Abstract
New Zealand, a geographically remote Pacific island with easily sealable borders, implemented a nationwide ‘lockdown’ of all non-essential services to curb the spread of COVID-19. Here, we generate 649 SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences from infected patients in New Zealand with samples collected during the ‘first wave’, representing 56% of all confirmed cases in this time period. Despite its remoteness, the viruses imported into New Zealand represented nearly all of the genomic diversity sequenced from the global virus population. These data helped to quantify the effectiveness of public health interventions. For example, the effective reproductive number, Re of New Zealand’s largest cluster decreased from 7 to 0.2 within the first week of lockdown. Similarly, only 19% of virus introductions into New Zealand resulted in ongoing transmission of more than one additional case. Overall, these results demonstrate the utility of genomic pathogen surveillance to inform public health and disease mitigation.
Highlights
New Zealand, a geographically remote Pacific island with sealable borders, implemented a nationwide ‘lockdown’ of all non-essential services to curb the spread of COVID-19
Time-scale and duration of virus introductions into New Zealand, the extent and pattern of viral spread across the country, and to quantify the effectiveness of intervention measures, we generated whole-genome sequences from 56% of all documented SARS-CoV-2 cases from New Zealand and combined these with detailed epidemiological data
Between 26 of February and 1 July 2020, there were a total of 1178 laboratory-confirmed cases and a further 350 probable cases of SARS-CoV-2 in New Zealand
Summary
New Zealand, a geographically remote Pacific island with sealable borders, implemented a nationwide ‘lockdown’ of all non-essential services to curb the spread of COVID-19. Time-scale and duration of virus introductions into New Zealand, the extent and pattern of viral spread across the country, and to quantify the effectiveness of intervention measures, we generated whole-genome sequences from 56% of all documented SARS-CoV-2 cases from New Zealand and combined these with detailed epidemiological data. Results and discussion Between 26 of February and 1 July 2020, there were a total of 1178 laboratory-confirmed cases and a further 350 probable cases of SARS-CoV-2 in New Zealand.
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