2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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Ultimate Geek
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#2942558 16-Jul-2022 09:44

tdgeek:
We had lockdowns and performed very well. Now, we are living wth it, as thats what most people want, thats the complacency. Its now up to ME to perform well, I have that control. So, if we have a need for "NZ" to perform well, there are two options. 1. Mass lockdowns 2. Individuals do their bit. Choose one.

Great that you have that control, but many people don’t. What about the shop worker that can’t control ventilation, or the masking use/enforcement for patrons? This is an entirely complex situation, and trivialising it isn’t helping anyone. Rugged individual responsibility is IMO not the way through here.

johno1234

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#2942566 16-Jul-2022 10:01

tdgeek:

lockdowns and performed very well. Now, we are living wth it, as thats what most people want, thats the complacency. Its now up to ME to perform well, I have that control. So, if we have a need for "NZ" to perform well, there are two options. 1. Mass lockdowns 2. Individuals do their bit. Choose one.

Yep, and given 1. has been ruled out by the powers that be, there's really only option 2.

But the question still remains puzzling: Why is NZ's infection rate so high? Given that pre-omicron infection doesn't have offer much immunity to later variants, our early success doesn't explain it. We have as good as or higher vaccination and masking as say, the UK, but much higher infection rate. The UK has no mask mandate at all. Not even in the packed London tube system that carries millions a day.

I would guess factors include: 1) Season. Our winter and their summer. 2) Reporting. Do they bother testing and reporting up there now?

The government will now provide free, quality respirators to certain at risk groups. This is the only answer I see. Cloth masks, ill-fitting medical masks, and perhaps all medical (non n95) masks are probably ineffective. That would go some way to explaining why so many assiduous mask wearers are getting infected.

tdgeek

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#2942580 16-Jul-2022 10:34

mkissin:

Great that you have that control, but many people don’t. What about the shop worker that can’t control ventilation, or the masking use/enforcement for patrons? This is an entirely complex situation, and trivialising it isn’t helping anyone. Rugged individual responsibility is IMO not the way through here.

Fair points, that leaves lockdowns as the solution? Id like to see the current mask rules as enforceable, then I guess we get another protest(s)

Its not trivialising the issue, its the reality. We want to be protected against Covid and we also want easy freedom, you cant have both

tdgeek

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#2942583 16-Jul-2022 10:52

johno1234:

Yep, and given 1. has been ruled out by the powers that be, there's really only option 2.

But the question still remains puzzling: Why is NZ's infection rate so high? Given that pre-omicron infection doesn't have offer much immunity to later variants, our early success doesn't explain it. We have as good as or higher vaccination and masking as say, the UK, but much higher infection rate. The UK has no mask mandate at all. Not even in the packed London tube system that carries millions a day.

I would guess factors include: 1) Season. Our winter and their summer. 2) Reporting. Do they bother testing and reporting up there now?

The government will now provide free, quality respirators to certain at risk groups. This is the only answer I see. Cloth masks, ill-fitting medical masks, and perhaps all medical (non n95) masks are probably ineffective. That would go some way to explaining why so many assiduous mask wearers are getting infected.

Hard to know the real infections vs the reported infections overseas, or here for that matter. Ultimately Covid is free to do what it wants, we have the factors that its now milder, vaccinations, and natural temporary immunity. That applies to most countries, and as you say some local variables, i.e. Winter. The only metric worth following is hospital numbers, but if I was in hospital for a badly infected toe, and I had Covid as well, am I a Covid hospital stat? If so, the more reported infections we have, the more hospital beds have Covid infected patients by virtue of standard probability. So, I have zero idea how bad Covid in NZ actually is.

Re masks, Im not so sure thats as serious. They all help. But not much help is many dont bother. A article last week showed buses as horrendous for breathing in others air. Supermarkets were thought to be a petri dish but arent, so Id say general shopping isnt either. My guess is that buses, public transport and schools are the prime causes. Maybe thats were mask wearing needs to be enforced. But maybe we then get another rafts of protests? Impossible situation, so as I mentioned earlier, its up to individuals to manage it, and no, its not a guaranteed solution. But its milder, we are vaccinated, so thats all we can do

mkissin

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Ultimate Geek
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#2942639 16-Jul-2022 11:17

tdgeek:
mkissin:

Great that you have that control, but many people don’t. What about the shop worker that can’t control ventilation, or the masking use/enforcement for patrons? This is an entirely complex situation, and trivialising it isn’t helping anyone. Rugged individual responsibility is IMO not the way through here.

