Localised lockdowns would still be a possibility in 2027 if the world doesn't collaborate on tackling Covid, according to a new report from the International Science Council. Photo / File
Localised lockdowns would still be a possibility in 2027 if the world doesn't collaborate on tackling Covid, according to a new report from the International Science Council. Photo / File
New Zealanders may want to move on from the Covid-19 pandemic, but a new report out this week has warned that a worst-case scenario could see lockdowns still impacting us five years from now.
This week the International Science Council – made up of 200 bodies and led by New Zealand's former chief scientist, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman – released a report that explored three possible pandemic scenarios over the next five years.
In the most optimistic scenario, a focus on vaccine equity and global collaboration would see Covid-19 reduced to a more manageable disease, and no longer an "acute priority".
However, NZ Herald science reporter Jamie Morton told The Front Page, the Herald's daily podcast, that the most pessimistic scenario in this report would see less than 70 per cent of the world's population vaccinated by 2027.
"Things like lockdowns, work-from-home policies, they'd still be a reality in a lot of countries around the world. There'd be damaging social upheaval still going on. Problems like nationalism that give rise to conflict and all sorts of other problems, that would have increased.
"Basically we'd be in a much worse position and the world would be a lot darker place than it is right now."
The middle, most likely option predicts that, by 2027, Covid-19 will have become an endemic disease worldwide – and still be driving seasonal surges requiring updated vaccines and boosters.
Even with Omicron though, Morton said that Professor Michael Baker has predicted grim figures for the death rate from the virus, if we couldn't get on top of it.
"We could be looking at a virus... that causes around 4,000 deaths a year - compare that to the flu, which is 500 deaths a year."
The report highlights the wide effects as a result of Covid-19, with $17 trillion in reduced earnings due to education disruption, the loss of 255 million full-time jobs in 2020, and and an additional 53.2 million cases of major depressive disorder and an additional 76.2 million cases of anxiety disorder.
"They draw on these statistics because they want to highlight the fact that this pandemic is far from just a public health crisis," Morton said.
One of the worst impacts would be Long Covid, with 10 per cent of all infections - with Morton saying that, with as many as three million people in New Zealand potentially having already had Covid-19, the consequences for our health system will be "colossal".
Having covered the pandemic for some time, Morton said he is not surprised by these forecasts, as health bodies such as the World Health Organisation have warned that the pandemic is far from done, with the unknowable nature of future variants.
While New Zealand's public health response was lauded at the start of the pandemic due to our low case numbers and death rate, Morton said that the country seems to have forgotten most of those lessons as political decisions come into play.
"Peter Gluckman told me this the other day, that we started off really well, where all of our policy was informed and underscored by evidence. In other words, what we were putting in place, whether it was the alert level system or the lockdown, all of this was strongly guided by what top experts were telling policymakers.
"I think as we've gone further and further into the pandemic, we've kind of fallen out of step with that."
He said that tellingly, 150 experts called for the Government to improve, not loosen, the Covid-19 restrictions.
"That includes, for instance, bringing back a mandate for masks to be worn in New Zealand classrooms, [and] especially as we go into winter, there is real concern out there among the public health community that basically New Zealand's current steps to address this virus [aren't enough]."
The main takeaway from the report, Morton said, is that people should not try and convince themselves that the pandemic is over.
"This virus is only really getting started. The pandemic is a long way from over, and I think it's a bit premature that [many Kiwis have] basically decided that they are over Covid-19, they're sick of it, and that they want to put it behind them. I just don't think that's possible."
• The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am.
