2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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20141 posts

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#2787090 30-Sep-2021 15:12

Buster:

trig42:Put us back to level 4 I say, until they've squashed it, or let it run.

There's just enough people out there that don't recognise Level 4 or Level 3 to mean it won't work again.

Really it's a matter of timing now. It's worth going a few more weeks for vaccination, but after that there's the same outcome either sooner with less borrowed or later with more borrowed for the younger generation to pay back.

The best ecomonic response was a sharp lockdown to starve the virus of new hosts and eliminate it, and this was Labours policy.Having long periods of restrictions ends up costing more. But it is not too late according to Prof Baker. But it doesn't seem they are now following advice from some of these experts.

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#2787097 30-Sep-2021 15:31

mattwnz:

Yes this is something I have thought about, where having a large number of people vaccinated, could mean that the virus spreads silently around the population. People may just get mild colds etc.So it is then harder to detect. A large part of the future seems to be surveillance testing, so I suspect a lot of people are randomly going to detect positive when testing is needed. eg if they travel overseas. I can't see how it can be suppressed once we are living with the virus in the community, as it will be impossible to contact trace or really contain IMO. It will largely become a sickness for the unvaccinated and they will be the ones filling up the hospitals. IMO we are going to need Covid centres to take the load off the hospitals, maybe by turning hotels into covid centres. National even admitted yesterday that their plans with opening up with a reasonably low vaccination rate would likely overwhelm hospitals, but then compared the risk to be simila rto the risk of a car accident, which was a bit bizarre.

i wouldn't worry about it. if everyone has immunity, it'll be alright, your chances are no different from RSV for example. it may take 3 doses, or whatever. but people get flu vaccination every year. people get meningococcal vaccine. some people die from meningitis. car crash, etc. it happens.

not my job luckily, to get people to that stage. fingers crossed for the govt vs antivax

ajobbins

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#2787099 30-Sep-2021 15:35

mattwnz:

The best ecomonic response was a sharp lockdown to starve the virus of new hosts and eliminate it, and this was Labours policy.Having long periods of restrictions ends up costing more. But it is not too late according to Prof Baker. But it doesn't seem they are now following advice from some of these experts.

Lockdowns are hardest on the part of the community where there is now significant outbreaks. They are less likely to have secure work, and more likely to be in a job that either can't be done remotely, or can't be done at all under L4.

When you start taking away income from some of NZs poorest people, things can get very hard for them very fast. And for those that can work, as they are more likely to be in essential jobs like retail, taking time off for a precautionary test is much more difficult than for other members of society who are in more stable jobs or who can afford to take a few days off.

Lockdowns of anything longer than a few days really need to be backed by strong financial support for those most financially impacted, otherwise they will choose livelihood over health. It's a privileged position (that many, if not most of us here) are in where we don't need to make that choice.

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Buster

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Ultimate Geek

#2787101 30-Sep-2021 15:37

mattwnz:The best ecomonic response was a sharp lockdown to starve the virus of new hosts and eliminate it, and this was Labours policy.Having long periods of restrictions ends up costing more. But it is not too late according to Prof Baker. But it doesn't seem they are now following advice from some of these experts.

I'm with you, but it's very easy for me to say that because I've just worked right through the last 18 months. If I and everyone else that does what I do stop, anyone 'on the grid' is going to have their power go off. Not really helpful.

I think we just have to prepare as best we can for a few more weeks and move on.

Handle9

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#2787102 30-Sep-2021 15:45

ajobbins:
Handle9: How else do you expect elimination to work? Voluntary home quarantine definitely wouldn’t work.

It worked just fine here in VIC until our latest outbreak

I wouldn’t describe below as working fine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55342990

ajobbins

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#2787107 30-Sep-2021 15:54

Handle9:

I wouldn’t describe below as working fine.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55342990

There weren't put in a quarantine facility - they stayed at home.

What you have linked to is a different thing - you can't compare them. They locked down whole towers even tho only some people were positive.

I believe it was later declared illegal, and I think it should have been - but it's not the same thing as mandatory quarantining outside your home when you test positive.

