2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

Forums › Health and fitness › 2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2657312 16-Feb-2021 09:24

kobiak:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-jacinda-ardern-heartened-so-far-papatoetoe-high-school-tests-due-today/

I don't understand why it takes so long to test 42 people. They identified who they are, get the swap, blood sample, ect. Process as first priority and results within few hours. why it takes ages?

The tests are not processed in " a few hours ", it seems like they can take 24-48 hours to process and confirm negative or positive. Add in the time to actually get people to take the test and get the samples to the lab, and it can take a while.

There was a good article last year on why the processing time can be quite different from sample to sample, but i can't find it at present

Clint

kobiak

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#2657318 16-Feb-2021 09:29

clinty:

The tests are not processed in " a few hours ", it seems like they can take 24-48 hours to process and confirm negative or positive. Add in the time to actually get people to take the test and get the samples to the lab, and it can take a while.

There was a good article last year on why the processing time can be quite different from sample to sample, but i can't find it at present

Clint

Mine was processed under 24 hours last year.

all I know had the same experience. And all the stories from around the world when they test entire villages/towns in 24-48 hours. Too much bureaucracy in NZ :(

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clinty

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#2657324 16-Feb-2021 09:37

kobiak:

clinty:

The tests are not processed in " a few hours ", it seems like they can take 24-48 hours to process and confirm negative or positive. Add in the time to actually get people to take the test and get the samples to the lab, and it can take a while.

There was a good article last year on why the processing time can be quite different from sample to sample, but i can't find it at present

Clint

Mine was processed under 24 hours last year.

all I know had the same experience. And all the stories from around the world when they test entire villages/towns in 24-48 hours. Too much bureaucracy in NZ :(

Considering the cases were reported Sunday morning (yep it definitely feels like it was more than two days ago lol), contact tracing probably only began Sunday morning/afternoon.

The close contact testing would have begun Sunday night/Mon AM - we are probably within the 24 hour window for contacts that were swabbed yesterday. Some people esp students, may have been hard to pin down on Sunday ( out at sport, with friends etc ) so got tested yesterday

I would imagine the result are being compiled at the moment

Clint

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#2657353 16-Feb-2021 10:28

And so it begins: "Batch of homegrown coronavirus mutations seen in US"

Researchers said Sunday they have identified a batch of similar troubling mutations in coronavirus samples circulating in the United States. They've not only drawn attention to them, they've come up with a better shorthand for referring to them. They've named them after birds.

The mutations all affect the same stretch of the spike protein -- the knob-like extension on the outside of the virus that it uses to dock onto the cells it infects, the researchers wrote in a pre-print report. It's not peer reviewed yet, but researchers are rushing such findings online to share them quickly with other experts.

The genetic stretch that is mutated, or changed, is called 677. The various changes are so similar that the researchers think evolution favors these particular variants. And it's in a troubling place, said Vaughn Cooper, director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who worked on the study."

Comment on another board: "It's not COVID, it's Freedom Flu."

frankv

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#2657381 16-Feb-2021 11:01

Scott3:

Good news that the police are moving their checkpoints to match with the the boundaries defined in the health order, But a pity they weren't matched from the start.

Would have caused a lot of confusion for those in the likes of Kaiwaka & Mangawhai...

Would have caused a lot of confusion no matter where it was put.

It's more about people nitpicking to avoid being included in the L3 area. It's not like the risk of CT suddenly changes to zero at the boundaries defined in the health order. And surely the flood across the border before 11:59pm must be a risk of covid being carried across the border.

I don't see why the Police can't have their checkpoint at their convenient location, and allow through people who live within that 20km. I also don't see why essential-travel long-haul trucks can't be allowed to jump the queue, show a chitty, and go straight through the checkpoints.

Buster

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#2657414 16-Feb-2021 11:52

Surely at the start of this there was collaboration between the right people to establish common sense borders with Covid 19 being the overriding priority?

Scott3

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#2657435 16-Feb-2021 12:25

frankv:

Scott3:

Good news that the police are moving their checkpoints to match with the the boundaries defined in the health order, But a pity they weren't matched from the start.

Would have caused a lot of confusion for those in the likes of Kaiwaka & Mangawhai...

Would have caused a lot of confusion no matter where it was put.

It's more about people nitpicking to avoid being included in the L3 area. It's not like the risk of CT suddenly changes to zero at the boundaries defined in the health order. And surely the flood across the border before 11:59pm must be a risk of covid being carried across the border.

I don't see why the Police can't have their checkpoint at their convenient location, and allow through people who live within that 20km. I also don't see why essential-travel long-haul trucks can't be allowed to jump the queue, show a chitty, and go straight through the checkpoints.

