Woah. Did you open an unconfigured Edge or Explorer window or something

MSN. Nooooooo

That's the womens day of the internet.

Batman:

Professor says based on data one dose is fine, 2 dose is the where the rate of myocarditis in young boys seem to be higher than rate of hospitalization from covid, based on available data.

All refer to Pfizer of course 

All from Guardian of course, and people are going to read it whether we dissect this here or not

and finally, with more time will give more data as more data is sought, so watch this space

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/boys-more-at-risk-from-pfizer-jab-side-effect-than-covid-suggests-study

 

Batman:

 

while i agree that doing the same thing week after week and expecting a different result is like magic, i don't know if AKL will tolerate more restrictions. maybe they will.

 

but if you really want to find cases maybe test everyone.

 

get groups of 10 streets to spit into a bucket. test the bucket. 99% of the buckets will test negative

 

the 1% of the buckets that test positive you hunt down the case.

 

but yeah it's easy to restart a video game and try a new strategy, not easy on the go.

 

anyway i was just kidding, but it's time to generate new ideas.

 

We should looking outside the square and be running saliva based surveillance testing outside places like supermarkets - we only have to look at the last week to realise we could have potentially captured quite a few positive cases from this potentially days before they tested positive elsewhere.

If only we hadn't given a $60m saliva testing contract to a company who can't seem to deliver reliable saliva testing at scale and with a CEO who's focus seems to be trying to discredit Kiwi researchers overseas who clearly know a lot more about the technology than he does.

I must have missed something. I thought that its a concern that cases are plateauing lately not dropping. If you get 15-20 cases a day we have 100 over the next week, who are currently out there potentially infectious in the community. And the latter, infectious in the community is high each day. I can see Level 3 if cases get very low, but they aren't right now

BUT

with Auckland in level 4 and the rest of the country at level 2 – until 11.59pm on Tuesday, September 21.

At that stage, Auckland is set to move to alert level 3 after what will have then been the longest stint any part of the country has spent in lockdown since the pandemic began.

So the plan is to move AKL to L3 in one week?

Despite higher case numbers over the last three days, “which do give us cause for being cautious”, testing rates are good, and there is only a “small number” of cases being investigated “very thoroughly” to ensure there is no ongoing community transmission, he said.

Bloomfield said the advice is another week at alert level 4 for Auckland will give us “our best chance to really finish the job off here”.

I read every day that AKL testing is very low, now its good? I also read that many of the dailies are infectious in the community, but apparently its small? Finish off the job in a week? I would have thought that of cases get to a handful each day, that L3 is appropriate while they are mopped up, but it doesnt seem to be the case to me yet.

Fred99:

 

ajobbins:

 

I have no idea what the process is for testing, but it seems to take a few days to process a result, so it may also be too slow to be useful in preventing an outbreak taking hold (That's not to say it's not useful, just that it's a bit of a crude tool for primary detection).

 

 

Yep.  Seems delta adds extra challenges there too, time from being infected to infecting others is reduced, and they could be much more infectious. So by the time a wastewater sample is collected, is transported to the lab (ESR in Wellington) tests positive and intensified surveillance testing picks up the case, then without lockdown conditions you could easily have a cluster of 50 cases.

 

 

 

One potential catch with wastewater testing is the effectiveness in capturing asymptomatic people especially amongst the vaccinated. There have been a few researchers looking at this and while there is nothing definitive, there is some data to suggest mRNA may not be shed at the same levels via faeces in some asymptomatic vaccinated people. 

Hopefully these sorts of people also have low viral loading in their respiratory system so aren't going to be spreaders, but it poses a scenario especially in highly vaccinated populations that wastewater surveillance testing may not be as effective as it is now in actually picking up positive Covid cases in the community.

The science behind mRNA based wastewater testing is amazing, but we do face a possible scenario where it could be a lot less useful going forward than what it is now.

sbiddle:

 

 

 

We should looking outside the square and be running saliva based surveillance testing outside places like supermarkets - we only have to look at the last week to realise we could have potentially captured quite a few positive cases from this potentially days before they tested positive elsewhere.

