Despite its success at suppressing coronavirus throughout much of pandemic, country is now battling Omicron surge

New Zealand now has one of the highest levels of Covid-19 transmission in the world, researchers have said – an extraordinary turnaround for a country that had managed to dampen the virus’s spread throughout much of the pandemic.

Covid-19 modellers at Rako Science have calculated New Zealand’s effective reproduction number – or R value – to be 4.23, meaning the average infected person is passing Omicron on to more than four people. That gives New Zealand the highest R value of more than 180 countries by a high margin, with Myanmar recording the second-highest rate of spread at 2.98.

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Source: The Guardian