The boundary could have been set anywhere without causing confusion if it was clearly communicated. The issue with the extension of the level 3 into the waikato was that this has not been publiciesed. The TV adverts, emergency message, Press stand up when lock down was announced etc, all mention "Auckland", rather than auckland + upper waikato.

Any boundaries drawn around regions in NZ are inherently arbitrary, so it is more about picking a more convenient location than actual risk.

Re nitpicking, If one is in a L2 area, this is hardly nitpicking to act accordingly. Actually last time round, it was found that towns like Pukeno were heavenly dependent on pukekohe and other auckland area's for everything from work to supermarkets (they have their own now). And it would have actually been better for most in those area's to be in the L3 zone so they can go to work, and to avoid a long drive south to go to the supermarket.

I aggree the police could have set their checkpoints at yesterdays locations, and allowed allowed those in the 25km band through. However the reports were that the police were blocking lawfull travel.

Re long hall truck's, last time round at SH1 south out of auckland they did have a bypass lane for trucks. I assume they are doing the same where checkpoints are on multi lane roads to allow for a bypass.

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antonknee

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#2657475 16-Feb-2021 13:05

No community or MIQ cases today - which is both positive and negative IMO. Obviously good as less cases are good, but not ideal in that it makes us no closer to identifying the source and still leaves open the possibility of other undetected chains of transmission. 5818 tests processed yesterday and something like 15k swabs though, so that is a great start in making sure there aren't other chains of transmission.

Oblivian

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#2657489 16-Feb-2021 13:09

For something that has been identified overseas as more contagious.

This is the 3rd? 'Seemingly' early stage dodged bullet. I think we all need lottery tickets.

I'm not quite sure how we're getting away with it. Let alone getting it appear out of the blue randomly when pointers are at the student with earlier onset/stages.

Fred99

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#2657499 16-Feb-2021 13:24

Oblivian:

This is the 3rd? 'Seemingly' early stage dodged bullet. I think we all need lottery tickets.

Yep. I'm not fond of gambling - the house wins eventually.

frankv

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#2657513 16-Feb-2021 14:01

antonknee:

No community or MIQ cases today - which is both positive and negative IMO. Obviously good as less cases are good, but not ideal in that it makes us no closer to identifying the source and still leaves open the possibility of other undetected chains of transmission. 5818 tests processed yesterday and something like 15k swabs though, so that is a great start in making sure there aren't other chains of transmission.

Blunderbuss testing really isn't a good way to find infected people. If all those 15K swabs were done in Auckland randomly, that's 1.5% of the population (assuming 1,000,000 population for Auckland). Given the high false negative rate, if there were 1,000 infected people in Auckland, you'd find a handful, but you might pick up none. OTOH, about 10% of covid cases need hospitalisation. So if there were 1,000 cases, there would be 100 in hospital (or dead), although early in an outbreak there would be a lot less. The fact that there's *no* hospital admissions is a strong indicator that there's probably less than 10 cases.

wellygary

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#2657524 16-Feb-2021 14:18

antonknee:

No community or MIQ cases today - which is both positive and negative IMO. Obviously good as less cases are good, but not ideal in that it makes us no closer to identifying the source and still leaves open the possibility of other undetected chains of transmission. 5818 tests processed yesterday and something like 15k swabs though, so that is a great start in making sure there aren't other chains of transmission.

Yes, its a Good start, But I think the chances of Auckland lifting restrictions at Midnight Wednesday are low.

The reality was that time was picked as a "best case" option, i.e the case came back as gnomically or epidemiologically link to a border worker that had also tested positive...

What we have is a repeat of August ( albeit with a Backstop time of 18 January ( the LSG workers last negative test)... to close this off they will need nagatives tests from all the close contacts (and preferably all the casual + contacts as well)

Blood testing all the staff at LSG would be helpful to see if they had a case slip through unnoticed....

Sewage testing takes 48 hours so they wont get Monday's results until tomorrow, and really to be sure I think they will push it out till Friday.... and then drop it to level 2 ( or a 2+ like last time) for another week....

heavenlywild

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#2657527 16-Feb-2021 14:29

I suspect (and hoping to be right for the benefit of the country) all the testing in the coming days will be negative and the infections will just be within the current family. We are unlikely to find conclusive evidence of how the family caught it. It's just one of those things - viruses are just that, difficult to understand and be fully across it especially with something relatively new.

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freitasm

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#2657583 16-Feb-2021 14:50

In Australia people are using plastic bags to keep their privacy - because the media probably missed the "be kind" part of the message.

duckDecoy

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#2657600 16-Feb-2021 15:25

freitasm:

In Australia people are using plastic bags to keep their privacy - because the media probably missed the "be kind" part of the message.

Jeeesus. Let them have some dignity ffs

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