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wellygary

8312 posts

Uber Geek

#2787108 30-Sep-2021 15:55

mattwnz:

The best ecomonic response was a sharp lockdown to starve the virus of new hosts and eliminate it, and this was Labours policy.Having long periods of restrictions ends up costing more. But it is not too late according to Prof Baker. But it doesn't seem they are now following advice from some of these experts.

The problem is that the world has changed hugely since last year, and NZ will have to change... if not now then in 3 months.....

Assume we squash the Auckland cluster back to zero... What do we do in 2022?

The government has promised we will reopen to the world, this will see cases come in and spread. (especially amongst non-vaxxed)

We will end up with cases throughout the country, and some people will die.....

NZ cannot spend another year behind MIQ when the rest of the world is moving on...

but , while vaccinations are not fully rolled out yet... the fatality numbers for this lockdown compared to last year are pretty staggering and show they do work ...

2020, March-May ~1500 cases 22 deaths,,,

2021 August -October so far ~1300 cases ...1 death....

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mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2787111 30-Sep-2021 16:10

wellygary:

GV27:

"Ardern says she wants to signal the high likelihood of the Auckland boundary remaining. Full consideration is being given to easing. Removing that regional boundary is not in consideration."

Well, there it is. Unsurprising but also pretty much the key difference between L2 and L3.

Auckland's not getting out of Level 3 next week,

The spike in VIC cases today (1400+) should scare the bejesus out of NZ Health officials,

[VIC are 49% fully and 79% partially vaxxed]- so slightly higher than AK and NZ...

Politically I think they could. But they won't be joining the rest of NZ. The two level 2s are not going to match. Auckland will be following suppression if they drop to level 2, while the rest of NZ is following elimination.

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2787113 30-Sep-2021 16:18

wellygary:

mattwnz:

The best ecomonic response was a sharp lockdown to starve the virus of new hosts and eliminate it, and this was Labours policy.Having long periods of restrictions ends up costing more. But it is not too late according to Prof Baker. But it doesn't seem they are now following advice from some of these experts.

The problem is that the world has changed hugely since last year, and NZ will have to change... if not now then in 3 months.....

Assume we squash the Auckland cluster back to zero... What do we do in 2022?

The government has promised we will reopen to the world, this will see cases come in and spread. (especially amongst non-vaxxed)

We will end up with cases throughout the country, and some people will die.....

NZ cannot spend another year behind MIQ when the rest of the world is moving on...

but , while vaccinations are not fully rolled out yet... the fatality numbers for this lockdown compared to last year are pretty staggering and show they do work ...

2020, March-May ~1500 cases 22 deaths,,,

2021 August -October so far ~1300 cases ...1 death....

But aren't they still planning on having MIQ and home isolation (they are currently doing trials for select people) next year anyway, as well as a lot of testing and suppression?. The death numbers are low ATM, because in this case the MOH have said that it is mainly younger people catching it, and the health system hasn't been overwhelmed in NZ yet. But once it hits rest homes etc, it causes a lot of death. A lot of the death last year was from older people, although it does also kill younger people. In Oz the numbers of deaths are not great. Vaccination will however help reduce this a lot, as long as vaccines are effective against other variants, and opening up potentially brings in more variants. We have just been dealing with Delta from just a single case getting in. Hopefully vaccines will continue to improve.

We are more open than Australia as we have more MIQ spaces and unlike Oz, we don't charge returning NZers for MIQ. China are still very closed off, and they are following elimination, and even testing kiwifruit for the virus.

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#2787116 30-Sep-2021 16:26

ajobbins:

When you start taking away income from some of NZs poorest people, things can get very hard for them very fast. And for those that can work, as they are more likely to be in essential jobs like retail, taking time off for a precautionary test is much more difficult than for other members of society who are in more stable jobs or who can afford to take a few days off.

Lockdowns of anything longer than a few days really need to be backed by strong financial support for those most financially impacted, otherwise they will choose livelihood over health. It's a privileged position (that many, if not most of us here) are in where we don't need to make that choice.

