Happy New Year: may it be good for you and yours!
The big local event of the year, the Rhythm & Vines festival, marks our New Year. Our population nearly doubles with ‘up to 30,000’ visitors. You need to be 18 years old to attend, and it has become a recurring rite of passage young kiwis to celebrate the new year.
For our Public Health Service, we worry about threats to health from viruses to natural disasters in the context of this large population living together in crowded camps. There was a a norovirus outbreak in 2018. (Norovirus is a common cause of cause of vomiting and diarrheoa. It spreads easily as, unlike other causes of gastroenteritis it spreads through the air, in addition to the faecal-oral spread that we see for other enteric infections.)
Covid-19 notifications in Tairāwhiti
Last year, Covid cases bumped up following the festival; and we heard many reports of spread through the festival. There was no reason not to expect a bump again this year; and we saw it again this year. This is seen in David Hood‘s comparison of cases by district (Tairāwhiti is in the blue line in the bottom left panel):
Daily reported cases had been in single digits rose to nine on 3 January 2024, then 15 cases on 4 January. The case count has stayed in double digits every day since, with the exception of Sunday 14 January (7 cases). The day with most cases (n=23), was 8 January: Monday bump. The 7-day average of reported cases peaked at 15.9 on 10 January, and has stayed close to 15 since, and was 15.6 on 18 January.
Covid hospitalisations have remained low, with 5 for January to date, compared to 12 and 8 for November and December, respectively.
Local wastewater data is not available, but national data for week ending 14 January has a small peak in the first week of January. Not as high as the January 2023 peak:
We can also see that the ‘R&V bump’ was higher in 2024 than 2023. But much of the change reflects lower levels of reporting as seen in the higher baseline:
The peak in January 2023 was higher then the December peak, but not in 2024. And can see this better looking at the weekly data showing the there were more reported cases in mid-November than we had in January:
Other notifications
These have also been relatively quiet over the past 3 weeks, with one case of invasive pneumococcal disease, and eight enteric infections: five Campylobacter, and one each of STEC, Yersinia, and Giardia notification.
Next week
I will look at annual Covid data. As always, look forward to your feedback and suggestions; and any questions on the data. Thank-you!