Wellington: The New Zealand Government is rolling out additional measures to help tackle the second Omicron wave and record levels of flu to ease pressure on the health system and health workers.
"There’s no question the combination of a spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations, the worst flu season in recent memory and corresponding staff absences are putting health workers and the whole health system under extreme pressure," Minister for COVID-19 Response Dr Ayesha Verrall said in a press release on Thursday.
"Our modelling suggests we’re at the beginning of a second Omicron wave that could be bigger than the first, with the more transmissible BA.5 variant becoming the dominant strain in the community," she said.
According to her, there has been a significant increase in cases over the past two weeks, and worryingly the biggest jump is in cases amongst New Zealanders aged 65 and over.
"That in turn has led to an increase in hospital occupancy," she added.
"We are continuing to ask New Zealanders to do three things - get vaccinated, wear a mask in many or most indoor settings and isolate when sick to suppress the spread of the virus over the remaining winter months. If we all play our part we can take some pressure off the health system," she stressed.
To support this, the government is increasing access to antiviral medication to those most likely to end up in hospital, making free masks and RATs more widely available and doing another push to lift uptake of flu and COVID-19 vaccines including the second booster.
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