2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2465691 19-Apr-2020 20:16

mattwnz:

Three boys aged under 1-year-old have now caught the virus in New Zealand, including two infants in the country's far south and one in the Waikato.

That's interesting. I'd heard earlier of a few rare cases of infants catching it. To have 3 detected in NZ seems high.

frednz

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#2465692 19-Apr-2020 20:21

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12325916

The above article is titled:

Covid 19 coronavirus: Winston Peters - 'No value in saving people if greater social damage caused'

From the above:

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says there is "no value" in trying to save people who have coronavirus if it means greater social damage is caused.

We need to save our economy as fast as we can before further damage is caused, Peters told Newstalk ZB's The Weekend Collective.

"The secret is that we keep a sense of balance," Peters said.

"In other words it would be of no value if we save a lot of Covid people in our approach - and yet during it we've got all sorts of things like depression, suicide, breakdowns and a whole lot of other social things having far greater social damage.

"In the end the only thing that's going to save lives, isn't just medical expertise - but an economy that's capable of providing the utilities to face the crisis."

Peters also said that Level 3 means 500,000 more people can go back to work, so it looks like we won't be staying at Level 4 for much longer.

Fred99

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#2465696 19-Apr-2020 20:29

frednz:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12325916

The above article is titled:

Covid 19 coronavirus: Winston Peters

He should leave discussion with the media on the subject to people who understand what's going on.

"Elimination" is still a stated goal - and if our experts reach a conclusion that failed and "containment" is the only viable option, then it's not up to him to announce it. WP is a dickhead - and he's waaay out of line with that. He should stick to horse racing, his area of expertise, apparently.

(Apologies for political content - but when idiots like him undermine the work that being done - he's undermining our public health system and dictating what our futures should be).

frankv

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#2465697 19-Apr-2020 20:30

mattwnz: Looks like what they are talking about is going down the herd immunity route and flattening the curve, and not actually eliminating it. I don't think there has ever been any suggestion of level 4 being 6 months, the PM has never indicated that. But if we eliminate it, then potentially we can return to a normal domestic economy alot sooner. . I understand a lot of the modeling hasn't been based on actually eliminating it from NZ, but just flattening the curve.

Herd immunity, in the absence of a vaccine, is not an option. Firstly, it's not clear whether you get immunity if you recover from covid-19. Even assuming 100% immunity on recovery, herd immunity implies tens of thousands of deaths. If we need 40% of the population immune to achieve herd immunity, that means 4.8M * 40% = 1.92M infections. At a best case fatality rate in the region of 1%, that's about 20,000 deaths.

Flattening the curve is about reducing fatality rates from 10% (hospitals overwhelmed) down to 5% (run out of ICU beds and ventilators) down to about 1% (best case... health system copes) by controlling infection rates. It still means about 20,000 deaths best case. However, this doesn't include deaths of people from other causes due to lack of ICUs, etc. In Lombardy, this was about the same number as covid-19 deaths. And it doesn't include the loss of life quality for people who can't get elective surgery and other hospital treatment due to the hospitals all being geared towards dealing with covid-19. Controlling infection rates may mean continual population controls such as intermittent level 4 lockdowns for years. If individual immunity following an infection is limited or not universal, then you could expect that to go on forever.

So elimination is the only show in town. Ongoing border controls will be necessary until the rest of the world also eliminates it.

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#2465699 19-Apr-2020 20:33

Tinkerisk:

Discussion is all well and good, but at some point decisions are made that do not end well for everyone. What I'm saying is that you can't turn the wheel back. When the health system runs full, it runs full and stays there for a while before it can return to normal. I am concerned that you have just half as many ICUs for all of NZ as we have for our city alone. Our government has decided to make the reliefs dependent on the number of inpatients on the ICUs and to close them (the reliefs) immediately if capacities decrease too much. This is only intended to be an indication with a request to weigh this up very carefully. Tomorrow we have the first, small step too and we will wait 14 days to see whether these measures settle down safely.

Herzlichen Glückwunsch Deutschland

itxtme

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#2465701 19-Apr-2020 20:54

Fred99:

frednz:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12325916

The above article is titled:

Covid 19 coronavirus: Winston Peters

He should leave discussion with the media on the subject to people who understand what's going on.

"Elimination" is still a stated goal - and if our experts reach a conclusion that failed and "containment" is the only viable option, then it's not up to him to announce it. WP is a dickhead - and he's waaay out of line with that. He should stick to horse racing, his area of expertise, apparently.

(Apologies for political content - but when idiots like him undermine the work that being done - he's undermining our public health system and dictating what our futures should be).

I think he has more of a point than you realise. There is a tipping point in which more death (remember that number is 12 currently) and harm will occur from a continued chase of a goal that is already achievable under lower level controls. Remember that elimination can occur in any control level as long as the reproduction level of the virus is below 1. The key is effective tracing, and ability to cut off areas where spread crops up.

