2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2782818 23-Sep-2021 14:41

On2or3wheels:

Technofreak:

Informative article here about Israel's data on vaccine effectiveness and how the raw data dosen't give the whole story.

https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-efficacy-vs-severe-disease-be-strong-when-60-of-hospitalized-are-vaccinated

Even though 60% of hospitalisations are vaccinated the efficacy against severe disease by age group is pretty well 90% or better with, the exception on the 80-89 age group which was about 81%.

There's actually quite a positive spin placed on this article considering 515 were in hospital at the time of this article, & there were/are still restrictions in place.
Israel has about the same population as us. Could NZ cope with an additional 515 continually in hospital on top of normal numbers. There's probably a good chance that we have more New Zealanders at risk with underlying health conditions as well.

Edit: Now there's 726 in hospital.

Could NZ cope with an additional 515 continually in hospital on top of normal numbers?

My post was to draw attention to how raw data can lead grossly misleading interpretations of what is happening.

You raise a very good question. I'd say definitely not. Even before Covid our health system was under the pump. When Covid started our per capita number of ICU beds was way less than other parts of the the world that we like to compare ourselves to. 18 months later this metric is no better, in fact I thinks it's got worse.

Everyone, well all the talk coming from the government, is focussing on vaccination as the way out of the pandemic. It's one very important tool, but not the total answer. All the evidence points to Covid becoming endemic. That means we need to develop ways of living with it. I see no talk about how we are going to manage the increased demands that will be placed on our health system. We need to be putting processes in place yesterday to start catering for the increased demand.

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ezbee

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#2782823 23-Sep-2021 14:45

What would some peoples idea of removing restrictions and living with covid in the community look like for food exports ?

China's ban on two Sealord plants having 'significant impact'
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/450058/china-s-ban-on-two-sealord-plants-having-significant-impact

This was not due to an outbreak in factories, but concerns Covid measures too slack back in Feb, still not resolved ?

I did hear on a recent RNZ farming segment that China had signaled to meat and food industries.
Any cases in supply chain and they would halt imports and all product in transit would be rejected at huge cost.

Freezing works are quite concerned as workers work close to each other and we have seen this as problem overseas.
Given high degree of protectionism in other export markets to our farm produce, we may find difficulties even if its pot calling kettle black.
Aussie Apple silliness and all.

shk292

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#2782824 23-Sep-2021 14:46

wellygary:

AK unlinked and mystery cases need to come down to near zero and so does transmission at locations of Interest.

... until that happens I can't see Auckland getting to 2 (because to remove the 3 boundary will see it spread round the country)

Meanwhile those of us north of the bridge are really struggling to avoid the locations of interest:

Jas777

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#2782832 23-Sep-2021 14:51

ezbee:

What would some peoples idea of removing restrictions and living with covid in the community look like for food exports ?

China's ban on two Sealord plants having 'significant impact'
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/450058/china-s-ban-on-two-sealord-plants-having-significant-impact

This was not due to an outbreak in factories, but concerns Covid measures too slack back in Feb, still not resolved ?

I did hear on a recent RNZ farming segment that China had signaled to meat and food industries.
Any cases in supply chain and they would halt imports and all product in transit would be rejected at huge cost.

Freezing works are quite concerned as workers work close to each other and we have seen this as problem overseas.
Given high degree of protectionism in other export markets to our farm produce, we may find difficulties even if its pot calling kettle black.
Aussie Apple silliness and all.

Interesting they would stop food exports, they must know something about covid re food that no one else does? Or do other countries do the same?

On2or3wheels

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#2782833 23-Sep-2021 14:51

Technofreak:

I see no talk about how we are going to manage the increased demands that will be placed on our health system. We need to be putting processes in place yesterday to start catering for the increased demand.

Probably just assumed a short sharp lock down would always deal to any outbreak & that everyone would get vaccinated.

