2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2461600 15-Apr-2020 08:23

Batman:
Tinkerisk:

Doesn't sound good to me ... https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52275823

Isn't that the same with the US?

Yes - I think it's true in many places.

France was doing the same - but started including Covid deaths in rest homes in early April - there was a large increase in reported daily deaths once they started doing that.

Limited capacity for PCR testing in UK, USA etc means they aren't doing tests post-mortem, if there was a co-morbidity then they put that down as cause of death or just "pneumonia".

There will never be an accurate tally of Covid-18 deaths. The best indication will be the tally of increased overall deaths over seasonal average.

nzkiwiman

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#2461601 15-Apr-2020 08:24

nzkiwiman:

It is probably linked in this thread already; but only allowing those who have respiratory issues to get tested for COVID-19 rather than those with any of the symptoms (like not being able to smell) seems to be a bit of an issue, especially when you have new cases in clutters that should have been well contained based on the original date of report.

Found this in the ODT:

From yesterday, "suspect case definition" was changed and now any acute respiratory infection with at least one of the following symptoms: cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, head cold (runny nose, sneezing, post-nasal drip) or loss of sense of smell with or without fever should be tested.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/aged-care-facilities-focus-deaths-rise

Not quite as bad as I thought it was, but considering you need to have breathing issues to get tested when there are people out there with basically no symptoms, who knows how many people out there are have the virus and don't know it or have one of the symptoms but not breathing issues, so can't get tested.

On another related topic ... does anyone know what a pack of 50 masks would normally sell for in New Zealand before mass purchasing?
I am trying to decide if paying $60-80 for 50 disposable masks on Trademe is "smart"; I know that there is almost no benefit of having a mask if you don't have any issues - they don't do anything to stop the nasties getting in - and a mask is really to stop you from spreading any nasties you may have ... but I am thinking I still want to start wearing one when/if we get down to Level 2/3 and more people are about ...

tdgeek

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#2461602 15-Apr-2020 08:25

DS248:

tdgeek: ... I would assume that our cluster sizes are much higher than elsewhere, per capita. But if you have a low base to begin with, a cluster of 87 is very large. So it makes your %'s non comparable.

Apologies for the delayed reply. My highlighting (bold)

It would help though if you checked facts first rather than just assume/speculate then draw conclusions based on speculation ("... makes your %'s non comparable").

As at 5:30 pm 14 April NZ has 15 'significant' clusters (10+ cases), the largest Marist College (now 93 cases = 18.7 pm). The total for all 15 clusters is 498 cases (100 pm).
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases/covid-19-significant-clusters

As at 13 Apr, Singapore (5.84 m population vs our 4.97 m) had one cluster of 586 confirmed cases (100 pm), another with 157 cases (26.9 pm), and two others with 84 & 83 cases respectively (as well as multiple smaller clusters).
https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/26-more-cases-discharged-386-new-cases-of-covid-19-infection-confirmed

In Australia, more than 700 passengers (>27.6 pm) from the Ruby Princess ship have tested positive for COVID-19 (& 18 deaths). That is ~11% of total cases in Australia (around 1200 cases in Australia are cruise ship related). The 700 figure does not include around 900 passengers from other countries who left Australia or cases among the 1000 crew still on the ship (currently anchored in Australia). Nor from what I can gather, people subsequently infected in Australia by passengers from the ship. The Ruby Princess cluster in Australia is significantly bigger than the Marist College cluster, per capita or otherwise. Moreover, the total number of cases per capita is lower in Australia (250) than in NZ (275).
https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-ruby-princess-two-more-passengers-die/77402b59-bdf7-4c13-b4db-b7834b4a36b0

And one last example, South Korea. As of April 14, 5,211 cases (101 pm) were related to Shincheonji Church, accounting for over 49% of cases there (so five times the Marist cluster on a per capita basis). Cluster cases make up over 81% of the South Korean total. Data as published on April 14. And yes, the total number of cases per capita in South Korea (205) is lower than in NZ (275).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1103080/south-korea-covid-19-cases-related-to-shincheonji-church/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1100121/south-korea-coronavirus-cases-by-exposure-location/

From the above our cluster sizes are far from being "much higher than elsewhere", per capita or otherwise. And in two of the three examples given, the total cases per capita is less than in NZ, so the 'low base' argument does not stand either.

pm = per million population

Edit: removed repeated comment

Thanks for the detail, appreciated. What I meant, via poor gramma, was that per capita, we have a larger number of clusters. We have 480 odd of the 1300 odd cases are from 15 clusters. That seems really high. If you look at a country where COVID-19 has run rampant, no doubt there are many clusters but you'd expect most of it is CT. We appear to have very low CT, which means our lockdown is giving us a level of control, but our numbers are inflated by so many clusters, or more to the point, that our few cluster cases are a significant proportion of our total cases. Over one third are from potentially avoidable clusters. The other 4.7 million of us have produced less than double the cases than clusters.

