The Ministry of Health's chief science adviser Dr Ian Town has provided detail on surveillance measures used for monitoring new variants of Covid-19 in New Zealand.
Town says the international situation for Covid-19 is of further waves of infection "and we are seeing similar trends in New Zealand".
"There is a small chance that [NZ will experience] a more aggressive variant," Town said.
"We are currently in the orange setting which is about protection and surveillance. The director-general has assessed this as orange as appropriate and we will continue to review that," Town said,
"We are still seeing high numbers of cases," he said.
Town said there was concern among the medical fraternity that there may be long-term effects on organ systems from Covid "but we don't have New Zealand data on that yet".
"We are developing guidelines (for long Covid) and we hope to release those in July," Town said.
The ministry's chief testing advisor Kirsten Beynon said prioritising the health of all NZers was critical.
"We continue to survey the sickest in our hospital, our waterways and those who are testing positive, she said, and it enables us to track how Covid is spreading. We use a variety of information and testing tools to provide a better understanding of Covid and variants that are circulating," she said.
Many countries had stopped testing at our borders, while New Zealand continued to test people at our borders twice.
About a third of people at the border were getting PCR tested, Beynon said.
"Currently we are building on our genome testing to make sure information is readily available for all New Zealanders," Beynon said.
The ministry's lead science advisor Dr Fiona Callaghan said NZ's surveillance system was part of an international effort.
At the border, officials were focused on catching new variants, Callaghan said.
In hospitals, the goal was to check which patients had Covid and which patients had more severe diseases, Callaghan said.
BA2 is the dominant variant in New Zealand. The BA1 variant had previously been the dominant strain in the country.
"Wastewater testing has been crucial to our monitoring, now it's used to measures of virus in the community and information of the overall trend whether the outbreak is growing or slowing," Callaghan said.
"Obviously Covid is not going away. It's a continual challenge for us," Town said.
"We are continuing responding and adapting to new information."
"Winter is always busy for our health providers and we are already seeing increased pressure and it may get worse," Town said.
NZ might see outbreaks of measles and whooping cough as immunities might be low, he said.
"We have extended the eligibility for the free flu vaccinations but there has been a supply issue so making it more available may not have been possible this year," Town said.
"Vaccination is the best protection.
"If you are unwell it's important to stay home."
He encouraged people who test positive for Covid-19 to be vigilant in uploading that information.
"Anyone with symptoms of Covid within 90 days of testing positive should be talking to their doctor," Town said.
Callaghan said the number of RATs that get reported are lower than the number of Covid community cases, which was why wastewater testing was important.
Town said monkeypox had been the subject of active discussion amongst NZ science teams and public health colleagues.
"We are following those international developments really closely.
"As you probably know one of the larger outbreaks has occurred in Britan with about 300 cases so far.
"We are aware cases have been detected in Australia and you may recall that Cabinet yesterday decided to make it a notifiable diseases so if we do detect cases here, we think our normal case identification, contact tracing and isolation will be the best first approach to stop it spreading more rapidly," Town said.
When asked if there was enough capacity in the system to cope with monkeypox, Town said "if the numbers stay relatively low as they have down in Australia and the UK, then absolutely".
