2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2759523 13-Aug-2021 10:14

Fred99:

tdgeek:

End of the day, if everyone and that's including young kids are vaccinated, then vaccine based travel will probably go ahead with many countries sometime next year

I'm less optimistic. If delta is 2x as transmissible as alpha, and the vaccines seem to reduce risk of infection by about half, then delta is going to spread at about the same rate amongst the vaccinated as alpha did before vaccines.

We could maybe accept that (and might have no choice), but there's a high risk that the virus will mutate to become more resistant to the vaccines and past infection and treatments faster than our our ability to counter that - because it's a numbers game, the mutations are random, but millions of people infected at any point in time, well... We shouldn't have let that happen.

Edit: aaargh - that's depressing. There's always the possibility that the next mutation might make the virus more transmissible and better at escaping immunity, but that mutation might also make it less virulent - there's no advantage to the virus in harming people, so causing less harm isn't a disadvantage. That's what generally happens with new contagious diseases - but it takes a long time. Maybe that's what happened with "Spanish Flu", or part of the story anyway. Millions were infected, then it became "seasonal flu".

I don't disagree. The trial will give a lot of data. Anti-virals, booster, young kids jabbed, and whatever we learn from here will all help.

trig42

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#2759575 13-Aug-2021 10:22

I saw Jacinda on Seven Sharp last night - not ruling out ankle bracelets or similar for MIQ@Home.

Won't stop friends popping over for a Covid party though :)

tdgeek

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#2759578 13-Aug-2021 10:31

trig42:

I saw Jacinda on Seven Sharp last night - not ruling out ankle bracelets or similar for MIQ@Home.

Won't stop friends popping over for a Covid party though :)

Telling neighbours would be an option. Or the easy option, no MIQ@Home, they can pay for it instead. Can't trust the people, then easy. Don't trust them and take it away. In fact I would be saying now, MIQ@Home would be great but too many wont comply, turn it around, put the onus on the people

evilengineer

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#2759595 13-Aug-2021 11:18

tdgeek:

I should have expanded at the moment to mean while its safe here and the vaccine rollout is not complete. Once the latter is complete, and also complete elsewhere, I'm sure there will be more options. The workers you mentioined can come to MIQ, I think that's happening now or will be

I'm totally for taking a cautious approach with all this and personally feel that the baby steps trial scheme proposed by the government is reasonable.

You can at least guarantee high levels of compliance from these business travelers. Can you imagine the reputational damage for Joe Bloggs Corp from being responsible for major outbreak and x number of dead people?

Plenty of stories in the media suggesting that the current MIQ system and immigration NZ in general isn't working that well at the moment, though.

All sorts of stuff about highly skilled people (including consultants and doctors etc.) currently in country and stuck in limbo with uncertain visa status plus people with their wife/husband and children stuck overseas etc.

I've got a vested interest, but its disappointing to me that much of yesterday's media focus seemed to be on allowing Kiwis to go abroad on holiday, taking their spending money with them, when there are more worthy cases from a humanitarian perspective that have a positive economic benefit at the same time.

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#2759613 13-Aug-2021 11:57

Batman:

that makes the most Interesting announcement. From what I read we are both opening up and maintaining elimination strategy. I thought it was one or the other. Watch this space I guess

Note when they say "opening up", the initial stages seem to be a very small relaxing of the rules only...

i.e. short trip fully vaccinated (in NZ) business travelers who are going to low risk locations being able to self isolate at home rather than go into MIQ (very strict rules - need dedicated dwelling, may even need to wear a ankle transponder, home detention style...

reduced MIQ duration for vaccinated people coming from low risk locations.

When I think "opening up" I think isolation free travel for fully vaccinated travelers coming from locations that are not deemed to be "Very high risk"... It is clear that this is quite some time away. And I don't see how it can be companionable with an elimination strategy...

evilengineer:

I'm totally for taking a cautious approach with all this and personally feel that the baby steps trial scheme proposed by the government is reasonable.

You can at least guarantee high levels of compliance from these business travelers. Can you imagine the reputational damage for Joe Bloggs Corp from being responsible for major outbreak and x number of dead people?

Plenty of stories in the media suggesting that the current MIQ system and immigration NZ in general isn't working that well at the moment, though.