 

 

 

Despite what I just posted where Dr A says testing is good, its not, it has plummetted. Essential workers should be tested twice a week and yes, mass surveillance, supermarkets is the clear venue for that. There must be a correlation between test numbers and cases but if tests reduce we cant infer anything. If tests were far higher lately we may see far more cases, OR we may see similar cases = good, but we seem to be in the dark. Methinks the desire to lock out the virus is being affected by covid fatigue and agitation, where we may chance it and cross fingers its not out there much now

tdgeek:

I must have missed something. I thought that its a concern that cases are plateauing lately not dropping. If you get 15-20 cases a day we have 100 over the next week, who are currently out there potentially infectious in the community. And the latter, infectious in the community is high each day. I can see Level 3 if cases get very low, but they aren't right now

BUT

with Auckland in level 4 and the rest of the country at level 2 – until 11.59pm on Tuesday, September 21.

At that stage, Auckland is set to move to alert level 3 after what will have then been the longest stint any part of the country has spent in lockdown since the pandemic began.

 

So the plan is to move AKL to L3 in one week?

 

Despite higher case numbers over the last three days, “which do give us cause for being cautious”, testing rates are good, and there is only a “small number” of cases being investigated “very thoroughly” to ensure there is no ongoing community transmission, he said.

Bloomfield said the advice is another week at alert level 4 for Auckland will give us “our best chance to really finish the job off here”.

 

I read every day that AKL testing is very low, now its good? I also read that many of the dailies are infectious in the community, but apparently its small? Finish off the job in a week? I would have thought that of cases get to a handful each day, that L3 is appropriate while they are mopped up, but it doesnt seem to be the case to me yet.

Batman:

You don't understand politiks.

In a sheetstorm you need to give people hope. That glimmer of hope is the tentative level 3 to stretch level 4 for another week.

To reduce risk of mutiny.

I bet what they will do next week not even they know. It will be made up on the go based on testing, cases, medical advice, treasury advice, business advice, and people's feelings.

LOL, ok.

Id suspect your mutiny is far more likely if the false hope doesn't materialise, compared to saying, sorry, another week at level 4 then we reassess. If they are going to chance it, put AKL in L3 or even L2, but no regional travel in or out

Sometimes false hope is better than no hope. But they will need a very good excuse if they want to extend the lockdown next week, they have 7 days to come up with it.

They will keep in mind that at the end of the day, there is an election somewhere down the road.

I'm not politicking, it just is what it is. Life with Delta is different. i'm glad i'm not paid to make these decisions

But let's not get too ahead of ourselves, we might be able to crush this. But 7 days is not easy.

Batman: Sometimes false hope is better than no hope. But they will need a very good excuse if they want to extend the lockdown next week, they have 7 days to come up with it.

They will keep in mind that at the end of the day, there is an election somewhere down the road.

I'm not politicking, it just is what it is. Life with Delta is different.

But let's not get too ahead of ourselves, we might be able to crush this. But 7 days is not easy.

Is 15 cases every day a good excuse? Yes, Delta is different so those possible 15 a day does matter

Its unfair on Aucklanders, but its also unfair to have them in and out of lockdown up till and beyond Christmas which is what will happen if they open up while its not cleared

Worth noting that in Massey, in August L3 we had a community pop up testing station in the park down the road from me.

This time, with  Massey specifically mentioned as a suburb of interest, said testing station is not being stood-up.

FFS. 

tdgeek:

 

Is 15 cases every day a good excuse? Yes, Delta is different so those possible 15 a day does matter

 

Its unfair on Aucklanders, but its also unfair to have them in and out of lockdown up till and beyond Christmas which is what will happen if they open up while its not cleared

 

no, but having better ideas and newer methods might be convincing. doing the same thing week in week out expecting different results might not be convincing enough. just reading the papers everyday, and you get a feel of the changing sentiments, at the start vs now.

One thing that was good to see yesterday was the push for people who have vaccinations booked for the future to bring these forward. There are still hundreds of thousands of first jabs booked for the Auckland region for the next month or so, and many people simply seem to be unaware of how easy it is to be vaccinated right now.

I also hope behind the scenes that somebody starts looking at data matching to detect people being vaccinated earlier than their bookings so forward booking can be removed from the system. Certainly in recent weeks this had been an issue.

If we can get through 250,000 jabs this week in Auckland which will deliver some pretty good figures for first doses I think it could also be time to switch away from the 6 week gap for 2nd doses at least in Auckland because getting people fully vaccinated then becomes the critical part. We no longer have a shortage of vaccines nor a lack of vaccine spots, so the reasons for this move are now gone.