Journal
LANCET PUBLIC HEALTH
Volume 5, Issue 11, Pages E612-E623Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30225-5
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Funding
- Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Strategic Scientific Investment Fund
- Ministry of Health, New Zealand
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Background In early 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand implemented graduated, risk-informed national COVID-19 suppression measures aimed at disease elimination. We investigated their impacts on the epidemiology of the first wave of COVID-19 in the country and response performance measures. Methods We did a descriptive epidemiological study of all laboratory-confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and all patients tested for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in New Zealand from Feb 2 to May 13,2020, after which time community transmission ceased. We extracted data from the national notifiable diseases database and the national SARS-CoV-2 test results repository. Demographic features and disease outcomes, transmission patterns (source of infection, outbreaks, household transmission), time-to-event intervals, and testing coverage were described over five phases of the response, capturing different levels of non-pharmaceutical interventions. Risk factors for severe outcomes (hospitalisation or death) were examined with multivariable logistic regression and time-to-event intervals were analysed by fitting parametric distributions using maximum likelihood estimation. Findings 1503 cases were detected over the study period, including 95 (6.3%) hospital admissions and 22 (1.5%) COVID-19 deaths. The estimated case infection rate per million people per day peaked at 8.5 (95% CI 7.6-9.4) during the 10-day period of rapid response escalation, declining to 3.2 (2.8-3.7) in the start of lockdown and progressively thereafter. 1034 (69%) cases were imported or import related, tending to be younger adults, of European ethnicity, and of higher socioeconomic status. 702 (47%) cases were linked to 34 outbreaks. Severe outcomes were associated with locally acquired infection (crude odds ratio [OR] 2.32 [95% CI 1.40-3.82] compared with imported), older age (adjusted OR ranging from 2.72 [1.40-5-30] for 50-64 year olds to 8.25 [2.59-26-31] for people aged >= 80 years compared with 20-34 year olds), aged residential care residency (adjusted OR 3.86 [1.59-9.35]), and Pacific peoples (adjusted OR 2.76 [144-6 . 68]) and Asian (2.15 [1-10-4 . 20]) ethnicities relative to European or other: limes from illness onset to notification and isolation progressively decreased and testing increased over the study period, with few disparities and increasing coverage of females, Maori, Pacific peoples, and lower socioeconomic groups. Interpretation New Zealand's response resulted in low relative burden of disease, low levels of population disease disparities, and the initial achievement of COVID-19 elimination. Copyright (C) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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