2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2741732 9-Jul-2021 10:05

It was modified in Feb that 2 weeks in MiQ in NZ didn't purely allow you free entrance into Australia. And they had to spend an additional 2 weeks in our community before doing it. You still had to qualify for being a NZ entrant (resident/Citizen)

But if you reside in Australia and have dual, it will still work for those who can afford it. (Or not if able to actually police it). And when people can hop states and still get here from Red Zones, it doesn't hold up well

Passengers who had been in a managed isolation facility in New Zealand in the past two weeks would not be able to travel to Australia until they had spent another 14 days in New Zealand, the advisory stated.

The other new rules related to passengers who had potentially been exposed to the three community cases.

Those who had been identified as a close contact of any of the cases would need to provide evidence of two negative Covid-19 tests before they would be accepted for travel, while those who had been in a contact tracing location of interest, as per the Ministry of Health website, would also need evidence of one negative Covid-19 test.

Passengers have been able to fly from New Zealand to Australia without having to quarantine on arrival since October, as long as they have met the safe travel zone criteria.

Fred99

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#2741747 9-Jul-2021 10:24

Pfizer is to seek FDA approval for administration of a third dose of vaccine within 12 months to boost immunity against variant strains.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-ask-fda-authorize-booster-dose-covid-vaccine-delta-variant-spreads-2021-07-08/

Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said the recently reported dip in the vaccine's effectiveness in Israel was mostly due to infections in people who had been vaccinated in January or February. The country's health ministry said vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64% in June.

"The Pfizer vaccine is highly active against the Delta variant," Dolsten said in an interview. But after six months, he said, "there likely is the risk of reinfection as antibodies, as predicted, wane."

Pfizer did not release the full set of Israeli data on Thursday, but said it would be published soon.

wellygary

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#2741751 9-Jul-2021 10:29

Looks highly likely Australia has just written pfizer a bigger cheque.. to solve a political headache

Can't have those Kiwis getting their Pfizer before us...

But from a bubble perspective the faster vaccination happens in OZ the better for us...

Australia's supply of the Pfizer vaccines has been brought forward, with 4.5 million doses anticipated to arrive in September now expected to be available in August.

Currently, between 300,000 and 350,000 doses of Pfizer are available each week, ramping up to 1 million doses a week in the second half of July.

The earlier arrival of the September doses could help lift the number of people inoculated against COVID-19 over the winter months.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-09/covid-live-updates-coronavirus-press-conference-sydney-lockdown/100279126#live-blog-post-1202025721

dafman

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#2741753 9-Jul-2021 10:31

Sydney Morning Herald lead story is "NSW Considers Letting Delta Circulate in the Community".

If they do, then surely that's the end of the travel bubble with all of Aus (until, at least, we have vaccinated Aotearoa).

Oblivian

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#2741760 9-Jul-2021 10:39

dafman:

Sydney Morning Herald lead story is "NSW Considers Letting Delta Circulate in the Community".

If they do, then surely that's the end of the travel bubble with all of Aus (until, at least, we have vaccinated Aotearoa).

10-20+ CAUGHT ones doing that a day already. It's why they're not out of this yet.

But it's more a headline spawned from the same position we are in where scenarios are being considered.

A 'fork in the road' Where they either aim for 0 and likely keep failing due above. Or take the alternate and prepare the fact they may not be able to make 0 anymore, and how to handle that.

KrazyKid

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#2741775 9-Jul-2021 10:57

sbiddle:

I didn't see anybody post the link in here yesterday but the Independent Advisory Group review into the Feb outbreak is a very worthwhile read.

https://covid19.govt.nz/assets/reports/Independent-Advisory-Groups/IAG3-Review-of-the-Auckland-February-2021-COVID-19-Outbreak-and-New-Zealands-current-COVID-19-Outbreak-Response-Capability.pdf

Thanks for the link. Just gave it a quick read and it seems a sensible and good report.

Concerning how few of the last review recommendations have been completed
(as I read the report - only 3 out of 20 odd recommendations completed and the saliva testing has been marked as completed when it isn't ).

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dafman

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#2741787 9-Jul-2021 11:15

Oblivian:

dafman:

Sydney Morning Herald lead story is "NSW Considers Letting Delta Circulate in the Community".

If they do, then surely that's the end of the travel bubble with all of Aus (until, at least, we have vaccinated Aotearoa).

10-20+ CAUGHT ones doing that a day already. It's why they're not out of this yet.

