2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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

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#2473902 30-Apr-2020 10:34

Technofreak:

sittingduckz:

Unite against Des Gorman... what a bag of misery and doom

Please explain?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328348

New Zealand was ill-prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic and was caught with its pants down, leading academic Professor Des Gorman has told the Epidemic Response Committee.

New Zealand should have closed its borders in mid-February, not the end of March but it didn't have the resources to do so.

"We went into this pandemic profoundly under-prepared and when we should have closed the borders hard, we couldn't."

Clint

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#2473904 30-Apr-2020 10:44

I don't know/care what was or wasn't possible at the time, but it has irked me to hear the claim the borders were 'closed' during the 1pm press conferences. 'Closing the borders' means closed. It doesn't mean "closed for everyone but NZers, who we're asking if they would kindly isolate at home and maybe the police will follow it up/maybe not'', which seems to be how things were run well into Level 4.

I can also recall coming through Customs in early March and the signage was heavily focused on just travelers that had been to China and Italy recently and that was pretty much it.

Technofreak

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#2473905 30-Apr-2020 10:46

vexxxboy:

Technofreak:

Please explain?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328348

Yep, I read that. In my opinion Professor Des Gorman is correct.

To call for people to unite against him is totally inappropriate, if that is what was being suggested.

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On2or3wheels

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#2473951 30-Apr-2020 11:27

Easy to say things like that after the fact, once people have forgotten how chaotic everything was at the time.

Does Professor Des Gorman say what he would have done?

Stop 10's of thousands of New Zealands coming home?
Or find accommodation for 10's of thousands maybe to isolate?
Have a huge number of public health staff on the payroll just waiting for a pandemic?

Technofreak:

Yep, I read that. In my opinion Professor Des Gorman is correct.

To call for people to unite against him is totally inappropriate, if that is what was being suggested.

freitasm

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#2473954 30-Apr-2020 11:30

Coronavirus: Germany’s rate of Covid-19 infections rises after lockdown eased.

The number of people infected with Covid-19 by each carrier had risen from about 0.7 to 0.96 since the country began lifting restrictions on 20 April, said Lothar Wieler, the head of the Robert Koch Institute.

Health officials reported 1,304 new cases in Germany on Wednesday – an increase on the past two days.

However, Professor Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, suggested it was too early to say if there had been a major increase in cases following the relaxation of restrictions.

“Despite suggestions that cases of Covid-19 have started to increase again in Germany following relaxation of its lockdown measures, this does not appear to be the case,” Professor Hunter said, arguing that the rise in cases earlier this week was “almost certainly” due to testing levels dropping over the weekend.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, has urged caution in the easing of the country’s lockdown amid concerns about a second wave of infections.

“Even if we assume that one person infects 1.1 others, we would reach the limits of what our health system and intensive care beds can manage in October,” Ms Merkel said earlier this month.

“If we assume a rate of 1.2... we would reach the health system’s limit in July. And with a rate of 1.3 – it doesn’t sound like much – we would get there in June already.”

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#2473977 30-Apr-2020 12:03

I certainly agree with Professor Des Gorman ( To a point ) , we were not prepared.

For armchair , keyboard warriors like me , wisdom in hindsight is easy.

Since SARS Taiwan, and others in Asia did regular detailed pandemic preparedness evaluations, which we did not thus our low WHO preparedness rating.
Bird Flu, SARS, Swine Flu we have had plenty of near misses and warnings over many years.

However for New Zealand our leaders were more interested in regular healthcare cost saving reports. A la one DHB having to try to repair rotting PPE stocks sitting for 10Y or more.
That horror in Southland where you could not get tests for cancer let alone treatment.
Hamilton DHB miraculous healthcare App , we don't need no money for doctors, nurses and equipment, just ask the patent to buy an IPAD !.

I guess Professor Des Gorman is calling out his own institution Auckland University too ?
What were they concerned with in early Feb ? , keeping borders open !
Very vocal in media these institutions were.

Taiwan shows what we could have been , but that time passed, its a lesson for the future.
Now we just have to deal the best we can with the situation we have.

Fair enough these are lessons to put into what we can do in the future , there will be another one in 5-10Y .

I am grateful our leaders did what they did against tremendous pressure, well resources lobbying .
Went as early as we did , considering how others would have done nothing.

True there was more noise on this forum, around page 20 onward for early Feb, if you like time travelling.

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#2473981 30-Apr-2020 12:21

ezbee:

I certainly agree with Professor Des Gorman ( To a point ) , we were not prepared.

For armchair , keyboard warriors like me , wisdom in hindsight is easy.

Since SARS Taiwan, and others in Asia did regular detailed pandemic preparedness evaluations, which we did not thus our low WHO preparedness rating.
Bird Flu, SARS, Swine Flu we have had plenty of near misses and warnings over many years.

However for New Zealand our leaders were more interested in regular healthcare cost saving reports. A la one DHB having to try to repair rotting PPE stocks sitting for 10Y or more.
That horror in Southland where you could not get tests for cancer let alone treatment.
Hamilton DHB miraculous healthcare App , we don't need no money for doctors, nurses and equipment, just ask the patent to buy an IPAD !.

I guess Professor Des Gorman is calling out his own institution Auckland University too ?
What were they concerned with in early Feb ? , keeping borders open !
Very vocal in media these institutions were.

Taiwan shows what we could have been , but that time passed, its a lesson for the future.
Now we just have to deal the best we can with the situation we have.

Fair enough these are lessons to put into what we can do in the future , there will be another one in 5-10Y .

I am grateful our leaders did what they did against tremendous pressure, well resources lobbying .
Went as early as we did , considering how others would have done nothing.

