2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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Ultimate Geek
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#2839542 28-Dec-2021 15:23

wellygary:

Sup:

To enter QLD you need a negative test result for a period of up to five days before you cross the border. Clearly this is now an anachronism....since a negative pcr test...that is five days old....from an omicron epicenter hot spot...is not worth the pixels it is printed with.

The Testing requirement for QLD travel has just been axed,

Irrespective of the 5 day period, QLD had over 1000 cases today, there is no point is trying to "keep it out" ... the Door is already hanging off its hinges banging in the wind.....

The Eastern states can probably scrap any internal travel restrictions as they are now all in the same boat.. The outlier remains WA, which looks like it might have contained the outbreak from the French QLD Backpacker....

But it throws a huge spanner into the NZ "reconnecting" plan... and If I were the Cooks I would be very concerned about opening up to NZ.. as you basically betting your country on how long the NZ MIQ border holds ( and it will fail at some time)....

Oh my word, we are in the same echo chamber it seems. Well that is brilliant news on the scrapping of the internal travel between the state of Origin states of Australia.

Good call on the Cooks. Well unless of course we are rappidly deploying boosters there and they can cover the Island STAT.

I see some estimates that omicron is so fast, that it might go into global decline after three months.

Well that would line up with our booster and pediatric coverage.

So...crazy talk time here....what if....brace yourselves....NZ closed shop for three months, boosted the people, vaxxed the kids...eliminated Delta....and never saw a single case of the omicron variant.

I did warn you it was crazy talk.

What is happening in Australia happens here, we are a state of Australia by Pandemic measure and by population demographic, there are more kiwis in Australia than Wellington two times over.

Removing the crazy from the conversation, the Cooks almost certainly can afford (not financially speaking) to ride ahead of the omicron wave and maybe spare their people from anymore Covid impacts, just by closing the border till Easter.

Just keep swimming...

tdgeek

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#2839553 28-Dec-2021 15:30

Sup:

[What is happening in Australia happens here, we are a state of Australia by Pandemic measure

Not sure I agree with that at all. Call us over conservative, call them over zealous.

antoniosk

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#2839554 28-Dec-2021 15:35

Geektastic: Drove to Lower Hutt for my booster appointment today. Time, location and date confirmed by text yesterday.

Chemist was closed....

Well that sucks.

Perhaps email booking@vaccine.covid19.health.nz and let them know, and rebook for somewhere else. Guess someone at the chemist forgot to change their schedule for the holiday period.

________

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Ultimate Geek
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#2839608 28-Dec-2021 16:15

Scott3:

For clarity:

Kids in the 5 - 11 age band will require a parent, caregiver or legal guardian to consent for them to be vaccinated.

Kids 12+ have the right to give consent themselves (as long as they are deemed competent).

https://covid19.govt.nz/covid-19-vaccines/get-the-facts-about-covid-19-vaccination/covid-19-vaccination-and-children/

Kids 12+ being able to consent themselves seems is something the anti-vax lobby groups have latched onto. I got a "You can't take it back... once they're jabbed" brochure from one of the lobby groups in my letterbox months ago, pushing this theme.

And there has been this media article:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/126786924/covid19-14yearold-students-get-vaccinated-while-skipping-class-for-hot-chips

“I just felt my rights as a mother had been stripped away from me, I was so broken. I had no knowledge of the no parent consent.”

Personally I think the balance age of 12 to give consent for this is about right. Need to give kids the right to stop crazy parents from impacting on their health. But young kids are unlikely to understand the significance of them giving consent.

[edit] interestingly the 5 - 11 age group, a dose spacing of at least 8 weeks is recommended (with the minimum being 21 days, with the child being about to start a significant suppression treatment being used as an example where this might be appropriate.)

The longer gap between jabs for kids makes sense.

We are talking about a group that is extremely unlikely to get sick, a group with a much stronger immune response = better immunity after one jab than adults....and at eight weeks we are talking about the optimum gap as evidenced by UK data.,

This issue of parental consent really goes to the heart of the emotional thinkers and the objective thinkers.

Many parents see it as some sacred right (I have four beautiful children) that they have absolute autonomy and therefore power of their own children.

Which is why you get these upset Karen's and Darren's over the issue of consent.

Put very crudely, these parents, believe it is their inalienable right to take risks with their children's lives, based off their ability to google search and because they really really really love them, therefore their unqualified feelings on Covid 19 supersede the recommendations of the world Pediatric movement.

Like I said at the top, this is about mummy and Daddy's heart not what some sciency person who has phd's in how to deal with medical threats to children thinks.

I have had lots of arguments about young parents on this issue, because I have zero tolerance for opinion in a child welfare discussion.

The reason CYFS can legally snatch your child off you...is that many parents make bad decisions...hello'o

Like I said, this whole issue is a microcosm of the entire pandemic and peoples rights.

If any idiot can be made to see the benefits of vaccinations, why exclude 12 year olds from the same process.

Just keep swimming...

gzt

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#2839612 28-Dec-2021 16:28

@Scott3: Kids 12+ have the right to give consent themselves (as long as they are deemed competent).

Vaccination will not be administered in schools without parental consent. As the article states and, as per ministry of education guidelines, and the government policy statement:

Age 12-17 Consent Policy: The Programme will align its policy with previous school-based vaccination programmes and require written consent from the young person’s parent or guardian for all COVID-19 vaccines administered in schools.

