2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2742037 10-Jul-2021 10:17

I'm feeling a bit more comfortable after the move to make NSW red zone.

The worsening situation in NSW is going to result in tighter management of people between states in Aussie, reducing the risk of people state hopping to get back to NZ.

Regarding the pre-departure test checking, yeah every test should be checked (actually pre-departure - at check in / boarding), but I don't think the issue is quite what the media has blown it up to.

Compliance is likely to have been very high regardless. Who is going to risk getting denied bording of their international flight (or getting put in 14 days MIQ on arrival, or facing charges in court) just to get out a AUD150 test? It is a reasonable assumption all the results were negitive, as a positive test would have been reported in the media (and likely notified to NZ health authorities given it was obtained for the purpose of travel).

Reality is pre-departure tests are just there to slightly improve our odds (they won't pick up very recent infections), so the difference between 98% and 100% compliance on the risk NZ is exposed to is trivial.

NZ has had a pritty good run in terms of our red zone boarder defenses (compared to aussie despite them sounding stricter). Hope we don't get complacent in that area.

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#2742039 10-Jul-2021 10:27

Customs and border charges are a set fee in ticketing.
They only spot check for swabbing explosives and bag searches. There aren't the staff to check fulltime.
It's entirely feasible there are no extras on checking pre departure. But reliances on either gate staff, checkin staff, or border staff asking, vs producing as proof. Or travel costs would be uneconomical suddenly

Remember smart gates are working again... Less staff interactions.

I suspect you will find it's potentially accurate. And only 1 in 10 is asked to PROVE their test as a spot check.

Nevermind the ones who have been stressing about costs and don't even know it requires one

Think someone said here earlier they had manged a mercy flight via Melbourne from syd. That's not exactly bullet proof. They've not locked Sydney out totally and rely on an honesty string again.

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#2742040 10-Jul-2021 10:32

Fred99:

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

This is good. Producing the new mRNA should be relatively easy, the delivery system / encapsulation should be the same process:

Pfizer and BioNTech announced on Thursday that they are developing a version of the coronavirus vaccine that targets Delta, a highly contagious variant that has spread to 98 countries. The companies expect to launch clinical trials of the vaccine in August.

There has been a lot of confusion in media stories about this. I probably read 6 different stories yesterday and so far don't have a 100% definitive answer, but my take from it is slightly different to the summary above.

There appear to be two parts to this - one being that Pfizer are working on an updated vaccine for newer variants. This may be given as a booster, and may end up being the "regular" vaccine going forward.

Pfizer are potentially looking to seek FDA approval to give booster dose of the current vaccine to improve the immune response in people as they believe some parts of the immune response have reduced in a 6 month period in some people which has caused breakthrough transmission on some people of the Delta variant in particular.

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#2742043 10-Jul-2021 10:40

tdgeek:

I have no idea how we could vaccinate more when we use up all of our supplies as they come in? As to why Pfizer aren't sending us more, thats pretty obvious, other countries need it more than us. Its probably getting a bit selfish if while our rugby stadiums are full we expect to get more supplies at the expense of other countries.

Pfizer aren't sending us more because we didn't order more. There is no conspiracy here - we are getting what we ordered, in the timeframes we agreed when we ordered. The fact we ordered things so late has ultimately been out problem (factoring in however that hindsight is a wonderful thing).

In October last year NZ ordered 1.5m doses of Pfizer for delivery by the middle of the year. Pfizer have contractually delivered on that contract and met their obligations. Remember many other countries ordered their Pfizer doses in July, hence the fact they got in long before us.

In March this year we ordered another 8.5m does of Pfizer for delivery from the middle of July onwards, which is what we will be getting.

Why should Pfizer send us more doses because we were slow off the mark at ordering them? If we'd ordered 10m doses last October we probably would have had them all by the middle of July.

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#2742044 10-Jul-2021 10:43

One thing that I haven't seen any comment on so far either here or in the media is the fact the MIQ stay will be free for those returning to Australia, which is something that is sure to ruffle a few feathers particularly from others from elsewhere who need to pay.

This was always going to be the case from the start of the bubble but I know there was a lot of discussion about this a few months ago from people on here who didn't understand this was going to be the case.

antonknee

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#2742045 10-Jul-2021 10:45

tdgeek:

Excellent. Whose at the bottom of the list of Covid negative outcomes? New Zealand.

I have no idea how we could vaccinate more when we use up all of our supplies as they come in? As to why Pfizer aren't sending us more, thats pretty obvious, other countries need it more than us. Its probably getting a bit selfish if while our rugby stadiums are full we expect to get more supplies at the expense of other countries.

