2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

Forums › Health and fitness › 2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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366 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2840500 30-Dec-2021 15:58

Scott3:

NSW:

12,226 daily cases. And accounts of both a multi day wait on test results, and sick people opting out of getting PCR test (and just assuming they are infected based on symptoms or, due to 5 hour waits being common).

Big spike in hospital admissions too.

I think there is growing evidence that we will need to do much more than NSW in our omicron response. Especially given we are slightly less vaccinated.

Clearly we need millions of free rapid antigen tests and we need to adopt the UKs system for recording positive RATs instead of getting people to go get a PCR test after a positive RATs result.

Try to keep the main testing centers for specific cohorts, these would include the unvaccinated as highest priority group along with comorbidities including an age range.

In an ideal world we could ssue these high risk groups with Paxlovid or Molnupirivir STAT for the highest risk test subject and the household.

We need to do things radically differently.

It is controversial to prioritize the unvaccinated, the people who did not follow the health advice, however unless you ban them from hospital care for Covid, you are better to prioritize this groups most vulnerable members to protect your tertiary health care system.

I would also like to see us able to treat healthcare staff with Paxlovid when it is available during this likely reduced time off work infectious period that is only five days in places like the US.

Unfortunately Omicron will be upon us before this is all possible.

Just keep swimming...

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#2840507 30-Dec-2021 16:33

tdgeek:

Where does it say "results for the day 9 test delivered to the person before the end of day 10 like they're supposed to be"

From what I see, you can leave on Day 9, you need to have a test within 2 days, so that's Day 9, 10 or 11 and you cannot leave until you get a negative test

Seems clear to me

I have zero idea what you're referring to.

From the 14th Nov until the 23rd Dec MIQ was a 7 day stay. You were allowed out on day 7 after you day 5/6 PCR swab came back, and if that was somehow delayed you were allowed out on day 7 after a RAT was done.

You were then required to spend 3 days in home isolation for a total of 10 days, with a day 9 test done at any community testing centre with the idea being this test result would be back the following day before you end your 10 days in total.

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#2840508 30-Dec-2021 16:37

Scott3:

bazzer:

I'm with you here. It sucks that he didn't remain isolated until the result came back. It's also possible he was a bit confused about what was required of him (trying to be generous here, there's not really an excuse).

I don't consider this as blatant as some of the other examples of not following the rules. He waited the 10 days, had multiple negative tests, no symptoms. I think a lot of people would think the result they were waiting for (which really should've been back, I would think MIQ are near the top of the list but I guess being Christmas...) was more of a formality and might have done something similar, especially at that time of the year.

Pritty hard to be confused when the documents are so clear.

[edit] also that he waited 10 days is also in question. Photos (now deleted) were posted of him on Christmas day, that he claims were at a private address, despite this being improbable given they show him below the high tide line of a beach. Also there was discussion of drinks with neighbors in the press conference.

I guess that's what I get for trying to give people the benefit of the doubt (and admittedly not reading everything about the incident). 🤦‍♂️

[edit] Although I do think it's conceivable that an international DJ would have access to a beachfront property for isolating. That doesn't excuse any socialising with neighbours and he still should've waited. Reading comprehension isn't necessarily the top of everyone's list of skills.

tdgeek

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#2840512 30-Dec-2021 17:04

sbiddle:

I have zero idea what you're referring to.

From the 14th Nov until the 23rd Dec MIQ was a 7 day stay. You were allowed out on day 7 after you day 5/6 PCR swab came back, and if that was somehow delayed you were allowed out on day 7 after a RAT was done.

You were then required to spend 3 days in home isolation for a total of 10 days, with a day 9 test done at any community testing centre with the idea being this test result would be back the following day before you end your 10 days in total.

Ok my second sentence was incorrect my misunderstanding. But that doesn't change anything, you say the Day 9 test is to be resulted to the perosn on day 10, it doesn't say that, it says when you get a negative result. If there are delays, a late in the day day 9 test, they aren't committed to a day 10 result, although generally that would happen.

Scott3

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#2840590 30-Dec-2021 20:32

The situation offshore makes it increasingly clear that an omicron outbreak is going to be very challenging for New Zealand, with the NSW numbers in particular indicating that NZ cannot count on it's good vaccination rate alone to get through this.

The large numbers of border cases, combined with two confirmed omicron cases having been in the community so far, makes it increasingly clear that we don't have any hope of keeping omicron out for an extended period via MIQ.

I wasn't expecting much, but was pretty frustrated that the official response to the omicron in the community news was to call a press conference for the next day. It didn't even start on time, and the content was basically expressing disappointment, but beyond that, shrugging shoulders, and hoping for the best.

