Gatherings of more than 500 people should be cancelled to help stop the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.
Kiwis thinking about calling off planned trips abroad over coronavirus fears should be asking themselves three big questions, a microbiologist says.
That's whether their travel insurance covers them; whether the country they're travelling to has the capacity to care for them for up to six weeks if they became severely ill; and whether they'd be prepared to isolate themselves for two weeks when they returned home.
"If you're unsure of any of the answers to those questions, I wouldn't be going anywhere," the University of Auckland's Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles said.
A case in point was Italy, where more than 10,000 cases have been recorded – along with more than 630 deaths – and New Zealand authorities have advised people to avoid travelling to.
"In three weeks, they've gone from having their first case, to the whole country being shut down. Their infectious disease specialists are saying they don't have capacity to look after all of the people who are ill.
"There are not enough respirators or ICU beds. And this is a well-developed country we're talking about, with a good healthcare system.
"The way cases are rising so fast in countries like France and Germany begs the question 'are they just where Italy was at a week ago or 14 days ago?' And can we expect them to be headed for the same trajectory? So people shouldn't be thinking, 'oh, it's Europe, I'll be fine.'
"We just can't predict what trajectories countries are on because this thing is spreading so fast."
As of this morning, there had now been more than 118,000 confirmed cases reported across more than 100 countries.
That included 4626 reported deaths - 1000 of them now outside the outbreak's centre of China.
Wiles said checking travel insurance was crucial.
Few companies were now covering cancellations over coronavirus, which has become classified across the industry as a "known event" where Covid-19-related costs could be excluded.
The Herald was aware of travellers who were going ahead with trips, despite having Covid-19 concerns, because they didn't want to lose money over cancelling.
"The problem is, we just can't predict what trajectories countries are on because this thing is spreading so fast," microbiologist Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles says. Photo / NZ Herald
"If you have severe illness, you might be looking at having to stay in a hotel room or hospital for two to six weeks. You need to ask yourself, could you afford it? Would you be coming home with crippling medical debt?"
The bigger question was whether the country they were travelling to would have spare capacity in its health system to treat them in the first place.
One doctor in Italy reported this week that even stroke and trauma patients were going untreated, as hospital clinicians were being forced to make life-and-death decisions about who to save.
Along with Italy, New Zealand is encouraging people to avoid "non-essential" travel to South Korea – while urging people not to travel to China and Iran.
A woman walks in a deserted St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy, where widespread lock-downs are now in place. Photo / AP
Wiles said South Korea had so far managed to avoid Italy's crisis situation by testing aggressively, so it had an accurate number of infected people in the community, and isolating.
"Now they are already starting to see the number of positive tests dropping. They may well have caught it fast enough that it hasn't threatened capacity levels."
For people worried about catching the virus on flights, Wiles said being in communities where Covid-19 was known to be spreading posed a much bigger risk.
"While it might be possible to catch it on the way back from a country where [Covid-19] is, you're much more likely to be exposed during your time in the country, where you've got huge numbers of people moving about and potentially transmitting it."
Wiles added that people should be also considering whether their visa status might cause issues for them while travelling overseas – along with the risk of being stranded by border closures.
It was just such a threat that's prompted the University of Auckland to take the unprecedented step of bringing home 70 medical students posted overseas.
The Ministry of Health was asking travellers to avoid contact with sick animals and people suffering acute respiratory infections, and to wash hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water, and dry them thoroughly, before eating and after using toilets, coughing, sneezing and caring for sick people.