True there was more noise on this forum, around page 20 onward for early Feb, if you like time travelling.

If NZ was that shockingly poor, how did the rest of the world go?

iamaelephant

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#2473982 30-Apr-2020 12:25

No one is claiming we were the worst or even necessarily worse than any other individual countries. Whataboutism is lazy, come on.

tdgeek

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#2473986 30-Apr-2020 12:36

iamaelephant: No one is claiming we were the worst or even necessarily worse than any other individual countries. Whataboutism is lazy, come on.

You need to stop making things up. To help you, someone has stated that NZ performance with this virus is woeful. I have merely asked how did we line up globally.

The obvious conclusion is that either NZ was woeful by itself or it wasnt, and the latter means that the writer should have stated that the globe was woeful, and asked himself why. If you compare SARS and SARS2 its quite a stretch to expect SARS2 to infect millions in half the time SARS hardly did anything. Hindsight and the accompanying blame game. Its more productive to assess the issue correctly, and prepare if it happens again

Technofreak

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#2474052 30-Apr-2020 13:01

tdgeek:

iamaelephant: No one is claiming we were the worst or even necessarily worse than any other individual countries. Whataboutism is lazy, come on.

You need to stop making things up. To help you, someone has stated that NZ performance with this virus is woeful. I have merely asked how did we line up globally.

The obvious conclusion is that either NZ was woeful by itself or it wasnt, and the latter means that the writer should have stated that the globe was woeful, and asked himself why. If you compare SARS and SARS2 its quite a stretch to expect SARS2 to infect millions in half the time SARS hardly did anything. Hindsight and the accompanying blame game. Its more productive to assess the issue correctly, and prepare if it happens again

New Zealand wasn't woeful by itself, but we had the advantage of relative isolation and our authorities had a warning of what was to come based on what was happening in some overseas countries.

Why did we need to wait 20 days after our first case to close our borders? We could see what was happening elsewhere, why wait for it to occur here?

Why wasn't the army mobilised to build a tent or prefab quarantine area to accommodate returning New Zealanders? This level of capability should be available at very short notice, we are a country which is at risk to significant earthquake, volcanic and cyclone damage where large numbers of the population could end up without proper shelter.

Why did we only encourage self isolation rather than enforce self isolation?

Why did we allow tourists to keep coming into the country for as long as we did? When the flood waters are threatening your house you don't build a half hearted stop bank.

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GV27

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#2474054 30-Apr-2020 13:16

+3 today. Still not great but starting to get a real pit-in-my-stomach feel about Level 3. This weekend could be critical and I have a feeling we're going to see loads of people at beaches and so on, or crowded around fast food outlets. We won't know for two weeks and that's the hardest bit to not think about.

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#2474056 30-Apr-2020 13:20

Technofreak:

New Zealand wasn't woeful by itself, but we had the advantage of relative isolation and our authorities had a warning of what was to come based on what was happening in some overseas countries.

Why did we need to wait 20 days after our first case to close our borders? We could see what was happening elsewhere, why wait for it to occur here?

Why wasn't army mobilised to build a tent or prefab quarantine area to accommodate returning New Zealanders? This level of capability should be available at very short notice, we are a country which is a risk to significant earthquake, volcanic and cyclone damage where large numbers of the population could end up without proper shelter.

Why did we only encourage self isolation rather than enforce self isolation?

Why did we allow tourists to keep coming into the country for as long as we did? When the flood waters are threatening your house you don't build a half hearted stop bank.

The point of my post was that the criticism of NZ being woeful that was made, is not relevant. Its only relevant of NZ was poor while most of the globe was good. The fact is, the world underestimated this virus. Therefore the accurate question is why

Re NZ, did we assess the virus and conclude that obviously it will infect well over 3 million by today? I doubt it. As Covid-19 is SARS2 (I think the official name in nCov-SARS2) I imagine many would be looking at SARS as a guide. Here for 8 months, big in the news. Did not do much at all. That probably didnt help

We had 60 flights day into AKL, thats just AKL. 60 x 200 where do we put 12000 people daily?

GV27

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#2474058 30-Apr-2020 13:24

tdgeek:

We had 60 flights day into AKL, thats just AKL. 60 x 200 where do we put 12000 people daily?

We close airspace when there's terrorist attacks at the drop of a hat.

We should be able to manage an entirely predictable part of a pandemic response as per our pandemic response plan when a pandemic hits.

frankv

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#2474059 30-Apr-2020 13:25

Technofreak:

Why did we allow tourists to keep coming into the country for as long as we did? When the flood waters are threatening your house you don't build a half hearted stop bank.

To extend the floodwaters analogy, it was because we have a waterwheel. You don't turn off what keeps you fed until you have to.

But, you know what, our house wasn't flooded. Our half hearted stop bank has held the flood back (so far). A bit of water in the garage, with some still to be mopped up. But little harm done.

Technofreak

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#2474060 30-Apr-2020 13:28

tdgeek:

The point of my post was that the criticism of NZ being woeful that was made, is not relevant. Its only relevant of NZ was poor while most of the globe was good. The fact is, the world underestimated this virus. Therefore the accurate question is why

Re NZ, did we assess the virus and conclude that obviously it will infect well over 3 million by today? I doubt it. As Covid-19 is SARS2 (I think the official name in nCov-SARS2) I imagine many would be looking at SARS as a guide. Here for 8 months, big in the news. Did not do much at all. That probably didnt help

We had 60 flights day into AKL, thats just AKL. 60 x 200 where do we put 12000 people daily?

There was never a need to accommodate 12,000 per day. That 12,000 you quote is everyone. Closing the borders to all but New Zealander doesn't require accommodating 12,000 per day.

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