Based on overseas jurisdictions we have just a few weeks from when an omicron outbreak starts to grow, untill we face the following issues:

Major issues with testing capacity. (both PCR and RAT)
Issues with the number of workers (partially health) that need to isolate, causing serious staffing issues.
Significant numbers being admitted to hospital.
Very high numbers of people self isolating (including those who are sick), being hard to manage & care for.

The decision to shut down many vaccination centers over this period isn't looking so great right now. When we are on the cusp of an omicron outbreak is not the time you want vaccines to be harder to come by. Would be great to have the 4- 6 month booster program open now, and be doing 80k+ doses a day, rather than 24,000.

That a test taken on the 25th of December took days to get a result for is a big concern. That week only 111k tests were taken, down from 195k four weeks earlier, so hopefully it was some obscurer & isolated issue about getting the sample off Waiheke on Christmas day, rather than a backlog of tests.

But a big day of testing in NSW is 160k. Scaled for NZ population that's 103k. So we need to be able to lift the testing rates of last week by 7x when it hits. (approx. about 30% of NSW test capacity is getting used for pre-departure test's for interstate travel, but wait times at testing centers are putting off a lot of people that really should be tested).

Major shortages in RAT tests in much of the world too. We should be be getting orders in to build a cira 2m+ stockpile, so we can use them to take load off the PCR testing system when it's capacity is stretched.

NZ daily media release:

https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/news-items/third-dhb-hits-95-fully-vaccinated-60-community-cases-44-hospital-7-icu

As discussed by others, despite the distraction of Omicron, we are still not quite over our delta outbreak, but it does seem to shifted south. 24 cases in Te Kūiti, 8 in Tauranga, and just 20 in Auckland.

And yet another massive day of border cases:

Geektastic

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#2840596 30-Dec-2021 21:11

Managed to actually get my booster today! 😁

sbiddle

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#2840598 30-Dec-2021 21:33

tdgeek:

sbiddle:

I have zero idea what you're referring to.

From the 14th Nov until the 23rd Dec MIQ was a 7 day stay. You were allowed out on day 7 after you day 5/6 PCR swab came back, and if that was somehow delayed you were allowed out on day 7 after a RAT was done.

You were then required to spend 3 days in home isolation for a total of 10 days, with a day 9 test done at any community testing centre with the idea being this test result would be back the following day before you end your 10 days in total.

Ok my second sentence was incorrect my misunderstanding. But that doesn't change anything, you say the Day 9 test is to be resulted to the perosn on day 10, it doesn't say that, it says when you get a negative result. If there are delays, a late in the day day 9 test, they aren't committed to a day 10 result, although generally that would happen.

Yes there is no guarantee the test will be back, but that's the whole point and what the process map shows. The expectation is that the test will be back on day 10 so the person can reenter the community.

If the day 5/6 test is delayed in MIQ they simply give you a RAT so you can still leave on day 7.

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sbiddle

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#2840599 30-Dec-2021 21:37

Scott3:

The situation offshore makes it increasingly clear that an omicron outbreak is going to be very challenging for New Zealand, with the NSW numbers in particular indicating that NZ cannot count on it's good vaccination rate alone to get through this.

The large numbers of border cases, combined with two confirmed omicron cases having been in the community so far, makes it increasingly clear that we don't have any hope of keeping omicron out for an extended period via MIQ.

Absolutely everything you've said is logical and can't be argued.

The problem is we beat Covid and won and people still have that mentality. They think the govt is going to put us into a lockdown and Omicron will just go away.

Based on the outrage today from people at the DJ I really worry about how many people are going to cope when for the first time this whole pandemic every single NZer could be facing the reality of Covid cases in their communities literally weeks from now and the real world reality that they could well catch Covid. For the last 21 months despite our outbreaks the reality is that has not been the case.

ajobbins

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#2840600 30-Dec-2021 21:44

sbiddle:

the first time this whole pandemic every single NZer could be facing the reality of Covid cases in their communities literally weeks from now and the real world reality that they could well catch Covid. For the last 21 months despite our outbreaks the reality is that has not been the case.

Even here in VIC with our outbreaks I've never felt too at risk, because prior to now our cases peaked around 2,000 (and only the odd day that high) and with a population of over 5 million in Melbourne the odds weren't all that high, especially when following mask rules and being double vaxxed.

To this day, I only know one person here in VIC who had COVID...and she's dead.

But now I am sure I'm going to catch it, and probably soon, even though I don't really get out all that much, am double (soon to be triple) vaxxed and always follow the distancing and mask rules.

It now feels more real than ever.

