For the past few days, the country's daily Covid-19 case numbers have steadily been climbing. 

Covid-19 modellers, who have painted different scenarios as to how the country gets hit by Omicron, say a scenario where up to half of the population will be infected with Covid-19 is a realistic possibility. 

"At the moment, we've got a situation where we've got rapid growth and we're slowing things down but nothing is going to make [the virus] decelerate until we run out of people to infect, at this point," Covid-19 modeller Dion O'Neale says. 

With the country's Delta outbreak, the strain did not run out of hosts - the country had strong interventions such as contact tracing and lockdowns, he says. 

However, the Government has a different approach to tackling Omicron and the country is now in phase two of this three-stage plan. Under phase two, isolation takes place at home and it is up to individuals to identify close contacts. 

Currently, every person who gets infected is infecting large numbers of people, O'Neale says.

"It'll keep going until it can't find any new people to infect."  

However, different places in New Zealand could have different Omicron scenarios, he says. 

"We discuss it as if it's one single outbreak but it's a bunch of semi-independent outbreaks happening at the same time.

"Almost all are in Auckland and the rest are in other parts of the country." 

This meant that these semi-independent outbreaks could peak at different times. 

O'Neale says that people's attitudes towards Covid-19 are going to have to change quickly too. 

Not everyone would get infected with Covid-19 but it is highly likely people will know someone who is infected or know close contacts.

For people who felt that getting Covid-19 was just going to happen, O'Neale says it's still worth trying not to get Omicron. 

"People in their teens through to early 30s, these are people who are most likely to be working and in essential services, and doing the most interacting. 

"Even young people [who get Covid-19] will have mild symptoms. Long Covid-19 could also show up afterwards and there's really terrible, long-term effects from the virus." 

Mask wearing, hand sanitising, getting vaccinated and boosted are the best ways to protect yourself, he says. 

Top Image: A woman blowing her nose while at home. (File photo) Photo: Moyo Studio/iStock

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