Two business representatives and two high profile doctors are agreeing that shorter isolation periods are needed and appropriate in order to keep businesses running as the Omicron outbreak picks up speed.
Photo: 123RF
One organisation says companies are already having to close due to the 10-day isolation period for household contacts. Case numbers are likely to rise for some weeks to come.
Council of Medical Colleges chair John Bonning said vaccinated household contacts of a positive case of Covid-19 should only need to isolate for three days, rather than the currently required 10 days.
"Vaccinated, asymptomatic household contacts that can test negative with RAT [rapid antigen tests], returning to the workforce to keep the workforce bolstered, in particular areas where it's under duress," Bonning said.
He said these people posed little risk to passing on the virus, if they did unexpectedly have it.
Dr Bryan Betty of the College of the GPs wanted something similar.
In the past week, more than 11,000 people have tested positive for Covid-19.
All of them must isolate for 10 days, along with all members of their household.
If each positive case has one other working household member, in the last week more than 20,000 workers have been forced to isolate for 10 days.
This requirement was already causing chaos for some businesses, according to Employers and Manufacturers Association boss Brett O'Riley.
"We've seen a couple of large manufacturers with 50-plus staff that have had to close, with the number of staff that are close contacts and are unable to come to work," O'Riley said.
And we are not close to the peak in daily cases.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that might be another three to five weeks away, sometime from mid-to-late March.
Case numbers have increased 10 times in the past two weeks - from a seven day average of 170 community cases reported on 7 February to a seven-day average of 1667 reported today.
There is an exception for this 10-day stand down period - the Close Contact Exemption Scheme.
Critical workers, including health workers, who are vaccinated and asymptomatic can return to work with a negative RAT test.
But that scheme is not perfect, according to Business New Zealand chief executive Kirk Hope.
"It's not working as smoothly as you'd hoped for critical workers. And for other workers who aren't deemed critical or don't have critical workers within them it's extremely challenging. So we would agree with the reduction in the self-isolation period," Hope said.
Te Punaha Matatini physicist Dr Dion O'Neale explained that a shorter isolation period would increase the risk that the virus will spread more quickly.
"That's definitely going to increase your risk. Depending on details around the testing regime and timing, it might not be a huge increase in risk," O'Neale said.
"It's also not likely to give you a huge benefit in returning essential workers to the workforce, given there's been such incredibly wide uptake of businesses opting in to this essential worker classification."
Of course if one of these household contacts did test positive, they would be treated like a case and have to isolate for 10 days.
It has been 29 days since the first case of Omicron was detected in the community.
Te Punaha Matatini modelling released two weeks ago suggested the peak may arrive, at middling estimates, at about 70 days after transmission started.
Today the prime minister suggested the peak may be slightly earlier, in mid-to-late March, which would be 50 to 65 days after the first known community case was detected on 23 January.