2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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

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#2478125 6-May-2020 19:02

Tinkerisk:
👍 Royal moral obligation to be recognized.

While I support the post, should we be disturbed that you're reading a web site whose headline categories include "Kardashians" and "Celeb photos"?

mattwnz

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#2478139 6-May-2020 20:00

shk292:

You seem to always be trying to take this down to a binary decision, when it will never be one. No-one is saying we should forget about the virus, and the health issue will never be "solved". What people are saying is that we may need to revisit where is the best place on the compromise scale between virus eradication and economic activity. This isn't a yes/no question! The govt has (correctly IMHO) been quite far to the eradication side of the scale up to now, and are now trying to work out how we can gradually move towards the economy side. Fortunately for us, they understand this needs to be a graduated process.

Potentially NZ is in a unique situation, due to a more restrictive lockdown to starve the virus, and actually eliminate it from NZs shores. So the NZ health issue in that regard can potentially be solved if it is eliminated, as long as we have restrictions on our border to quarantine people entering it, so the virus can't gain access again. Other very similar virus's like SARS I understand have been virtually eradicated, and that is without a vaccine, although it was less infectious. However it is apparently still in bats, so could resurface again, like COVID 19, as long as these wet markets exist.

Many other countries like Australia are only using suppression, rather than eliminating it down to zero cases, so anything they do in day to day life will need to take into consideration the virus still potentially being out there in the community, and they may need to go in and out of lockdown to control the spread over the next few years, until a vaccine comes along. Many business can't survive that. Not unless they also move to the elimination approach. It won't be until a vaccine comes along, that we will likely be able to open our borders as they once were. The PM did say that opening our borders to other countries is a long way off. There isn't much point in spending billions to eliminate it, only to let the virus back in, via the same route it gained access originally.

I understand other Asian countries like China and Taiwan are trying to move to eliminate it based on how they have handled it and their numbers. I would be far happier for NZ to go into travel bubbles with countries that have proven they have eliminated it from their shores, and have a proper elimination strategy

freitasm

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#2478145 6-May-2020 20:08

neb:
freitasm:

Meanwhile, a doctor in the USA was refused a green card, even though she's working on COVID-19.

That's just their bungling immigration bureaucracy mucking things up again. Not trying to defend them, but it's just a case of never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence.

Definitely not saying it's malicious. 100% incompetence.

dejadeadnz

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#2478342 7-May-2020 00:23

One thing that the Ministry of Health should be absolutely raked over the coals for is how they had handled the compassionate visit and other exceptional circumstances-based applications for family members to spend time with loved ones at hospitals or to break bubbles for exceptional reasons. The Christiansen judicial review case is embarrassing: basically the MoH had been robo-denying (i.e. without fail rejecting every single compassionate visit applications) applicants. This aspect has been widely reported in the media. Far less well-known was the utter lawlessness with which the MoH behaved towards Mr Christiansen.

A 2nd year law student learns that a decision maker that is legally obliged (and the MoH was) to consider the individual circumstances of an applicant and to decide whether or not to exercise a discretion must actually turn their minds to the facts, plus the actual law, and make a real and genuine determination. They never did in the case of Mr Christiansen, who applied to visit his father one last time as he was dying from brain cancer. The MoH had been applying a decision making framework that had nothing to do with the law and behaved as though they had no regard for the law. This is utter lawlessness -- it's not a case of negligence or not knowing what to do. No one can reasonably believe that if you have decision-making powers you can just generally go "Nah nah nah!", refuse to even acknowledge or hear the actual grounds of the person's application, and be seen as faithfully discharging their duties. Link to court decision.

Paragraphs 41, 46, and 48 do not make for pretty reading.

Bloomfield's explanations for this utterly disgraceful behaviour by his department has been unconvincing. He should be forced to personally apologise to the applicant for having to hire a QC to vindicate his rights. I've been reasonably supportive of the MOH but this behaviour should be intolerable to anybody who believes in the rule of law - the bureaucrats involved in Mr Christiansen's case need to be fired.

Tinkerisk

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#2478343 7-May-2020 00:25

neb:
Tinkerisk:

👍 Royal moral obligation to be recognized.

While I support the post, should we be disturbed that you're reading a web site whose headline categories include "Kardashians" and "Celeb photos"?

I didn't read the other stuff, do you? The more serious alternatives were in German and I suppose ... ;-)

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dejadeadnz

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#2478350 7-May-2020 01:02

Boy, wouldn't you love a boss like this when your job is gone partly because of an unprecedented crisis?

So called top winery restaurant closes partly because of COVID-19

After making 15 people's jobs redundant, here's what those people's soon-to-be former boss had to say:

Converting [the restaurant to a private events space] was "something we always considered for the future, but [the pandemic] has definitely made us make the decision now," Donaldson said.

The restaurant had been running at a financial loss and was operating as a promotional tool.

The closure was "not a negative thing to us," (my emphasis) said Donaldson, who is married to one of the four sons of the winery's founders, although it had been "a very emotional time".

"I have always prided myself on bringing together a wonderful team of staff and I consider myself a very nuturing boss," Donaldson said. "Making my team redundant was very tough and heartbreaking."