Fair points, that leaves lockdowns as the solution? Id like to see the current mask rules as enforceable, then I guess we get another protest(s)

Its not trivialising the issue, its the reality. We want to be protected against Covid and we also want easy freedom, you cant have both

The trivialising that I was referring to was seeing it as an either/or situation.
Personal responsibility will always play a large role, but the government also needs to both send strong signals about that, and make it possible for people to actually take that responsibility. Providing free RATs and masks is a good and important step, but in my opinion doesn’t go far enough. Enforcement of masking rules would probably be unpalatable for many, and I’m not sure what it would even look like, but it would make a large class of currently rather powerless people much safer.

Edit; tons of data we have indicates that masking and epic ventilation works a treat to prevent spread. That allows both freedom and protection, but even those easy steps are a bridge too far for some, and those people make us all less safe.

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#2942645 16-Jul-2022 11:30

at the ski field, Aussies have been around for a week (Aussie school holidays) and i have not seen a single person wearing a mask, ok I lied, there was one, on my way in at 8.30am. not one since then.

i think we are going the way of the Aussies, (they don't have to wear masks), they have passed on this new normal to us whereever they are now, and my guess is it will spread not retreat after they leave

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tdgeek

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#2942672 16-Jul-2022 11:45

mkissin:
The trivialising that I was referring to was seeing it as an either/or situation.
Personal responsibility will always play a large role, but the government also needs to both send strong signals about that, and make it possible for people to actually take that responsibility. Providing free RATs and masks is a good and important step, but in my opinion doesn’t go far enough. Enforcement of masking rules would probably be unpalatable for many, and I’m not sure what it would even look like, but it would make a large class of currently rather powerless people much safer.

Edit; tons of data we have indicates that masking and epic ventilation works a treat to prevent spread. That allows both freedom and protection, but even those easy steps are a bridge too far for some, and those people make us all less safe.

Agree with all that. Its Winter now, not the best time to get out and about, hopefully Summer will help. But we all get out and about then, and as travel is easy now, we can't really escape whats going on globally even IF we nailed the right measures here. I guess what could be ideal is that future variants get weaker so we can then treat it as a cold. (a cold is a coronavirus so maybe it goes down that track) And that antivirals for it are available cheap at the supermarket and chemist.

cddt

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#2942673 16-Jul-2022 11:46

johno1234:

But the question still remains puzzling: Why is NZ's infection rate so high? Given that pre-omicron infection doesn't have offer much immunity to later variants, our early success doesn't explain it. We have as good as or higher vaccination and masking as say, the UK, but much higher infection rate. The UK has no mask mandate at all. Not even in the packed London tube system that carries millions a day.

I would guess factors include: 1) Season. Our winter and their summer. 2) Reporting. Do they bother testing and reporting up there now?

The UK stopped providing free tests on the 1st of April. So case numbers aren't a good measure to compare countries.

Even though it's estimated NZ is recording only half of actual infections, that's probably still an order of magnitude more than the UK, based on their surveys.

A better measure is hospitalisations. Compare those rates and NZ doesn't look too unfavourable, especially considering the difference in seasons.

Batman

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#2942677 16-Jul-2022 11:58

DS248:

Simple fact is we are now performing poorly compared with many comparable countries.

could it be that we are testing more than the places we are comparing, maybe they are not testing?

kyhwana2

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#2942732 16-Jul-2022 12:14

HelloThere:
DS248:
Yet in NZ there seems little concern that we are now averaging ~4 deaths per day / million people (ie. ~20/day).

Indeed, the 7-day average has not dropped below 2 deaths per day / million people since 20 March.

I think the covid deaths is a little bit misleading. How many of those 20 per day have died because of covid?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm lead to believe that is someone tests positive then 14 days late they tested negative and then die 27 days later in a car accident they will still be classed as a covid death as it was within 28 days of testing positive?