All sorts of stuff about highly skilled people (including consultants and doctors etc.) currently in country and stuck in limbo with uncertain visa status plus people with their wife/husband and children stuck overseas etc.

I've got a vested interest, but its disappointing to me that much of yesterday's media focus seemed to be on allowing Kiwis to go abroad on holiday, taking their spending money with them, when there are more worthy cases from a humanitarian perspective that have a positive economic benefit at the same time.

Reading between the lines I think the group's have been cherry picked to avoid highlighting major issues and decision points that the we are not at a point to make:

Business Travelers - Means no kids, which allows the fact that no vaccine has been approved for under 16's in NZ to be sidestepped. Avoiding people making the argument that kids should be exempted as they are not eligable.
NZ vaccinated travelers. - Means we don't need to announce what vaccines we are going to accept, and if we are going to accept evidence of vaccination from locations with high incidents of fraud... This is a really big deal partially with regard's to vaccination brands - We would want only the most effective, but (collectively with other wealthy nations) could massive harm to vaccine rollouts in poorer locations by essentially declaring some vaccines aren't good enough to even visit us with.
Business travelers making round trips from NZ removes the emotive element from the trial. If we need to cancel the trial for some reason, we government won't want articles in the media saying they have canceled a persons visit to see their two year old child for the first time...

I suspect that any loosening of restrictions prior to say December this year will be a token amount only - enough to say the government is trialing stuff, without actually adding material risk. - We are really venerable to a delta outbreak for the next two to three months...

Avoid mixing up issues with the MIQ booking system & immigration NZ together with the plan to open up. They are largely unrelated, and can be independently addressed.

MIQ booking system needs to be fixed regardless. The fact that the government is using a backdoor to reserve / allocate rooms for the following shows clear dysfunction:

The Wiggles
Crankworks
Dubai business expo
the Antarctica programme staff
RSE workers
BWF Junior World Championships (Badminton)

Full list here:

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/covid-19/covid-19-information-for-employers/bringing-workers-to-nz/events-projects-programmes-approved-for-other-critical-workers

Changing it from a game (which is able to be gamed) of fastest finger, to a waitlist / lottary system with priority tiers should be done regardless.

INZ was broken before the pandemic. The Multi year wait some SMC residency visa applicants (already approved in principal), is a prime example. Again needs to be fixed regardless or border settings...

Eva888

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#2759615 13-Aug-2021 11:58

Unwell friend with Parkinson’s leaving next week to see her kids in Europe. Pre-departure test $280! No MIQ bookings available for the return but she’s going anyway because the option of not seeing her children is too painful and she lives here alone.

There are so many suffering mentally because of the entrapment this virus has imposed and unfortunately vaccination doesn’t give anyone a free pass out of it because onerous restrictions and testing are still going to be a major part of future travel life plus the stress of being within the 72 hour testing window required by most countries. Delays or postponements means more tests to comply with for the remainder of the trip plus the mounting extra costs. The uncertainty means travel is no longer something you undertake lightly or with joy.

I can’t see this new plan for opening up working unless they do put monitored bracelets on folks quarantining at home. The howls of outrage will be deafening. There will always be the smart alec who breaks the rules and goes out and how do you monitor someone breaking in to visit...will they wrap the house in yellow quarantine tape, or have a guard at the door? Unconscionable people will find a way to escape the rules if they are inclined.

I was reading an epidemiologist who said, 'think of the delta variant as like wafting smoke,' which explains why it’s so easy to catch.

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On2or3wheels

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#2759616 13-Aug-2021 12:05

This could be a concern for our front line border workers in a few more months.

"The data also appeared to show a waning effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, however, with the vaccine only 16% effective against symptomatic infection for those individuals who had two doses of the shot back in January. But for people that had received two doses by April, the efficacy rate (against symptomatic infection) stood at 79%."