Maybe Im barking up the wrong tree. We imported all our cases, as all countries have. A portion of our cases are second and third generation infections, from travellers. Ok thats what a virus does. If you take our 1300 cases, remove the infections we imported, remove the clusters that were avoidable, you would seem to get a low number left, which is natural, internal spread. I.e. what the imported infections spread once the travellers arrived here.

Fred99

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#2461604 15-Apr-2020 08:36

nzkiwiman:

Found this in the ODT:

From yesterday, "suspect case definition" was changed and now any acute respiratory infection with at least one of the following symptoms: cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, head cold (runny nose, sneezing, post-nasal drip) or loss of sense of smell with or without fever should be tested.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/aged-care-facilities-focus-deaths-rise

Not quite as bad as I thought it was, but considering you need to have breathing issues to get tested when there are people out there with basically no symptoms, who knows how many people out there are have the virus and don't know it or have one of the symptoms but not breathing issues, so can't get tested.

Bold selection to show that what you conclude from what was written isn't correct. OTOH I don't like how they used "any acute respiratory infection with..." as it's easy to read that the wrong way.

pulsta

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#2461608 15-Apr-2020 08:42

nzkiwiman:

On another related topic ... does anyone know what a pack of 50 masks would normally sell for in New Zealand before mass purchasing?
I am trying to decide if paying $60-80 for 50 disposable masks on Trademe is "smart"; I know that there is almost no benefit of having a mask if you don't have any issues - they don't do anything to stop the nasties getting in - and a mask is really to stop you from spreading any nasties you may have ... but I am thinking I still want to start wearing one when/if we get down to Level 2/3 and more people are about ...

I bought mine from here for $75 + shipping a couple of weeks ago for 'piece of mind' so if you can find them for cheaper I'd say go for it.

tdgeek

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#2461611 15-Apr-2020 08:48

mattwnz:

Also Australia shouldn't be looked at as an example. They have a far higher proportion of people hospitalised than NZ. This could indicate that they have a lot of cases that haven't been detected in the community. Especially as they had community transmission well before NZ.The problem NZ has is that our contact tracing has been manual and it is very slow. They also aren't looking at getting an app developed for it until mid may, which in terms of this virus, is a long way off.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/04/coronavirus-simon-bridges-urges-government-to-lift-lockdown-next-week-take-australian-approach.html

Simon Bridges wants us out of lockdown, everyone back to work. This is based on Australia. Notwithstanding the select committee he chairs has been heavily focussed on the economy. IMO that will allow CT a free reign.

Fred99

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#2461614 15-Apr-2020 08:57

tdgeek:

The other 4.7 million of us have produced less than double the cases than clusters.

In my opinion, so far NZ cases located via contact tracing and low numbers of CT cases refutes the widely spread hypothesis that with covid outbreaks there are a very large number of asymptomatic cases.

If it was true, then we'd be getting CT cases popping up all over the place by now.

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leaplae

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#2461619 15-Apr-2020 09:06

nzkiwiman:

nzkiwiman:

It is probably linked in this thread already; but only allowing those who have respiratory issues to get tested for COVID-19 rather than those with any of the symptoms (like not being able to smell) seems to be a bit of an issue, especially when you have new cases in clutters that should have been well contained based on the original date of report.

Found this in the ODT:

From yesterday, "suspect case definition" was changed and now any acute respiratory infection with at least one of the following symptoms: cough, sore throat, shortness of breath, head cold (runny nose, sneezing, post-nasal drip) or loss of sense of smell with or without fever should be tested.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/aged-care-facilities-focus-deaths-rise

Not quite as bad as I thought it was, but considering you need to have breathing issues to get tested when there are people out there with basically no symptoms, who knows how many people out there are have the virus and don't know it or have one of the symptoms but not breathing issues, so can't get tested.