Scott3

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#2839620 28-Dec-2021 16:51

On the NZ side:

https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/news-items/waitemata-maori-reach-90-first-dose-18-new-cases-community-1-death-54-hospital-8-icu

Very low case numbers, on the back of fairly low testing volume. But nothing to indicate that true case numbers are getting out of hand.

Frankly everything seems to be going pretty swimmingly in NZ (although zero coivid-19 deaths would be better). Despite the silly season, hospital load is quite manageable. And we have a pathway to even better community protection including boosters and 5 - 11 year old vaccines in January.

But, wow, look at the volume of cases in MIQ. I think it is a matter of days before we have an omicron leak. - That said, I am not overly concerned - we have to be in one of the best positions of anywhere in the world to fight an omicron surge (even considering that our hospital capacity is lower than some of our peer nations)

We are solidly in summer now
Have got past Christmas & the December gatherings
NZ is already highly vaccinated, fairly fresh too.
2.6m pfizer doses in the freezer - Could scramble resources to give them out as boosters at a rate of around 100,000 a day if we really needed. - Allowing us to face the surge with fairly fresh boosters for most of the population.
5 - 11 kids doses arrival imminent. - now under 3 weeks from start date.
We will have the benefit of watching the rest of the world's omicron outbreaks, so will be be able to have a better response from their learning.

Trend of a large volume of cases having transited UAE has now gone. Cases turning up seem quite distributed in origin.

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Sup

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Ultimate Geek
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#2839622 28-Dec-2021 16:54

tdgeek:

Sup:

[What is happening in Australia happens here, we are a state of Australia by Pandemic measure

Not sure I agree with that at all. Call us over conservative, call them over zealous.

One and a half million people come from there to here per year pre pandemic. One in ten Aussies came here on holiday every year, we are literally part of the Australian population from an epidemiological pov.

So from a disease pov it makes sense to imagine we are another state?

Just keep swimming...

alasta

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#2839625 28-Dec-2021 17:04

Don't forget that we are yet to see the impact of moving the entire country (except Northland?) from red to orange in a couple of days.

Geektastic

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#2839628 28-Dec-2021 17:13

freitasm:
@Geektastic: Drove to Lower Hutt for my booster appointment today. Time, locationand date confirmed by text yesterday.

Chemist was closed....

Geez. That's just stupid.

I agree.

The lady on the Covid phone line was somewhat surprised when I rang her.

" Perhaps they didn't tell the MoH when they were closing."

tdgeek

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#2839653 28-Dec-2021 18:29

Scott3:

But, wow, look at the volume of cases in MIQ. I think it is a matter of days before we have an omicron leak. - That said, I am not overly concerned - we have to be in one of the best positions of anywhere in the world to fight an omicron surge (even considering that our hospital capacity is lower than some of our peer nations)

I agree, but a leak is not really a leak. If we managed MIQ as a prison, its a leak. For us its a best efforts service.

What I bolded, yes, I agree. Hang on the longest = best placed to adapt.

tdgeek

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#2839656 28-Dec-2021 18:36

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300487421/covid19-dip-in-case-numbers-down-to-low-testing-rates-over-the-holidays

As expected. Id almost give up on daily case numbers and go ny hospital beds/ICU, but use daily case numbers as a guide, albeit understated. The use of them is a push for some to get tested, nothing more

So, as the holiday season progresses, cases are low, so forget about it....thats what I see will happen.

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wellygary

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#2839798 29-Dec-2021 09:17

wellygary:

The Testing requirement for QLD travel has just been axed,

Opps appears I was incorrect about this, but only because the testing requirements for QLD are seriously screwy...

Until yesterday you had to have a 72hr pre departure test before travelling into QLD ... AND then 5 days after you arrived in QLD you had to do another test ...

It appears they have dumped the 5 day post arrival test, but the 72 hr pre arrival test requirement remains... Hence why NSW is doing over 150K tests daily.. people need on to travel to cross the border... I can certainly see why NSW health are still grumpy...

Scott3

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#2839873 29-Dec-2021 10:45

tdgeek:

Scott3:

But, wow, look at the volume of cases in MIQ. I think it is a matter of days before we have an omicron leak. - That said, I am not overly concerned - we have to be in one of the best positions of anywhere in the world to fight an omicron surge (even considering that our hospital capacity is lower than some of our peer nations)

I agree, but a leak is not really a leak. If we managed MIQ as a prison, its a leak. For us its a best efforts service.

What I bolded, yes, I agree. Hang on the longest = best placed to adapt.

I think it is fair to call it a leak. The point of our border measures are to keep omicron out. The fact that a leak is inevitable doesn't make it not a leak. Just like if I brought a warehouse paddling pool, and left it full and in the sun for months. Clearly it is going to leak at some point, but that is still a leak.

Regarding holding on, and keeping omicron out, at the moment it is the right call, still lots to learn, and it is holiday season in NZ.

But at some point seasonal change might make holding on the wrong call. No way we can keep it out all winter, and we absolutely don't want to deal with an omicron wave (and waves of other pathogens we have eliminated like RSV & influenza) in the middle of winter.

Really hard call to be made here, but if the like of NSW is doing OK in mid jan, I think we should be re-opening in early to mid Feb, to avoid facing a peak in winter.