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/breakthrough-covid-cases-why-fully-vaccinated-people-can-get-covid.html

I've been trying to find recent hospitalisation rates among the vaccinated. We get told the vaccine helps stop severe cases, but it still appears that hospital care is going to be required by a number of people if we open the borders too far. We already had to cancel many elective surgeries during the RSV surge.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/19/vaccine-skeptics-zero-israel-again-some-reason/

wellygary

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#2759620 13-Aug-2021 12:14

Eva888:

I can’t see this new plan for opening up working unless they do put monitored bracelets on folks quarantining at home. The howls of outrage will be deafening. There will always be the smart alec who breaks the rules and goes out and how do you monitor someone breaking in to visit...will they wrap the house in yellow quarantine tape, or have a guard at the door? Unconscionable people will find a way to escape the rules if they are inclined.

I can see it being added as a sackable offence in their employment contract, remember these are all staff at NZ firms, that will leave and then come back....

wellygary

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#2759623 13-Aug-2021 12:19

On2or3wheels:

This could be a concern for our front line border workers in a few more months.

"The data also appeared to show a waning effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, however, with the vaccine only 16% effective against symptomatic infection for those individuals who had two doses of the shot back in January. But for people that had received two doses by April, the efficacy rate (against symptomatic infection) stood at 79%."

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/breakthrough-covid-cases-why-fully-vaccinated-people-can-get-covid.html

Sort of...

While it showed reduced impact on developing symptoms, if you did contract COVID there was still a significant reduction in severe illness/hospitalisation and deaths

JPNZ

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#2759630 13-Aug-2021 13:07

Another record day in NSW..

"NSW has reported 390 new local cases and Premier Gladys Berejiklian anticipates “this trend will continue for at least the next few days”. Two further deaths were also reported."

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#2759632 13-Aug-2021 13:17

JPNZ:

Another record day in NSW..

"NSW has reported 390 new local cases and Premier Gladys Berejiklian anticipates “this trend will continue for at least the next few days”. Two further deaths were also reported."

not good news for the rest of AU

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vexxxboy

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#2759633 13-Aug-2021 13:18

On2or3wheels:

I've been trying to find recent hospitalisation rates among the vaccinated. We get told the vaccine helps stop severe cases, but it still appears that hospital care is going to be required by a number of people if we open the borders too far. We already had to cancel many elective surgeries during the RSV surge.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/19/vaccine-skeptics-zero-israel-again-some-reason/

in the USA , As of Aug. 2, over 164 million people were fully vaccinated, CDC data shows. Of those, 7,525 people, or less than 0.005%, had breakthrough infections that led to hospitalization or death.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

nzkiwiman

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#2759636 13-Aug-2021 13:22

JPNZ:

Another record day in NSW..

"NSW has reported 390 new local cases and Premier Gladys Berejiklian anticipates “this trend will continue for at least the next few days”. Two further deaths were also reported."

She says that every day ..

ezbee

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#2759641 13-Aug-2021 13:37

How much Delta spread is virus, and how much is a ready supply of contrarians to feed the fire ?

Australia would seem to show that the deliberate actions of hosts are important factor in continuing outbreak.
Reports of numbers of people not co-operating with tracers etc.

Seems we were lucky that ours were so concentrated a few security guards and a vehicle parked across a driveway worked.

Sydney woman believed to have caused Newcastle COVID-19 outbreak allegedly lied to police twice
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-12/hunter-covid-source/100373210

George Christensen's anti-lockdown, anti-mask speech to Parliament
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-13/coronacheck-george-christensen-speech-parliament-lockdown-masks/100372200

I've heard of people banishing family or past friends who get vaccinated.
With much less of this maybe it would be over, and back to life as normal in Aussie ?

I guess Gladys Berejiklian knows her people well, so not expecting good news.

So stricter controls than otherwise, as you can't trust a growing portion of population that has fed on CT for months.

wellygary

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#2759649 13-Aug-2021 13:45

JPNZ:

Another record day in NSW..

"NSW has reported 390 new local cases and Premier Gladys Berejiklian anticipates “this trend will continue for at least the next few days”. Two further deaths were also reported."

Yip, probably another 3-4 weeks of high numbers to go...

On the other side they are testing the h#ll out of NSW, 120K tests yesterday, and a 7 day rolling average of 87K vaccine doses,

NSW is currently at 25% (1.6 million) fully vaccinated and 49% one shot (3.2 million) (although I'm not sure what denominator they are using )

30 days at that rate will add 2.6 million doses, bringing at least 50% fully and potentially up to 70% with one dose

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-02/charting-australias-covid-vaccine-rollout/13197518

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