As we're finding out this time if covid gets into a group of people that keep breaking the rules, a lock down has limited effect.

tdgeek

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#2782837 23-Sep-2021 15:01

Technofreak:

Everyone, well all the talk coming from the government, is focussing on vaccination as the way out of the pandemic. It's one very important tool, but not the total answer. All the evidence points to Covid becoming endemic. That means we need to develop ways of living with it. I see no talk about how we are going to manage the increased demands that will be placed on our health system. We need to be putting processes in place yesterday to start catering for the increased demand.

I took the presser today as vaccination isnt the answer out of the pandemic, but the answer to move from lockdowns. Prof Hendy's modelling is about the ratios of vaccinated and hospital beds in a nutshell. Vaccination becomes the tool not lockdowns, to open up. Instead of 100% of us being part of a large number that enter a hospital or die, that drops to a percent or two and the less harsh illness is dealt with in the home, GP, other care options, not beds. You still need restrictions such as masks, scanning etc but the goal then is to ease restrictions based on hospital bed usage. They said cases will be out there and be managed by scanning and tracing and mainly non hospital care

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#2782844 23-Sep-2021 15:13

Press release:

An additional hotel will be added to our network of managed isolation and quarantine facilities, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today.

“I have approved and Cabinet is in the final stages of signing off The Quality Hotel Elms in Christchurch as a new managed isolation facility,” Chris Hipkins said.

“We asked MBIE to find new facilites to help balance the reduced capacity overall due to added protections we have put in place to combat Delta. These include cohorting, taking hotels offline to boost their ventilation systems and the coversion of two isolation facilites for quarantine.

“We want to assure Kiwis overseas that we are doing everything we can to facilitate their safe return. The new hotel will result in 85 more rooms for returnees and brings the numbers of facilities in the network to 32.

“Before hotels are added to the network they must meet a rigorous safety, public health and staffing criteria,” Chris Hipkins said.

“This includes appropriate ventilation, staff ‘green’ zones, separate entry and exit points, and CCTV capability.

“The Elms met these criteria, has a modern ventilation system, a large carpark and is set back from the road. Following positive consultation with iwi, local stakeholders and the DHB, officials are now working towards a go live date that could be from mid November onwards.

“Staff onsite will include police, health staff, security, MIF mangers and hotel staff. Again, I’d like to say a special thanks to all the frontline staff who are keeping us safe.”

Chris Hipkins said MIQ will remain a critical part of our COVID-19 defence for the forseeable future and are fundamental to our Reconnecting New Zealand strategy.

“As well as bringing the new facility on board, the Government is working on medium and long term options for a sustainable and stable MIQ model. How we manage returnees will also continue to evolve, depending on vaccination rates here and overseas.

“We’re progressing a pilot for a small number of fully vaccinated New Zealanders to be able to travel overseas and isolate in approved accommodation when they return, and will learn a lot from that. We expect to say more on this next week. We are also working on alternative longer term options, and the prospect of shorter stays for fully vaccinated people.

“Other managed isolation facility options were considered in Auckland and Rotorua but were rejected primarily because of health and MIQ workforce constraints.

“No suitable facilites were found in Hamilton and Wellington.”

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sen8or

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#2782847 23-Sep-2021 15:19

Oh great, management of existing MIQ properties has been stellar so far, what could possibly go wrong breaching the borders of fortress South Island?

Linuxluver

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#2782849 23-Sep-2021 15:20

Might be worth looking at Iceland.

They have 90%+ vaccination rate for 12yo and above.

Delta means people still get the virus, though fewer, and they are less likely to be seriously ill if vaccinated. The unvaccinated face a much more difficult time. They get sick...and many more require hospitalisation and are more likely to die. The larger the group of unvaccinated, the more likely vaccinated people are to be exposed...and have breakthrough infections....and so on.

I can see the government edging toward an Icelandic approach.....vaccinate, masks, social distancing.....and carry on.

That is.....until a new variant appears that requires some other approach.

Masks and social distancing could kill any version of the virus. Just too many rule-breakers out there.