But it's more a headline spawned from the same position we are in where scenarios are being considered.

A 'fork in the road' Where they either aim for 0 and likely keep failing due above. Or take the alternate and prepare the fact they may not be able to make 0 anymore, and how to handle that.

We are not in the same position. NZ does not have Covid in the community, Australia does.

NZ has the option of continuing with elimination for a period of time until vaccination rates are up, whereas it looks like that particular ship has sailed in Australia.

Oblivian

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#2741793 9-Jul-2021 11:21

dafman:

We are not in the same position. NZ does not have Covid in the community, Australia does.

NZ has the option of continuing with elimination for a period of time until vaccination rates are up, whereas it looks like that particular ship has sailed in Australia.

But it's more a headline spawned from the same position we are in where scenarios are being considered.

Same future Decisions currently being made position. Not outbreak stats position. Just like how everyone is arguing here between representatives in MoH and Governments planning comments being taking into context at press conferences and turned into stories.

wellygary

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#2741794 9-Jul-2021 11:21

dafman:

We are not in the same position. NZ does not have Covid in the community, Australia does.

NZ has the option of continuing with elimination for a period of time until vaccination rates are up, whereas it looks like that particular ship has sailed in Australia.

This is only happening in NSW... and would result in other states ( Partic. WA/VIC and QLD) permanently closing their borders (as would NZ with the bubble)

We would likely continue to allow travel to and from other "elimination" states...

But watch this get seriously walked back at todays NSW presser....

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#2741800 9-Jul-2021 11:28

Rikkitic:

Handle9:

Did you undergo medical treatment or were you isolated? They are different.

I underwent diagnostic medical treatment. If that had turned up TB, further treatment would have been compulsory. Some things you have a choice on. Not this one.

TB (old name Consumption) is a nasty bacterium. EU has a problem with TB due to Russia. The Russian variant of TB is nastier than the more common strain. The Russian prisons are full of it. You need a minimum of six months of TB med's and often stretching to 18-24 months, which whilst in prison they get. They are then given the remainder in one whole batch upon release, which most ex-cons then sell. This means they are not completing treatment and we are seeing a huge increase in drug resistance. Once you only needed to take one drug, rifampicin being the common one, now patients must take a cocktail of drugs but even here multidrug resistance is occurring.

When I worked in Sydney kids we quite often nursed kids from the Villawood immigration detention centre, back when it was used for refugees & asylum seekers, pre-PM Howard - not now though, and i quite often had to be re-tested with the Manteux scratch test and twice I had to have CXR - all negative.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

Scott3

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#2741802 9-Jul-2021 11:31

tdgeek:

MIQ, its been 18 months, why are Kiwis still returning home after all this time???

I suspect the bulk of people returning permanently to NZ to live have already made at back. But not all. There will be some people who decide it is time to come home (despite riding out the bulk of the pandemic offshore) due to the likes of:

Visa expiry
Job loss
Better job offer in NZ (Some recruiters have been specifically targeting Expat's to return to NZ to fill high level roles due to inability to find a suitable person in NZ, and challenges of getting through the border)
Relationship failure

etc...

I suspect the bulk of people looking for MIQ spots at the moment aren't looking to move permanently to NZ. For example:

New Zealanders working overseas - i.e. FIFO mine workers, International ship captains etc.
New Zealanders based overseas looking to come to NZ for a holiday or to visit family - I have a mate from uni that was in the newspaper as an example of this. Has been living in a major Asian city with his wife and small child, but wants to come home for Christmas.
New Zealanders normally resident here, going oversea's (and returning to NZ after) for something very important, I.e. The Olympic team, and other sports teams traveling to represent NZ. People traveling to accept awards, or present at major conferences etc.
Split families - Where one parent lives and works in one country, to support the other parent and kids in a different country. Understandable they would want to reunite if only on a temporary basis.

And of course there are quite a few slots allocated to non New Zealanders:

Critical health workers migrating here. (likely replace some of the flow of NZ health workers to Aussie)
300 slots for teachers (oddly despite antidotes that there is no shortage of teachers outside of the ece space)
High value economic benefit workers (i.e. international music acts) "Other critical workers"
International ship crews transferring to boats in Auckland
Refugees
Students (In last year of study)
Construction & RSE workers
Normally resident work visa holders (Should note that this category only opened a few months back, and quite a few will have been hit by the very high risk country entry ban for non citizens)
Pacific people coming to NZ for healthcare and the likes

There are also people using NZ as a transit lounge to get to Aussie.