Yeah Belinda, I am sure they believe you were heartbroken after you just gloated to a newspaper about how excited you were to convert the restaurant to another thing, how you'd always considered this move, and how despite being a really nurturing boss, you just saw the restaurant as a promotional tool and knew that their jobs were always at risk. Not douchey at all. Look, this probably passes the legal muster for a redundancy but it's a classic scenario where just keeping one's big trap shut is the decent thing to do.

dejadeadnz

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#2478468 7-May-2020 10:31

It disgusts me to even think this but I might have to agree with Mike Hosking for the one and only time in my life. He called out Bloomfield and his bureaucrats for being heartless re: the Christiansen case and if the experiences of some of the people in this article are to go back, Hosking is likely right on the mark. In my eyes it's now clear as daylight that the MoH are just robo-denying requests for exemption or urgent treatment requests (the latter has been relayed to me by my wife, a hospital specialist with personal experience of this. She's considering going to the Ombudsman) because they are simply unwilling to turn their minds to the issues. We are now weeks into a lockdown and there's no excuse for these things to continue.

I heard Bloomfield say that he and his team are going to talk about these latest revelations. Let's just hope it's not the same bunch of clowns that he told to re-consider Mr Christiansen's request the third time who went on to robo-deny him.

Heads need to roll.

Edit: clarified my thoughts a bit.

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Rikkitic

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#2478475 7-May-2020 10:49

Did he not say yesterday that all such decisions were being reviewed? What, if anything, is happening about that?

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

dejadeadnz

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#2478476 7-May-2020 10:58

Don't hold your breath would be my suggestion. For a review to be meaningful (bowing to the inevitable and eventually granting some of the no doubt deserving ones barely rights the wrong), some of the bureaucrats involved actually have to be able to read, have some basic integrity (e.g. being willing to follow the laws of the land), and can get themselves organised. Very little signs of any of these things in relation to the exceptions-based applications.

Fred99

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#2478480 7-May-2020 11:03

dejadeadnz:

The closure was "not a negative thing to us," (my emphasis) said Donaldson, who is married to one of the four sons of the winery's founders, although it had been "a very emotional time".

I read that and shuddered (I knew her FIL / founder of the winery). This may be a lesson in why people should be very guarded / careful when talking to the media. It may have been quoted verbatim, but in context I'll be generous and assume it probably meant it's not going to have a negative impact on the continuation of the entire business (thus the future of the other workers), as the restaurant had been losing money.

The bigger issue perhaps is around a systemic economic problem for which there's no easy solution, and off-topic in this thread.

dejadeadnz

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#2478516 7-May-2020 11:12

Fred99:

I read that and shuddered (I knew her FIL / founder of the winery). This may be a lesson in why people should be very guarded / careful when talking to the media. It may have been quoted verbatim, but in context I'll be generous and assume it probably meant it's not going to have a negative impact on the continuation of the entire business (thus the future of the other workers), as the restaurant had been losing money.

I suspect that was the intention but it's still pretty tasteless in the context of those poor people losing their job. Her overall tone was also just.... way off. Over-egging all the "I am a lovely person and we are all heartbroken" stuff just smacks of a lack of perspective and overall insensitivity.

itxtme

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#2478522 7-May-2020 11:23

dejadeadnz:

I suspect that was the intention but it's still pretty tasteless in the context of those poor people losing their job. Her overall tone was also just.... way off. Over-egging all the "I am a lovely person and we are all heartbroken" stuff just smacks of a lack of perspective and overall insensitivity.

Come on man, you surely know how newspapers work. The quote is pulled from a larger area of conversation that is not mentioned. Do you think she just randomly made that statement? There was context that the journalist hasn't included.

dejadeadnz

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#2478528 7-May-2020 11:33

We are getting off-topic but if you don't serve up tasteless lines, there won't be anything for the newspaper to quote.

dejadeadnz

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#2478574 7-May-2020 13:05

Apparently Air NZ has some kind of unwritten exemption from social distancing rules

There's already been allegations that social distancing is non-existent on Air NZ flights and there's been more. IMO, it's not good enough for Air NZ to give some generalised comment saying that they are adhering to guidelines. Where's the MoH guidelines that says social distancing doesn't have to be followed when Air NZ chooses to pack flights to over 90% full to maximise the profits of the flight? See:

On international flights, the airline is “endeavouring to provide neighbour-free seating where we can, being mindful with the limited international schedule [that] there can be high demand for travel on some services with customers urgently needing to return home.”

You can of course charge more for these seats. But of course that may create affordability issues. My underlying point is that the existing Health and Safety at Work Act regime is clear: PCBUs have a duty to reduce HS risks to the public, their employees, and so forth so far as it is reasonably practicable. It's really not clear to me that they are doing this in the absence of using spacing seats out/charging more on some of the international flights and/or mandating the use of masks.

If we as a society want to have public policies/law that favour aviation and economic outcomes, that's (procedurally) fine. But it's up to parliament to do this. Personally, this is just reinforcing my view that it's unwise to travel by air in the near to medium term.

freitasm

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#2478576 7-May-2020 13:09

One new case, no new deaths.

Interesting commenting about reviewing requests for people to be with relatives who are in critical situation.

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