67% are officially coded as because of covid or covid contributed to. 20% are coded as "not related to covid" (The rest are unclassified).

https://www.health.govt.nz/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-case-demographics

So up to 16 of those deaths are/could be covid related, or 13.4 of them "officially".

vexxxboy

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#2942733 16-Jul-2022 12:19

tdgeek:

Hard to know the real infections vs the reported infections overseas, or here for that matter. Ultimately Covid is free to do what it wants, we have the factors that its now milder, vaccinations, and natural temporary immunity. That applies to most countries, and as you say some local variables, i.e. Winter. The only metric worth following is hospital numbers, but if I was in hospital for a badly infected toe, and I had Covid as well, am I a Covid hospital stat? If so, the more reported infections we have, the more hospital beds have Covid infected patients by virtue of standard probability. So, I have zero idea how bad Covid in NZ actually is.

R

At Rotorua hospital we had 1 case in hospital , then they had a covid positive person visit a ward and infected the whole ward and 7 nurses so the next day the number with people in hospital with covid went up to 28

Common sense is not as common as you think.

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gzt

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#2942744 16-Jul-2022 12:59

freitasm:
Read an article today that there are about 110,000 cases being reported daily in the USA but the expectation is this being actually seven times as high*.

Considering comments that our current number of cases could be double of those reported, it would put New Zealand at a rate 50% higher that the current US rate per capita**.

* FTA: "We estimate that for every reported case there are 7 unreported," Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, wrote in an email.

** Assuming 20k cases/day in NZ and 880k cases/day in the USA for their 5 and 329 million populations.

America's top rated cable news network Fox News takes a fair and balanced approach to these issues:

Fox News: The left-leaning media is sounding the alarm on the new COVID-19 variant labeled BA.5, asserting that it’s a "big deal" and calling for people to mask up and get boosted.

mattwnz

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#2942947 16-Jul-2022 17:00

vexxxboy:

tdgeek:

Hard to know the real infections vs the reported infections overseas, or here for that matter. Ultimately Covid is free to do what it wants, we have the factors that its now milder, vaccinations, and natural temporary immunity. That applies to most countries, and as you say some local variables, i.e. Winter. The only metric worth following is hospital numbers, but if I was in hospital for a badly infected toe, and I had Covid as well, am I a Covid hospital stat? If so, the more reported infections we have, the more hospital beds have Covid infected patients by virtue of standard probability. So, I have zero idea how bad Covid in NZ actually is.

R

At Rotorua hospital we had 1 case in hospital , then they had a covid positive person visit a ward and infected the whole ward and 7 nurses so the next day the number with people in hospital with covid went up to 28

Sound odd that a single visitor could infect all those people in a short period of time, if many of the staff are also wearing N95 masks. They must have been a superspreader type of person.
I think NZs big problem at the moment is lack of CO2 monitoring in indoor spaces. High CO2 readings often amount to higher risk of covid, due to CO2 being a build up of expelled air. In Japan they have screens displaying CO2 levels in spaces. NZ needs this for living with covid.

vexxxboy

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#2942948 16-Jul-2022 17:14

mattwnz:

Sound odd that a single visitor could infect all those people in a short period of time, if many of the staff are also wearing N95 masks. They must have been a superspreader type of person.
I think NZs big problem at the moment is lack of CO2 monitoring in indoor spaces. High CO2 readings often amount to higher risk of covid, due to CO2 being a build up of expelled air. In Japan they have screens displaying CO2 levels in spaces. NZ needs this for living with covid.

you are kidding , i was there for an appointment on Friday and if staff were wearing masks , and that was not a given , they were not wearing N95 masks. I was and stood out like a sore Thumb.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

chatterbox

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#2943207 17-Jul-2022 18:04

Batman:
DS248:

Simple fact is we are now performing poorly compared with many comparable countries.

could it be that we are testing more than the places we are comparing, maybe they are not testing?

According to our world in data Australia has more testing than New Zealand. They still have similar issues where they know they’re not capturing the entire picture. It is law to report a positive RAT but it’s impossible to police. Household contacts can test negative to leave to work so that will push up test numbers.

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