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Sup

366 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2840601 30-Dec-2021 21:50

Scott3:

The situation offshore makes it increasingly clear that an omicron outbreak is going to be very challenging for New Zealand, with the NSW numbers in particular indicating that NZ cannot count on it's good vaccination rate alone to get through this.

The large numbers of border cases, combined with two confirmed omicron cases having been in the community so far, makes it increasingly clear that we don't have any hope of keeping omicron out for an extended period via MIQ.

I wasn't expecting much, but was pretty frustrated that the official response to the omicron in the community news was to call a press conference for the next day. It didn't even start on time, and the content was basically expressing disappointment, but beyond that, shrugging shoulders, and hoping for the best.

Based on overseas jurisdictions we have just a few weeks from when an omicron outbreak starts to grow, untill we face the following issues:

Major issues with testing capacity. (both PCR and RAT)
Issues with the number of workers (partially health) that need to isolate, causing serious staffing issues.
Significant numbers being admitted to hospital.
Very high numbers of people self isolating (including those who are sick), being hard to manage & care for.
The decision to shut down many vaccination centers over this period isn't looking so great right now. When we are on the cusp of an omicron outbreak is not the time you want vaccines to be harder to come by. Would be great to have the 4- 6 month booster program open now, and be doing 80k+ doses a day, rather than 24,000.

That a test taken on the 25th of December took days to get a result for is a big concern. That week only 111k tests were taken, down from 195k four weeks earlier, so hopefully it was some obscurer & isolated issue about getting the sample off Waiheke on Christmas day, rather than a backlog of tests.

But a big day of testing in NSW is 160k. Scaled for NZ population that's 103k. So we need to be able to lift the testing rates of last week by 7x when it hits. (approx. about 30% of NSW test capacity is getting used for pre-departure test's for interstate travel, but wait times at testing centers are putting off a lot of people that really should be tested).

Major shortages in RAT tests in much of the world too. We should be be getting orders in to build a cira 2m+ stockpile, so we can use them to take load off the PCR testing system when it's capacity is stretched.

NZ daily media release:

https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/news-items/third-dhb-hits-95-fully-vaccinated-60-community-cases-44-hospital-7-icu

As discussed by others, despite the distraction of Omicron, we are still not quite over our delta outbreak, but it does seem to shifted south. 24 cases in Te Kūiti, 8 in Tauranga, and just 20 in Auckland.

And yet another massive day of border cases:

I did a very rough calculation based off a guess of where NSW figures are really at.

The true figure is looking as though it is probably at least five times the size of the the current numbers which brought them near 400 admissions in 7 days (thanks for you post on this).

So I am gonna totally misappropriate these figures to come up with a New Zealand scenario in the hope it inspires someone to correct me with their own sleuth modelling.

So based off the NSW situation if that rate of admissions per fifty K is remotely in the ball park, we are talking eight thousand hospital admissions when cases hit one million.

None of this is likely to happen in the next two weeks, because already I am hearing on Aus TV that there are mass cancellations of New Years events in Sydney by the punters who are too scared to go to them.

Therefore human behavior is already organically changing the parameters.

But here in New Zealand where we may have a dozen or more omicron cases already doing the second and third generation of a cluster by New Years eve...we could have a hundred people in Auckland going to events shedding.

That type of invisible super spread would put us at a thousand in seven days very easily.

From there...we will see exponential growth day on day till there is a call made about locking down perhaps or people themselves do what the Aussies are doing, start being less carefree out and about.

But for us it would take about quarter of a million cases for the hospital rates to completely blow out of control (more assumptions like a milder disease with shorter admission stays).....lots for the Govt to think about...hopefully we are not sitting on a super spreader that is going to infect thousands in one hit and before we know it our true figures are also headed to one hundred thousand like NSW is.

I cannot see how omicron wont completely fry testing.

As for workers in hospitals, we may end up just have to let infected staff come to work and infect the patients otherwise what is our alternative?

These essential worker five day iso deals will infect a lot of people, but it is a case of needs must.

Ideally there is no dozen individual silent cases in Auckland, this mans closest contacts have come up negative so far, so we could get incredibly lucky.

But using this hypothetical scenario you can see how even if we cannot tame omicron, we still have to try.

Just keep swimming...

quickymart

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#2840608 30-Dec-2021 22:25

sbiddle:

Based on the outrage today from people at the DJ I really worry about how many people are going to cope when for the first time this whole pandemic every single NZer could be facing the reality of Covid cases in their communities literally weeks from now and the real world reality that they could well catch Covid.

I hope all the antivaxxers sit up and pay attention! I also hope they would sing a different tune if they were impacted - as a lot of antivaxxers (mostly in the US, but a few here) have done already.