On another related topic ... does anyone know what a pack of 50 masks would normally sell for in New Zealand before mass purchasing?
I am trying to decide if paying $60-80 for 50 disposable masks on Trademe is "smart"; I know that there is almost no benefit of having a mask if you don't have any issues - they don't do anything to stop the nasties getting in - and a mask is really to stop you from spreading any nasties you may have ... but I am thinking I still want to start wearing one when/if we get down to Level 2/3 and more people are about ...

I paid around $12 - $13 for a box of 50 in Jan from a NZ supplier before restrictions were announced.

tdgeek

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#2461621 15-Apr-2020 09:07

Fred99:

tdgeek:

The other 4.7 million of us have produced less than double the cases than clusters.

In my opinion, so far NZ cases located via contact tracing and low numbers of CT cases refutes the widely spread hypothesis that with covid outbreaks there are a very large number of asymptomatic cases.

If it was true, then we'd be getting CT cases popping up all over the place by now.

100%. We have 2% CT and a few unknowns that may be CT. It seems that the virus can spread relatively easily, looking at what happened in the 15 clusters. The other 4.7 million of us include maybe one million grocery shoppers, and some flouter gatherings. But we dont see an effect from that.

freitasm

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#2461631 15-Apr-2020 09:20

"New York City’s coronavirus death toll soared past 10,000 after officials added more than 3,700 people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it."

dejadeadnz

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#2461642 15-Apr-2020 09:27

MadEngineer:

This is fxd up, yo https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/04/14/1127726/contrarian-academics-oppose-nz-lockdown

Let those that are going to die anyway within the 12 months suffer a death akin to waterboarding?

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Unlike the initial Stuff article, Newsroom has done a very good job of marshaling views contrary to Thornley's and he's been absolutely destroyed. His most obvious problem is that whenever there's a series of data/data points that undermine his argument, he just leaps to an outlier or thing that supports his worldview. That's cherrypicking and desperation par excellence. The only thing he's succeeded in doing is turning himself into one of the greatest laughing stock of this country.

But I still don't know why anyone should listen to a professor of law in this context.

Rikkitic

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#2461655 15-Apr-2020 09:55

MadEngineer:

This is fxd up, yo https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/04/14/1127726/contrarian-academics-oppose-nz-lockdown

Let those that are going to die anyway within the 12 months suffer a death akin to waterboarding?

I am elderly and vulnerable, but otherwise relatively healthy and self-sufficient. If I need something (done), I am perfectly capable of doing it for myself. Yet this kind of thinking basically condemns me to spending the rest of my life in lockdown. That sucks and people who think that is a good idea suck. The economy matters, but people matter more.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

frankv

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#2461656 15-Apr-2020 09:58

Fred99:
There will never be an accurate tally of Covid-18 deaths. The best indication will be the tally of increased overall deaths over seasonal average.

Depending on what you mean by a covid-19 death, I don't think that will give you an accurate answer. In Europe where hospitals and ICUs have been swamped, death rates from non-covid-19 causes have increased to about match the covid-19 death rate. I assume that's because the hospitals and ICUs are full of covid-19 cases, so accident and other disease victims are unable to get optimal treatment.

Is a car crash victim who dies because he can't get an operation because the ICU is full of covid-19 patients also a covid-19 victim? He is, in he sense that he wouldn't have died if there was no covid-19 outbreak, but he isn't in the sense that he never had the disease himself.

dejadeadnz

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#2461657 15-Apr-2020 10:04

Rikkitic:

The economy matters, but people matter more.

It will be easy for people like Thornley and his supporters to superficially dismiss this type of statement because we do actually take economic considerations/cost and benefit considerations into account in making social policy. Every society has to unless money somehow drops from trees. The problem with his idea is that it likely costs more, disregard "hidden" costs like the psychological and economic impact of yoyo-ing between different levels of lockdown, and undoes much of the sacrifice already made.

Sideface

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#2461696 15-Apr-2020 10:42

BBC News - Trump halts funding to WHO

breaking

"I am directing my administration to halt funding while a review is conducted to access the World Health Organisation's role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus," says Trump.

"The WHO failed in its basic duty and it must be held accountable" ... "So much death has been caused by their mistakes," he says.

Deny. Discredit. Deflect.

Sideface

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