Personally I was pretty shocked that 300 teacher visa's are going to be issued despite there not being enough MIQ spots to serve New Zealanders.

Key complaints about the MIQ booking system seem not to be that there is a shortage, people seem pretty understanding of that, but rather that the allocation system requires people to spend an inordinate amount of time playing fastest finger (or to semi automate or to pay somebody else to do it for them).

Seems pretty obvious that there should some kind of wait list. Either a queue or random allocation to save all this time spent watching for slots to open up.

I also think there should be a some kind of priory system with citizens that who have been overseas since before travel warnings went into place, and are willing to commit to staying in NZ for at least 12 months are get first allocation... and various tiers below that.

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Scott3

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#2741805 9-Jul-2021 11:41

wellygary:

Looks highly likely Australia has just written pfizer a bigger cheque.. to solve a political headache

Can't have those Kiwis getting their Pfizer before us...

But from a bubble perspective the faster vaccination happens in OZ the better for us...

Australia's supply of the Pfizer vaccines has been brought forward, with 4.5 million doses anticipated to arrive in September now expected to be available in August.

Currently, between 300,000 and 350,000 doses of Pfizer are available each week, ramping up to 1 million doses a week in the second half of July.

The earlier arrival of the September doses could help lift the number of people inoculated against COVID-19 over the winter months.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-09/covid-live-updates-coronavirus-press-conference-sydney-lockdown/100279126#live-blog-post-1202025721

Would love to know what the terms / cost of that deal was.

It's not like the political heat is a new thing, and aussie is rich, etc. Would have had to been super expensive for them to not take up expedited delivery months ago...

Ultimately NZ and Aussie vaccinating at similar pace (or us slightly ahead) is ideal.

Scott3

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#2741807 9-Jul-2021 11:43

I hope the people doing vaccine procurement are seriously considering putting down an order for 5m pfizer boosters in the next few days, for delivery in Jan - March next year...

Fred99:

Pfizer is to seek FDA approval for administration of a third dose of vaccine within 12 months to boost immunity against variant strains.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-ask-fda-authorize-booster-dose-covid-vaccine-delta-variant-spreads-2021-07-08/

Pfizer Chief Scientific Officer Mikael Dolsten said the recently reported dip in the vaccine's effectiveness in Israel was mostly due to infections in people who had been vaccinated in January or February. The country's health ministry said vaccine effectiveness in preventing both infection and symptomatic disease fell to 64% in June.

"The Pfizer vaccine is highly active against the Delta variant," Dolsten said in an interview. But after six months, he said, "there likely is the risk of reinfection as antibodies, as predicted, wane."

Pfizer did not release the full set of Israeli data on Thursday, but said it would be published soon.

Scott3

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#2741832 9-Jul-2021 13:18

NSW has serious issues. Another record day...

44 new local cases, 22 or them not in isolation.

Not in a position to lift lock-down on Friday

Tightening lock-down restrictions.

I think it is time for us to break out our MIQ room contingency and use that for people returning from NSW. The risk is getting way to high for me to be comfortable with allowing people to return to NZ isolation free from NSW from 11:59 tonight.

JPNZ

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#2741845 9-Jul-2021 13:47

Scott3:

NSW has serious issues. Another record day...

44 new local cases, 22 or them not in isolation.

Not in a position to lift lock-down on Friday

Tightening lock-down restrictions.

I think it is time for us to break out our MIQ room contingency and use that for people returning from NSW. The risk is getting way to high for me to be comfortable with allowing people to return to NZ isolation free from NSW from 11:59 tonight.

NSW finally pursuing a "hard lockdown" which they should have started 3 weeks ago.. NSW is heading the same way Victoria did in July 2020.

And in news just out:

"A gap in New Zealand’s armour has seen more than 20 people arrive in the country from Australia without the mandated pre-departure test – including one who had recently been in New South Wales.

While all of these people were caught at the New Zealand border and most sent into a managed isolation hotel there is significant concern that others will have slipped through the cracks, as New Zealand border officials are not checking all of the tests of those coming from Australia into New Zealand.

It’s understood officials within the Covid-19 response team see this issue as the biggest risk to New Zealand’s current Covid-free status."

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300353538/covid19-nz-many-predeparture-tests-from-australia-not-being-checked-by-border-officials

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