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GV27

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#2782854 23-Sep-2021 15:22

sen8or:

Oh great, management of existing MIQ properties has been stellar so far, what could possibly go wrong breaching the borders of fortress South Island?

Heaven forbid the rest of the country carry a bit more of the MIQ facility load, rather than just loading more and more risk onto our largest city.

tdgeek

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#2782858 23-Sep-2021 15:25

GV27:

sen8or:

Oh great, management of existing MIQ properties has been stellar so far, what could possibly go wrong breaching the borders of fortress South Island?

Heaven forbid the rest of the country carry a bit more of the MIQ facility load, rather than just loading more and more risk onto our largest city.

Dont you mean the only city?

Im in ChCh all good, we already have MIQ here

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#2782859 23-Sep-2021 15:27

tdgeek:

I took the presser today as vaccination isnt the answer out of the pandemic, but the answer to move from lockdowns. Prof Hendy's modelling is about the ratios of vaccinated and hospital beds in a nutshell. Vaccination becomes the tool not lockdowns, to open up. Instead of 100% of us being part of a large number that enter a hospital or die, that drops to a percent or two and the less harsh illness is dealt with in the home, GP, other care options, not beds. You still need restrictions such as masks, scanning etc but the goal then is to ease restrictions based on hospital bed usage. They said cases will be out there and be managed by scanning and tracing and mainly non hospital care

There will be no "normal" as it was in 2019 ever again. The new normal for the medium term will be Level. If we were to be able to exit level 1 in the long term the new normal will include wearing masks when ever away from home, hybrid working and hybrid recreation. Aotearoa will need more hospitals spread out to the regions and smaller town.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Oblivian

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#2782860 23-Sep-2021 15:27

sen8or:

Oh great, management of existing MIQ properties has been stellar so far, what could possibly go wrong breaching the borders of fortress South Island?

Not sure if everyone has forgotten. But we are an international port

We have flights from Singapore, Dubai and limited Australian transfers still

As such, we get almost nightly quarantine transfer flights from AKL also to offload as part of the cohorting. They aren't all just on AKL thus far. That has been the only focus of breaches of the bad kind.

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wellygary

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#2782861 23-Sep-2021 15:27

tdgeek:

Technofreak:

Everyone, well all the talk coming from the government, is focussing on vaccination as the way out of the pandemic. It's one very important tool, but not the total answer. All the evidence points to Covid becoming endemic. That means we need to develop ways of living with it. I see no talk about how we are going to manage the increased demands that will be placed on our health system. We need to be putting processes in place yesterday to start catering for the increased demand.

I took the presser today as vaccination isnt the answer out of the pandemic, but the answer to move from lockdowns.

Prof Hendy's modelling is about the ratios of vaccinated and hospital beds in a nutshell. Vaccination becomes the tool not lockdowns, to open up.

its actually a bit more than that , but its basically a huge plug for vaccinating kids, because without that you can never get the rates used in the models..

The modelling paper is here

https://cpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.auckland.ac.nz/dist/d/75/files/2017/01/modelling-to-support-a-future-covid-19-strategy.pdf

it is predicated on a more relaxed border than we have now, although they have fudged the numbers since last time, as they are only assuming 1 seeded border case per day, (I think the last model had 10 seeded cases and concluded it would induce around 1000 deaths per year) This time one assumes if they used 10 per day, we would be at 500 deaths per year, which is about flu death rates.

Simulated outbreaks are seeded with an average of 1 case per day arriving at the border and entering the community. This approximately represents a situation where current tight border restrictions are relaxed, but strong border controls remain in place to limit the number of infectious travel-related cases entering the community "

MikeB4

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#2782862 23-Sep-2021 15:29

GV27:

Heaven forbid the rest of the country carry a bit more of the MIQ facility load, rather than just loading more and more risk onto our largest city.

ummm Poneke has serveral, Rotorua has sever as a couple of examples.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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