2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2478863 7-May-2020 18:49

mattwnz:

I think part of the problem is we don't know enough detail, because not enough detail has been provided. Reporters have to work hard to exact any details during the press conferences. It sounded like seagulls on a beach today in that media conference, with them all calling out questions at the same time, trying to be heard.

If we had 12 cases every day and we are told all are locked away, none of them has been interacting in society physically, Id be feeling highly confident for L2, as these cases are effectively zero cases. OR, we get 1 every 3 days, and we hear that each one has spent x days in society, physically when infectious. Thats a different story. Bit all i know is we got 0 or 1 or 3 cases, thats all I know. All I can do is assume there are bugger all out there.

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#2478877 7-May-2020 19:32

tdgeek:

If we had 12 cases every day and we are told all are locked away, none of them has been interacting in society physically, Id be feeling highly confident for L2, as these cases are effectively zero cases. OR, we get 1 every 3 days, and we hear that each one has spent x days in society, physically when infectious. Thats a different story. Bit all i know is we got 0 or 1 or 3 cases, thats all I know. All I can do is assume there are bugger all out there.

My fear is repeating history again, especially as a lot of level 2 restrictions were actually in place before the lockdown, when it was spreading out of control. The PM did say today that it was very likely that they haven't found every single case in NZ. We have at great cost allowed the country to get close to eliminate the virus, which is the best and fastest way for NZ to get back to a normal domestic economy again. So we have effectively rolled back time, to when we only had a handful of cases. Our approach. unlike Australia or most other countries, was not just 'suppression' to get numbers down and our economy to remain restricted for 6 months or more. Our approach was go early and hard to eliminate it, to then get back to a normal domestic economy quickly once that had been achieved, while stamping out any rouge cases that may appear.

We were assured early on that people coming into NZ from many countries excluding a few like China, parts of Italy and Iran, that people coming into NZ were unlikely to have the virus, so most weren't initially required to self isolate, when some of those do appear to have brought the virus in. Later we required incoming people to self isolate rather than quarantine, and we were told that people would comply, but many people flouted this and didn't bother. There were so many leaks occurring prior to lockdown. Theoretically if people had done things correctly from the beginning, then the virus should never have been able to spread to begin with in NZ. But the fact is we can't trust that everyone will follow the rules when they have been given this trust, which is where the leaks occur.

The main differences now is that we aren't likely to be importing new cases, they are quarantined for 14 days. Our contact tracing is apparently now up to a gold standard although we aren't using an app. We are also doing more testing, including testing people who previously wouldn't have been tested because they didn't qualify for a test, but were later shown to have the virus. I just hope we don't get back into the double digit number of cases in a few weeks after the level is relaxed.

frankv

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#2478960 7-May-2020 21:55

dejadeadnz:
mattwnz: Looks like our travel bubble with Australia could also include China, Japan and other Asian countries joining the bubble. Didn't think it be long before other countries would be suggested by Australia, because NZ is too small a market for them IMO to provide much help to their tourism sector

STUFF. THAT.

x22324567678989

That's just not a meaningful bubble in any sense.

For the purposes of SARS containment, we have been in a bubble with all of those countries (and many more) and it's working rather well. Because all of those countries have eliminated SARS.

So, when another country has eliminated covid-19, there is no reason not to allow them to join our bubble, PROVIDED THAT we're sure that they have in fact eliminated it, and have satisfactory mechanisms to prevent reintroduction.

No country is yet in that position, but a few are a lot closer than us.

dejadeadnz

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#2478962 7-May-2020 22:00

frankv:
For the purposes of SARS containment, we have been in a bubble with all of those countries (and many more) and it's working rather well. Because all of those countries have eliminated SARS.

So, when another country has eliminated covid-19, there is no reason not to allow them to join our bubble, PROVIDED THAT we're sure that they have in fact eliminated it, and have satisfactory mechanisms to prevent reintroduction.

No country is yet in that position, but a few are a lot closer than us.

Sign me up for trusting China's word on COVID-19. Not.

frankv

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#2478964 7-May-2020 22:03

dejadeadnz:
frankv:
For the purposes of SARS containment, we have been in a bubble with all of those countries (and many more) and it's working rather well. Because all of those countries have eliminated SARS.

So, when another country has eliminated covid-19, there is no reason not to allow them to join our bubble, PROVIDED THAT we're sure that they have in fact eliminated it, and have satisfactory mechanisms to prevent reintroduction.

No country is yet in that position, but a few are a lot closer than us.

Sign me up for trusting China's word on COVID-19. Not.

I didn't say that we should trust China's word. I said that we have to be sure. Whatever that takes. No certainty means enforced quarantine at the border.

mattwnz

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#2478989 8-May-2020 00:04

I understand the WHO can certify whether a country has eliminated the virus. I would be happy to join a bubble with any country that has this assurance that the virus has been eliminated.