Sup

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Ultimate Geek

#2840612 30-Dec-2021 23:05

sbiddle:

Scott3:

The situation offshore makes it increasingly clear that an omicron outbreak is going to be very challenging for New Zealand, with the NSW numbers in particular indicating that NZ cannot count on it's good vaccination rate alone to get through this.

The large numbers of border cases, combined with two confirmed omicron cases having been in the community so far, makes it increasingly clear that we don't have any hope of keeping omicron out for an extended period via MIQ.

Absolutely everything you've said is logical and can't be argued.

The problem is we beat Covid and won and people still have that mentality. They think the govt is going to put us into a lockdown and Omicron will just go away.

Based on the outrage today from people at the DJ I really worry about how many people are going to cope when for the first time this whole pandemic every single NZer could be facing the reality of Covid cases in their communities literally weeks from now and the real world reality that they could well catch Covid. For the last 21 months despite our outbreaks the reality is that has not been the case.

Provided the messaging is up front, New Zealanders tend to adjust fairly quickly to the next part of this journey.

For all the things done poorly in some of the Aussie pressers, there have been some big doses of reality in recent days, coming from the NSW minister of health who rightly warned all Australians will get the virus, and the QLD version of Bloomfield who said in some ways the spread is a good thing in terms of moving to living with Covid.

In this country, we generally have fairly clear top down messaging. There have been some exceptions, but for the most part...you will never see this thing where the prime minister says one thing, a premier says another, then the health advice is completely different to the political advice.

If I can be a little critical here without talking politics specifically, the tone of our pressers is always along the lines of down playing the risk to keep people calm.

We saw that this morning and we have seen theses claims of low risk through the whole pandemic.

Now that is okay up to a point I agree and think they get the messaging right.Our Delta outbreak I thought could have been handeled better, people were told quite late that we were not going to eliminate it....Minister Hipkins was the one who eventually admitted it later in a non official presser.

That was deliberate. Perhaps they should have said earlier 'we cannot stop the spread therefore get vaccinated now'.

We saw the same with Omicron situation... low risk...low risk yadda yadda yadda more low risk.

Again that is fine...however, with this one variant, the most infectious pandemic in human history, when it does get going....the Govt needs to state very clearly that we are all going to be exposed, and that some of the people who are unvaccinated, are going to die...if it is okay for Biden to mention death it is sure as heck okay for our leader...what are we doing otherwise? are we telling people to not look up at the approaching space rock? are we going to tell people not to listen to experts because they are just trying to scare us? Are we a bunch of little kids or Stepford wives who never mention anything unpleasant?

Once omicron gets cracking, people do not need to hear low risk or we have planned for this etc etc...they need to hear that vaccines are the only way you can ensure you come through this event safely.

This is it, this is the big one, this is the one time a lot of Kiwis could get ill all at once and the one time we need to really pay attention and not be left in any doubt that if you are not vaccinated...then you or someone you know...is going to suffer.

The science coming out of Australia is directly applicable to here. The rate of spread over there is a threat to essential services and the rates of hospitalization are starting to raise some big warning flags.

People need to fully understand the gravity once it is apparent we have no control over the rate of spread relative to the tolerances of our current systems.

Just keep swimming...

Geektastic

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#2840688 31-Dec-2021 08:01

Sorry to see that one of my favourite restaurants, Fleur's Place in Moeraki, has been forced to close because more than half the staff refused to get vaccinated.

It's a pretty unique restaurant so I hope they can find staff soon.

tdgeek

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#2840704 31-Dec-2021 08:41

quickymart:

sbiddle:

Based on the outrage today from people at the DJ I really worry about how many people are going to cope when for the first time this whole pandemic every single NZer could be facing the reality of Covid cases in their communities literally weeks from now and the real world reality that they could well catch Covid.

I hope all the antivaxxers sit up and pay attention! I also hope they would sing a different tune if they were impacted - as a lot of antivaxxers (mostly in the US, but a few here) have done already.

For anyone that takes a vague interest in Covid, most people know we are in suppression and living with it, and that Omicron will be everywhere in the community, that's a given. There is no surprise

ezbee

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#2840718 31-Dec-2021 09:13

Early indications rapid tests may have some problems with Omicron.

Rapid Antigen Tests May Be Less Effective at Detecting Omicron
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/coronavirus/fda-rapid-antigen-tests-may-be-less-sensitive-in-detecting-omicron/2787605/

Coronavirus risk calculations get harder as a study suggests rapid tests may be less effective at detecting omicron
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/12/29/covid-test-accuracy/

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