These two reports describe the impact of the new variant of COVID-19. They were initially sent to government on April 18 2021. The first report, describes how Alert Level 3 would cope with the new variant, while the briefer addendum report uses the same analysis but for Alert Level 4.
New variants of COVID-19 have emerged with mutations that increase their transmissibility by 30-70%. We use an Aotearoa-specific, individual-based network contagion model to quantify the likely implications of a community outbreak involving one of these more transmissible variants. We do this by simulating the spread of a variant of COVID-19 with 50% higher transmissibility. Our simulations represent the situation of community outbreak, with no clear epidemiological link to the border — similar to the situation announced on 14 February 2021.