Things we are likely to see with continued level 4 lockdowns more than already would include

Increased suicides (Financial & Mental health based)
Increased poverty due to unemployment
More inequality including erosion of gains made in the recent past

If we can keep the reproduction below 1, then we absolutely should move out of level as quickly as possible.

GV27

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#2465705 19-Apr-2020 21:00

Fred99:

He should stick to horse racing, his area of expertise, apparently.

He is the Deputy Prime Minister. I consider him well enough placed to make statements about the trade-offs involved in opening up the economy.

If you just a purely technocratic point of view, the Prime Minister has a communications degree and is totally unqualified to make any decisions around epidemiology whatsoever.

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Fred99

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#2465708 19-Apr-2020 21:06

itxtme:

I think he has more of a point than you realise.

Rubbish - he's repeating some right-wing / populist "talking points" to gain attention for himself. Current polls have him as being irrelevant in future government.

Don't presume to know what "I realise", please.

If you want to continue on his politics - please take it to the other forum.

If you want to talk about Winston's expertise on epidemiology and C-19 in NZ, there's nothing to talk about.

frankv

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#2465709 19-Apr-2020 21:07

Tinkerisk:

Discussion is all well and good, but at some point decisions are made that do not end well for everyone. What I'm saying is that you can't turn the wheel back. When the health system runs full, it runs full and stays there for a while before it can return to normal. I am concerned that you have just half as many ICUs for all of NZ as we have for our city alone.

In flying, we have a saying: "A superior pilot uses his superior decision making skills to avoid having to use his superior flying skills".

In the same way, I am hoping that New Zealand has used its superior decision making to avoid having to use its inferior supply of ICUs. So far, so good... we are a long way from our ICUs being swamped, and indeed have only had a handful of covid-19 cases go to ICU, and numbers of infections appear to be falling fast. So ICU numbers are no longer a concern for us. I think we are doing rather well. The economic cost of this strategy has yet to be paid, but I am still confident.

Fred99

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#2465712 19-Apr-2020 21:14

GV27:

Fred99:

He should stick to horse racing, his area of expertise, apparently.

He is the Deputy Prime Minister. I consider him well enough placed to make statements about the trade-offs involved in opening up the economy.

If you just a purely technocratic point of view, the Prime Minister has a communications degree and is totally unqualified to make any decisions around epidemiology whatsoever.

The PM is NOT making decisions and making statements "as an expert" on her own - she has extremely competent expert advice.

Please take this discussion to the politics forum if you want to carry on. This kind of crap doesn't belong here.

frankv

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#2465716 19-Apr-2020 21:16

frednz:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12325916

The above article is titled:

Covid 19 coronavirus: Winston Peters

I wonder if he's thought through the fact that his own supporters are the very people who he is proposing to sacrifice? After all, increasing age means an increasing mortality risk.

Tinkerisk

4224 posts

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#2465719 19-Apr-2020 21:22

Batman: Herzlichen Glückwunsch Deutschland

No, congratulations NZ you have the very unique chance to eradicate it.

Please make your choice:

1) Severe recession and high death toll.

2) Severe recession and saved lives.

Getting around a GLOBAL recession is wishful thinking.

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itxtme

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#2465722 19-Apr-2020 21:23

Fred99:

Don't presume to know what "I realise", please.

Then feel free to discuss what I talked about in my post rather than ignoring it. There is 0 political content, just cold hard facts about what lockdown does to our economy and society, and the correlation those things also have with mortality and morbidity (not just health morbidity either).

Tinkerisk

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#2465724 19-Apr-2020 21:27

frankv: In flying, we have a saying: "A superior pilot uses his superior decision making skills to avoid having to use his superior flying skills".

5P - Proper Preflight Preparation Prevents Poor Performance - thanks, I'm a pilot as well ;-)

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#2465740 19-Apr-2020 21:41

Early action: "How a Reddit-like forum helped Taiwan prepare early for Covid-19"

Un the early hours of December 31st, Luo Yi-jun couldn’t sleep. So he browsed Taiwan’s Reddit-like forum, PTT.

As deputy director for Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control, one post under the “Gossiping” category caught his eye: Word of an unknown disease causing pneumonia in Wuhan, China. The post included screenshots of a notice from Wuhan health authorities. One poster even asked if this was the second coming of Sars.

Luo fired off an email to his colleagues. That turned out to be Taiwan’s first warning about the disease that would turn into a global pandemic just a few months later: Covid-19.

The story was recounted by Chuang Jen-hsiang, spokesman for the CDC’s epidemic response command center, in an article from Taiwan’s Central News Agency on Thursday.

Less than a day after Luo’s email, Taiwan was already rolling out epidemic prevention measures. Border quarantine policies and screenings were implemented, and the government started communicating with the World Health Organization and mainland China epidemic authorities.

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