2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2446860 26-Mar-2020 09:39

ben28:
I think that’s the only thing that will make the US start to do the right thing. The realisation that the old ruling political elite are most likely to die from this thing.

No - they're not.

'High end' healthcare in the US is really high end, spare-no-expense stuff.

I was watching the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas - Dan Patrick - give his 'old folk would rather die than damage the US economy' speech, after Trump launched his 'back to work by Easter' plan.

When he said he's willing to risk death to protect the economy for his grandchildren, he really meant 'I'm willing to risk someone else's grandparents to protect the economy for my grandchildren..

Those guys have had their pneumococcal vaccines, they get coronavirus tests when needed, they catch COVID-19 and they'll have the best of care.
No one's going to be rationing the ventilators in their private hospitals..

vexxxboy

4244 posts

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#2446861 26-Mar-2020 09:40

wow it's quiet , it's like 3 am outside , not a sound, havent seen a car in 2 hours and our street is a connection road . Strange times

Common sense is not as common as you think.

gchiu

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#2446862 26-Mar-2020 09:41

So to create beds they've cancelled all elective surgeries, you know, granny's hip replacement she's been waiting for for 6 months. But the nursing skills are also not equivalent. A general surgical or medical nurse doesn't have the training to look after ventilated patients or those very sick onesn which need careful fluid controls, managing arterial lines etc. That's for ICU and hdu trained nurses.

tdgeek

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#2446863 26-Mar-2020 09:43

vexxxboy:

wow it's quiet , it's like 3 am outside , not a sound, havent seen a car in 2 hours and our street is a connection road . Strange times

The Silence of Compliance

gchiu

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#2446864 26-Mar-2020 09:44

And how many ecmo machines do we have? Anyone know? In Hubei they had like 6 ecmo machines per hospital. Do we even have that many in Wellington?

NumPy

132 posts

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#2446865 26-Mar-2020 09:45

vexxxboy:

wow it's quiet , it's like 3 am outside , not a sound, havent seen a car in 2 hours and our street is a connection road . Strange times

Thought I heard gunshots while I was on my call. Did not think too much of it. Heard it again, went to have a nosy from upstairs window. Looks like my neighbour is building a deck and using a nail gun. For a minute I thought I was back in South Africa.

Fred99

13684 posts

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#2446868 26-Mar-2020 09:47

gchiu:

NZ like many countries runs a hospital system that is always at peak capacity. That's why when winter comes the hospitals are full and beds flow into corridors etc. There is no extra capacity to handle a pandemic. I presume it's the way hospitals are funded. You don't have money to run a hospital with empty beds, and staff with little to do except be there there when required. Everyone needs a full time job. It's just health economics.

True. There's a big effort to free up resources though. Another bonus of the lockdown - a paramedic on local rescue helicopter told me yesterday that over his last few shifts he sat at the depot doing nothing because there'd been a drastic reduction in the number of people they'd needed to save from "recreational and driving activities" gone wrong. I hope he has nothing to do today as well.

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Fred99

13684 posts

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#2446871 26-Mar-2020 09:52

gchiu: And how many ecmo machines do we have? Anyone know? In Hubei they had like 6 ecmo machines per hospital. Do we even have that many in Wellington?

Don't think you've got any in Wgtn - IIRC there are 6 in Auckland - and that's it.

Do you know how many Covid patients put on ECMO survived? (I don't - I saw some comments that were suggesting that it wasn't some miracle).

Grunta47

94 posts

Master Geek

#2446874 26-Mar-2020 10:02

Fred99:

Grunta47:

Agree. Do we bankrupt ourselves and cause massive social upheaval to fix a naturally occurring event?

If you were starving, you'd do whatever was needed to save yourself and your loved ones. Famines are "naturally occurring events". You're arguing that we shouldn't bother to do what most of the purpose of all human effort should be - to provide comfort and safety for human beings. It's "too expensive" to enforce building codes to stop buildings from collapsing in natural events like earthquakes - but we do it.

You may appear to have missed the point, as I had a question mark on the end of my comment.

- I never said we should stop helping people, I asked a question.

- an expensive building code is minuscule compared to the cost this is going to have on our economy. To compare the two is taking both ends of the extreme as you just cant compare the two.

gchiu

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#2446881 26-Mar-2020 10:07

So, 6 ECMO machines in NZ all in Auckland as a national service with mobile ECMO to get them to Auckland via fixed wing aircraft.

Survival on ECMO is about 64% with viral pneumonia.

If we were to attempt to flatten the curve we would be needing a few tonnes of medical equipment from China with staff to run them.

Fred99

13684 posts

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#2446882 26-Mar-2020 10:10

Grunta47:

You may appear to have missed the point, as I had a question mark on the end of my comment.

- I never said we should stop helping people, I asked a question.

- an expensive building code is minuscule compared to the cost this is going to have on our economy. To compare the two is taking both ends of the extreme as you just cant compare the two.

Well we're hopefully not going to "bankrupt ourselves".

And there is a very high cost for meeting building codes for earthquakes, yet quakes have only killed a few hundred people in NZ. This pandemic will kill tens of thousands if we don't do what we're doing

kingdragonfly

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#2446884 26-Mar-2020 10:12

I just talked to MSD "Work and Income" about unemployment.

My case worker in Johnsonville, Wellington was very nice.

She cancelled my personal meeting, and arranged for me to email her the relevant documents.

Note the on-line form is VERY long, with lots of detailed question about your past income and spending. I seem to remember it was over 20 pages. I was well prepared, since I keep detailed expenses and income records, but still took about an hour.

You may find the questions intrusive, but the government wants to know you're not committing fraud.

Make sure you know much all your expenses are, by category. Such things like how much is electricity bill, food bill, transport costs, mortgage/rental, child car, ...

Dump your banking statements to your computer, a CSV, and totaling up your various expenses and incomes in Excel is pretty much a requirement.

Once approved, there is no stand-down period.

She made sure I was in a good mental state, and said that looking for employment is going to be hard, but MSD knows it's pretty unlikely given the current situation. She emphasized don't stress, and stay healthy.

All in all a great call.

I sent an application to BNZ:

home loan repayment holiday or ‘interest only’ payments, for up to six months, if your income has been affected by COVID-19.

https://www.bnz.co.nz/contact/covid-19-update/covid19-home-loan-repayment-holiday/

gchiu

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#2446887 26-Mar-2020 10:14

I don't think we are going to bankrupt ourselves. If necessary I presume the Govt could nationalise the banks if they won't play along.

DjShadow

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#2446888 26-Mar-2020 10:18

I just visited our local countdown to get a few things, there was 12 or so person queue outside the front door with security controlling entry. Inside there can't of been more than perhaps 30-50 people.

tdgeek

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#2446899 26-Mar-2020 10:21

gchiu:

I don't think we are going to bankrupt ourselves. If necessary I presume the Govt could nationalise the banks if they won't play along.

The banks are playing ball, thats old news. We are borrowing so thats sorted. The infrastructure spend isnt changing either. Tourism is over for 2020, but if the alerts reduce, that will help keep parts of the economy idling along.

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