Much of New Zealand is one or two weeks behind Auckland's Covid curve, and the country might experience two peaks of hospitalisations, a leading epidemiologist says.
University of Canterbury epidemiologist Professor Michael Plank told Morning Report because some people were not logging their rapid antigen test results, it was hard to tell the trend in actual case numbers.
"Case numbers have been pretty difficult to interpret since the introduction to RATS. The hospital numbers are more reliable but it's important to remember they are also more lagged because of the time it takes for someone to get sick."
In Auckland, the next seven to 10 days were a critical point in the outbreak and would be tough going on the health sector, many working in the sector believed.
Professor Michael Plank. Photo / Supplied
The models suggested hospitalisation would most likely peak nationally at around 1000 people in hospital, Plank said.
"It's a bit more complicated than that because of the Auckland versus the rest of the country, we could sort of see two peaks, one driven by the Auckland cases and another one as it spreads to other parts of the country," he said.
Hospitalisations were likely to peak in two to three weeks' time in Auckland, he said.
Wellington and Christchurch were about one to two weeks behind this, he said.
"If we do start to see increasing cases in older age groups or in unvaccinated groups then that's a warning sign that there could be incoming hospitalisations coming in the next few weeks or days."
Unvaccinated people made up a high number of the hospitalisations, he said.
The Ministry of Health was urging people to self-report rapid antigen test results, whether negative or positive and regardless of whether someone in the household had already reported theirs.
It says self-reporting of RATS helped to provide a clearer picture of how the pandemic was progressing.