You won’t win this argument. The whiners about vaccines have got it in their heads that us not being vaccinated until the end of the year is some massive issue, despite that having always been the plan and always been the reality for us given our situation, and that this is some betrayal of us by the government.

They don’t care that we are vaccinating according to our plan, and according to the reality of our situation (small, poor, isolated country, with no COVID). They don’t care that the countries ahead of us in vaccination rates still have restrictions and COVID and deaths and have made trade offs to get there. They don’t care and they don’t see the big picture, because people like that never do. They only care about themselves, and about some vague notion of “throw open the borders”, and arguably about scoring points against the other political team (Labour government).

Would it be ideal to have every New Zealander vaccinated yesterday? Yeah, sure. Would it be ideal to have no COVID? Yeah, sure - good thing we do.

Ideally you wouldn’t have a pandemic in the first place, but we don’t live in an ideal world.

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#2742057 10-Jul-2021 11:09

antonknee:

You won’t win this argument. The whiners about vaccines have got it in their heads that us not being vaccinated until the end of the year is some massive issue, despite that having always been the plan and always been the reality for us given our situation, and that this is some betrayal of us by the government.

Your argument conveniently ignores the the reason we're the last in the world is precisely because that's the path the government and MoH took with their vaccine strategy.

We could have been like many other countries but ordered vaccines late, and while we hedged our bets, we hedged them with the wrong options. We committed to 10.72m doses of Novavax and that hasn't even received FDA approval yet. We sought lower cost options rather than higher cost mRNA options. We were never even at the front of the vaccine queue when Hipkins made his infamous comment.

And yes not being vaccinated until the end of the year IS a massive issue, and the fact you can't see that is quite concerning. The risks faced by NZ right now are truly massive and probably the greatest they have been since the beginning of the pandemic - our early won freedoms would be entirely destroyed by a breakout here right now due to our poor levels of vaccination. Any breakout runs the risk of being exactly like NSW, with the potential of not simply being able to be contained to a single city.

Maybe we should be focusing on why countries like Singapore could pick the right options and we didn't https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/how-singapore-picked-its-covid-19-vaccines

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antonknee

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#2742058 10-Jul-2021 11:23

sbiddle:

Your argument conveniently ignores the the reason we're the last in the world is precisely because that's the path the government and MoH took with their vaccine strategy.

We could have been like many other countries but ordered vaccines late, and while we hedged our bets, we hedged them with the wrong options. We committed to 10.72m doses of Novavax and that hasn't even received FDA approval yet. We sought lower cost options rather than higher cost mRNA options. We were never even at the front of the vaccine queue when Hipkins made his infamous comment.

And yes not being vaccinated until the end of the year IS a massive issue, and the fact you can't see that is quite concerning. The risks faced by NZ right now are truly massive and probably the greatest they have been since the beginning of the pandemic - our early won freedoms would be entirely destroyed by a breakout here right now due to our poor levels of vaccination. Any breakout runs the risk of being exactly like NSW, with the potential of not simply being able to be contained to a single city.

Maybe we should be focusing on why countries like Singapore could pick the right options and we didn't https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/how-singapore-picked-its-covid-19-vaccines

No it doesn’t ignore it - it precisely acknowledges that we are here as a deliberate choice and as a result of our situation and choices we made.

We have shown we can control outbreaks when they happen which is not often. We have shown we can maintain our risk level through maintaining a closed border (which I realise you feel we should be opening up). The difference with us and NSW is that we will do the right thing at the right time and lockdown if it’s needed. NSW did not because Gladys has a reputation and ideology to protect.

With the benefit of hindsight Novavax was the wrong horse to back. But Pfizer was a good choice. It is a shame we didn’t order more sooner - but it really is not the end of the world.

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#2742091 10-Jul-2021 13:10

sbiddle:

Your argument conveniently ignores the the reason we're the last in the world is precisely because that's the path the government and MoH took with their vaccine strategy.

We were slow to order. There’s no excuse for this.

The communication to public on strategy and timing has been abysmal.

No national strategy, rollout appears to be uncoordinated across a range of DHB each playing to the beat of their own drum.

No national database on vaccinations, some DHB’s not keeping adequate records.

Delta knocking at our door, a complacent public, and who has any faith that MoH would be able to effectively control a our delta outbreak when it eventually arrives (let’s hope it hasn’t already), they can’t even organise themselves to resource the Helpline properly.

