He said there has been "near extinction of influenza in New Zealand following our very effective Covid-19 response", as numbers vanished from the two standard systems for surveillance - resulting in a 99.8 per cent reduction in flu cases. "What the Covid-19 response has done has largely eliminated those excess winter deaths and mortality as a whole is down around 5 per cent," he said. However, despite flu numbers being down, lockdown measures had not managed to stop ordinary colds and respiratory illnesses, such as rhinoviruses - which had dropped slightly during lockdown but bounced back soon after. As for influenza, Baker said numbers were likely to stay very low as we moved into spring and summer, but what happens next year would depend on the country's ongoing response to border control. "We have learned remarkable things from the Covid response, both that we can keep out these viruses at the borders and that we can also stamp them out if we get clusters of cases."

Source: New Zealand Herald October 11, 2020 01:07 UTC