That is why payments from the government were needed, which were then paid to everyone, or targeted to certain areas. They did helicopter payments in other countries to help with the effects of lockdowns. They also discussed this on TV news a couple of nights ago. IMO it was false economy not to do helicopter payments. Instead what they did was the wage subsidy, which was far more helpful for middle income earners. Many who saved this money and once lockdown ended, they had all this cash saved to go out and buy houses.

sen8or

1787 posts

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#2787171 30-Sep-2021 16:39

The Govt has been very clever in the way it has handled subsidies to all workers. By paying it to the employers and very publicly so, they are essentially pressuring employers to "do the right thing" and top up employees wages, passing the responsibility for the difference back to the employer.

This has put huge social and political pressure on the employer to maintain wages, but at what cost?

Employers don't have bottomless pits of money either, a very small percentage of NZs employers are wealthy by NZ standards and even less are wealthy by international standards. Even the wealthy ones have limits and in many cases, they'll have their own set of bills / problems to face

Handle9

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#2787173 30-Sep-2021 16:42

JPNZ:

GV27:

Given her comments, I'd say there's every chance Auckland will go to some hybrid version of L2.

Added benefit of getting them off the hook for earlier saying the rest of NZ can't go to L1 if Auckland is at L3.

If you mess with L2 to the point where it is functionally the same as L3 then that gets you off the hook for L1 everywhere else.

But the key differences between L2 and L3 are mixing of households (which is a key driver in current transmission, apparently) and cross-border travel.

Yep, reading between the lines means it may head this way. Its starting to get political in letting the rest of NZ get to L1.

The covid response has always been intensely political. You are messing with peoples rights to move, associate and work.

GV27

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#2787240 30-Sep-2021 17:30

sen8or:

Employers don't have bottomless pits of money either, a very small percentage of NZs employers are wealthy by NZ standards and even less are wealthy by international standards. Even the wealthy ones have limits and in many cases, they'll have their own set of bills / problems to face

Also there was a huge huge admin compliance burden with wage subsidy one - one well-known payroll company suggested you sit down and pay out the equivalent in hours to people to pay them the wage subsidy AND then the top-up to 80%....separately.

As far as I'm aware, they didn't issue a work-around or update to cater for a future wage subsidy and most people were probably still being told to do the same over a year later.

I know the government likes to claim credit for the wage subsidy and the way it helped preserve jobs, but paying to employers and making them responsible for passing it on meant they got to wash their hands of a huuuuge amount of paperwork, at a time when many businesses were spending most of their waking hours trying to survive.

tdgeek

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#2787253 30-Sep-2021 18:17

mattwnz:

Yes this is something I have thought about, where having a large number of people vaccinated, could mean that the virus spreads silently around the population. People may just get mild colds etc.So it is then harder to detect. A large part of the future seems to be surveillance testing, so I suspect a lot of people are randomly going to detect positive when testing is needed. eg if they travel overseas. I can't see how it can be suppressed once we are living with the virus in the community, as it will be impossible to contact trace or really contain IMO. It will largely become a sickness for the unvaccinated and they will be the ones filling up the hospitals. IMO we are going to need Covid centres to take the load off the hospitals, maybe by turning hotels into covid centres. National even admitted yesterday that their plans with opening up with a reasonably low vaccination rate would likely overwhelm hospitals, but then compared the risk to be simila rto the risk of a car accident, which was a bit bizarre.

Whats your plan? Lockdown AKL for 2 months at Level 4 then reassess? Or live with it?

The last few days is bagging the response. What would you do? It seems like Covid and Delta is easy, so its the MoH's fault, and as they signal the Govt, its the Govts fault as well.

How about (not referring to you) we take a stand and say what we want?

1. Its elimination and Level 4/3 as long as it takes

2. Lets open up, its like the flu and driving a car

tdgeek

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#2787254 30-Sep-2021 18:22

mattwnz:

The best ecomonic response was a sharp lockdown to starve the virus of new hosts and eliminate it, and this was Labours policy.Having long periods of restrictions ends up costing more. But it is not too late according to Prof Baker. But it doesn't seem they are now following advice from some of these experts.

IIRC we locked down after one case and were ridiculed by other countries. So we locked down, sharp, to starve the virus. That works. But there is the issue of the people, and we cannot blame the people, so its MoH/Govts fault. Its not about the people is it??? Unless "some" of the people man up, the Covid fight in Auckland is over. Its as simple as that. There are too many not doing the right thing, you cannot fight that.

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