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#2742095 10-Jul-2021 13:21

50 in NSW

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/covid-19-coronavirus-sydney-records-50-new-community-cases-after-nsw-beefs-up-lockdown-rules/ZKZF2RE6V2WWTRWRBTQ7CUNCDA/

Scott3

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#2742107 10-Jul-2021 13:44

sbiddle:

One thing that I haven't seen any comment on so far either here or in the media is the fact the MIQ stay will be free for those returning to Australia, which is something that is sure to ruffle a few feathers particularly from others from elsewhere who need to pay.

This was always going to be the case from the start of the bubble but I know there was a lot of discussion about this a few months ago from people on here who didn't understand this was going to be the case.

As you say that MIQ would be free in this situation was spelt out when the bubble opened. Essentially the need for these people to do MIQ was a surprise, just like it was for people outside of NZ in March 2020. I think there will be general public acceptance of this, but having the taxpayer subsidies those wealthy enough to pop across to Aussie in the midst of a pandemic isn't exactly a great outcome.

I think that people in NSW are getting priory by not needing to use the normal MIQ booking system is going to ruffle more feathers. Why should somebody who is in NZW visiting family be prioritized over somebody who has been outside of NZ for the whole pandemic, but now needs to return as their visa is expiring...

I suspect that the bubble has been an epic fail from a economic benefit point of view, with the wellington L2 economic cost, and now all this MIQ cost falling on taxpayers.

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#2742111 10-Jul-2021 13:54

Scott3:

I suspect that the bubble has been an epic fail from a economic benefit point of view, with the wellington L2 economic cost, and now all this MIQ cost falling on taxpayers.

sbiddle

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#2742112 10-Jul-2021 14:04

Scott3:

sbiddle:

One thing that I haven't seen any comment on so far either here or in the media is the fact the MIQ stay will be free for those returning to Australia, which is something that is sure to ruffle a few feathers particularly from others from elsewhere who need to pay.

This was always going to be the case from the start of the bubble but I know there was a lot of discussion about this a few months ago from people on here who didn't understand this was going to be the case.

As you say that MIQ would be free in this situation was spelt out when the bubble opened. Essentially the need for these people to do MIQ was a surprise, just like it was for people outside of NZ in March 2020. I think there will be general public acceptance of this, but having the taxpayer subsidies those wealthy enough to pop across to Aussie in the midst of a pandemic isn't exactly a great outcome.

This wasn't spelt out like this publicly - hence a few people who kept telling me I was wrong.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/124765134/transtasman-bubble-travellers-could-pay-thousands-for-miq-in-event-of-australian-outbreak

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/flyer-beware-returning-transtasman-bubble-travellers-could-pay-thousands-in-miq-fees/O3GJX2PUZ63QHQSFLDNWYB45FI/

Hence my surprise at the fact we're seeing the opposite of that now being announced and seemingly no comments at all in the media.

The scenario we're seeing now was not something that was likely expected to happen. The 500 MIQ rooms were being kept free with the expected scenario being that they would be required in a scenario where say 1 or 2 planes were identified once in the air as being a risk, and that those onboard the aircraft would all go into 14 days of free MIQ.

I don't think anybody really expected that we'd need red flights back from Australia to put people straight into MIQ.

ezbee

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#2742129 10-Jul-2021 14:12

NSW residents urged to 'tell us the truth' about contacts as cases hit new record
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-10/covid-live-updates-coronavirus-press-conference-sydney-lockdown/100282612

Sigh... Something for Professors of Experimental Economics to consider -just trust us-

""
'Vast majority' of people who have been infectious 'have chosen not to do the right thing'
Pressed further on timeframes around the lockdown, Ms Berejiklian said the "greatest fact or figure" people should be looking at is the number of infectious people in the community.

"We had 26 people who had the virus that were still out and about, and that is the concern. We need to get that 26 number as close to zero as possible. Now, that is the greatest indicator of what the situation is moving forward.

"Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who have been infectious have chosen not to do the right thing in the last few days, or when it was uncovered and that's why Dr Chant's message of please tell us the truth at the beginning - you won't get in trouble."
""
"" The good news.
Seventy-nine per cent of NSW cases currently in hospital are unvaccinated
Dr Kerry Chant provided a quick breakdown of those figures a short time ago.

She says of the 47 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital, 79 per cent are unvaccinated.

"No-one who has received two doses is in hospital, and that's a key message with this," she said.

"Two doses of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine is incredibly effective at preventing hospitalisation and death."
""

sbiddle

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#2742130 10-Jul-2021 14:12

Very interesting article here about the Australian vaccine response.

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2021/07/10/part-one-the-true-story-australias-vaccine-failure/162583920012026

So much of the Australian story aligns with NZ. We both believed in the UQ vaccine and both seemed to underestimate how significant the mRNA vaccines would be, hence the fact we both ended up at the back of the line with out very much aligned strategies.

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