Elderly pay price for Covid ‘complacency'
The elderly are paying the price for people's complacency towards Covid-19, a Dunedin aged-care advocate says.
The warning comes as a St Clair rest-home is in lockdown and New Zealand's leading epidemiologist says the country is riding a eighth wave of the disease.
The Otago Daily Times contacted rest-homes across Dunedin yesterday. St Clair's Home of St Barnabas Trust confirmed it was in lockdown.
New Zealand Aged Care Association (ACA) Otago board representative Malcolm Hendry said it was not the only rest-home that had needed to go into lockdown during the current eighth wave.
A few weeks ago, two residents of a different home had tested positive for Covid-19 — one was the result of an infected family member coming to visit, Mr Hendry said.
"They possibly came in with symptoms that they didn't take seriously enough at the time.
"[Covid] has gone off the radar for a lot of people as a serious issue and people are just getting on with life — I think there is a complacency out there now."
Rest-homes still had to be extremely cautious with any infectious outbreaks, because their residents were vulnerable, he said.
"Gastro, flu, Covid, they're all issues that we take very seriously."
University of Otago (Wellington) epidemiologist Michael Baker said New Zealand was in the midst of its eighth wave of Covid-19 infection, dominated by a new sub-variant called NB.1.8.1.
The main problem with new sub-variants was they got past existing immunity, he said.
"The main damage is they simply cause more cases. However, the waves are generally beginning smaller."
Covid-19 was New Zealand's number one infectious disease problem last year, but this year it looked as though the numbers were going down, he said.
However, elderly people in care homes, hospitals or just living at home were still very much at risk.
People were becoming more complacent and not getting their boosters, Prof Baker said.
"We've got some evidence that 10%-15% of our cases in New Zealand were acquired in hospitals ... the risk of serious illness and death rises exponentially with age."
He recommended taking a Covid-19 test before visiting elderly relatives, particularly if feeling unwell, and keeping up to date with boosters and vaccines.
laine.priestley@odt.co.nz
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