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#2479025 8-May-2020 08:25

mattwnz: I understand the WHO can certify whether a country has eliminated the virus. I would be happy to join a bubble with any country that has this assurance that the virus has been eliminated.

The problem is if this other country can have direct flights to New Zealand or not. Wouldn't want long haul flights that need to stop at certain countries and switch crew at a base there.

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frednz

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#2479027 8-May-2020 08:32

mattwnz: I understand the WHO can certify whether a country has eliminated the virus. I would be happy to join a bubble with any country that has this assurance that the virus has been eliminated.

Just a reminder that the term "elimination" has a different meaning to epidemiologists than it does to most other people. Elimination doesn't mean "zero cases" as the PM explained recently:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/415322/jargon-to-blame-for-confusion-over-covid-19-elimination-pm

Elimination is by no means eradication and the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said this is a situation of entering into the world of epidemioligist-speak.

"And they know well what each of these terms mean in a health sense, but of course in an every day sense they mean, often, something different.

"Elimination doesn't mean zero cases... we will have to keep stamping Covid out until there's a vaccine,'' she said.

Dr Siouxsie Wiles on "Breakfast" this morning again cautioned against moving down to Level 2 too quickly.

The balancing act between going to Level 2 and staying at Level 3 is incredibly difficult. But, the longer we stay at Level 3, the greater the economic cost etc, which raises the question of just how many days of continuous zero (or near zero) new cases is regarded as sensible before we move out of Level 3? After all, as mentioned above, until there's a vaccine, we have to live with the risk that there will most likely be some active covid-19 cases in the community.

tdgeek

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#2479171 8-May-2020 11:29

Interesting laymans article on mutations

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300007888/the-new-zealand-strains-how-coronavirus-got-here-and-what-are-its-mutations

Fred99

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#2479255 8-May-2020 14:03

The radiology department in a hospital in France has reviewed CT scans going back to last year and found several cases atypical pneumonia with "ground glass" opacity indicative of C-19 as early as November last year. I'm assuming they had a retained sample from one of the patients taken on 2 December, this has now tested positive for C-19 (PCR test). The atypical pneumonia cases had been reported a few days ago.

They're presently trying to contact the patients and to find out travel history and to conduct serology tests as confirmation they been infected.

Coincidentally the region where this infection was found is one of the most severely impacted in France.

Subject to the results and travel history of the patients, the assumed origin of the disease in or around the Wuhan markets may be wrong.

nzkiwiman

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#2479274 8-May-2020 15:04

I haven't been able to catch up with every "deep dive" or most news since reading how Alert Level 2 will look like but one of the other concerns I have is that we are going from zero public gatherings to 100 indoor/outdoor is ok under Level 2.

Seems we should be going from zero to 5 .. 10 .. 15 etc before jumping all the way from zero to 100.

surfisup1000

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#2479276 8-May-2020 15:08

mattwnz:

Our contact tracing is apparently now up to a gold standard

I've heard otherwise.

dejadeadnz

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#2479279 8-May-2020 15:15

Lawless bureaucrats behaving lawlessly and causing unnecessary suffering, episode [I have lost count]:

WINZ unlawfully taking into account person's redundancy payment in denying benefit

No words. Our public service has just been a constant stream of embarrassment and lawlessness, from big to small (e.g. the MoH making up laws as they go along in handling exceptional applications, INZ handling an urgent request to enter NZ borders so slowly that the person's mother had passed away after 2 weeks+, and 1000 INZ staff not being able to work due to their IT), throughout the COVID-19 crisis. And I am not an reflexive government basher either.

Disgraceful.

Oblivian

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#2479284 8-May-2020 15:26

nzkiwiman:

I haven't been able to catch up with every "deep dive" or most news since reading how Alert Level 2 will look like but one of the other concerns I have is that we are going from zero public gatherings to 100 indoor/outdoor is ok under Level 2.

Seems we should be going from zero to 5 .. 10 .. 15 etc before jumping all the way from zero to 100.

I believe it had an original baseline of 500. Hence the ski fields going 'woo-hoo' And now going 'We cant, we will run at a loss' Like many bars/restaurants that need 1 staff member per table

neb

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#2479287 8-May-2020 15:29

Subject to the results and travel history of the patients, the assumed origin of the disease in or around the Wuhan markets may be wrong.

Subject to the overwhelming amount of data all showing conclusively that it came from Wuhan, speculating on other origins based on a miniscule amount of noise-level data may be wrong.

Thus the point I've made repeatedly in this thread in the past, whenever some new shock, horror Covid19 news pops up, wait at least a week, better two, to get the real facts. In particular any story based on margin-of-error noise-level measurements is pure speculation and most likely wrong. Also, any single study producing very surprising results is at best questionable, and requires independent confirmation before it can be taken at face value.

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