emotional about their lives and the people they were missing,” he says. “I thought if you are doing something which makes people in your city laugh and smile, they will forget the stress and angst of the pandemic.”

The first step was to get the tree costume made. Wood went to The Warehouse and purchased a fleece All Blacks onesie that was on special – “I’m not a rugby fan, to be honest” – and ordered a pile of plastic ivy online. For the next two months he stitched every individual leaf onto the suit, until it started to look more and more like an actual tree. “I didn’t want it to be a scary tree, I wanted it to be a nice looking tree that people will enjoy looking at.” 

Image: Instagram

Soon enough, it was time to test it out. Wood headed into the city with the suit, a small speaker, a donation box,  and a selection of bamboo flutes to play for the public. “My knees were shaking with fear because it was such a ridiculous thing to do,” he recalled. “I had no idea how people would react, so I just stood in a garden for half an hour.” Eventually, people began approaching him, smiling and even giving him money. “I was basically just standing there – I wasn’t playing at that point, I was just testing how people reacted to the suit.” 

After getting a positive reaction on his first outing, Wood began working on his body language and movement to create a fully formed character – a tree who has come down from the forest to visit the city people. “When I see kids I say ‘hi small human’ or ‘hello person’,” he laughs. Sometimes he will stand camouflaged in the bushes behind his donation box that says “Kia ora, I am Tree”. When people read it aloud he will say “no, you are human, I am Tree” from beneath the foliage. “That’s always a nice joke too.”

It is not just the character that has developed over the two years he has been Tree. Wood made a second prototype of the tree suit after the first one proved too hot. This time, he sliced out the fleece paneling of the onesie and replaced it with mesh, slowly adding new leaves and over 1,000 fairy lights. “It all just suddenly clicked in my head – this is walking decor. You have a speaker, you have flutes, you have lights, it’s like a tiny festival that roams around the city.” 

Image: Instagram

Wood’s knees no longer knock when he walks around the city as Tree. He says one night he made two different groups of people cry with his flute playing, which he says “is the highest compliment for a musician”. He says he has learned to gauge the mood of the city on any given day, and has developed a knack for plucking out former military members in a crowd. “When they see you, they look very focused and serious, like ‘this person is in a sniper suit’. You can see it touches on something a bit different for them.” 

Earlier in the year he even took Tree to visit the occupation at parliament, hastening to add that he was not a protester himself. “I was just aware there were a whole bunch of angsty people in the city who needed to chill out a little bit,” he laughs. “I got accused of being an undercover policeman by a scary-looking person in a high-vis vest, but I assured him that a policeman couldn’t play the flute as good as I can.” 

Wood has no plans to retire Tree any time soon. “As I keep performing I find out different things that people like about it,” he says. “Children around town will tell me ‘oh, I can see your fingers’, so now I paint my fingers green, or they say ‘I can see your shoes’, so now I really layer on the leaves so you can’t see the shoes at all.” But it’s not just the kids who like Tree – he says he’s had memorable interactions with everyone from elderly folks to heavily tattooed blokes. 

“It’s shown me that everyone has something good and fun and sweet inside of them, regardless of how they look or who they are,” Wood says. “I hope it shows each person I meet that they have their own magic inside of them as well.”

But wait there's more!