2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2484608 15-May-2020 18:00

Article on Vietnam reopening. Covers some aspects of their lockdown

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/life-after-lockdown-vietnam-domestic-travel/index.html

tdgeek

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#2484622 15-May-2020 19:09

Fred99:

mattwnz

The problem is that if on average there is a 20% chance of hospitalization and a 1-2% chance of dying from it the first time you get it, when you get it again, you again could have the same 20% chance of needing hospitalization / 1-2% chance of dying the next time, and that those odds increase as you get older. The odds are lot worse for older people. Potentially if we don't get a vaccine, this could decrease the average lifespan of humans, which has only been increasing over the last century.

We had about 1500 cases - and very few hospitalised (but we did have a >1% case fatality rate).

I think the 20% figure (which I'd also used in the past) is probably high because those with mild symptoms never got diagnosed and counted. (ie China's 82,000 cases was probably at least double that - the case fatality rate is 5.6% - where it's been contained by intense testing, the case fatality rate is much lower.

Based on that original data, we should have had 2-300 hospitalised - and perhaps 30 on ventilators.

But yeah - it's got every potential to become a seasonal disease, like flu - but at least 10x worse fatality rate, and then there's whatever long-term damage from systemic infection - as well as lungs, it damages the circulatory system, kidneys, liver etc and could cause all kinds of things, auto-immune disease etc.

I do agree, but we are small, so the rest home fatalities skewed it somewhat. Lets suppose that rest homes stayed secure, there were still a good number of over 60's that were infected, but excluding rest homes shows quite a low mortality. OTOH its a fair point to not exclude them, but if we look at the active population in NZ (like my Mum in Law who is 81) we seemed to have a disproportionately low fatality rate? Were the strains that got here weaker? (Didn't come direct from China but via this and this country) Or as it was not Winter, that was a big gain? That the Autumn has been mild?

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#2484623 15-May-2020 19:13

mattwnz:

We are all animals, and mostly all animals entering NZ are quarantined for 6 months minimum to prevent them bringing in disease. But we don't do this for humans, and quarantine doesn't seem to be a palatable solution for some reason.

I can't speak for all animals, but racehorses travel a lot, here and back to AUS, and the US. Quarantine is not 6 months, IIRC it used to be a month. My ex was to bring her cat here from the US, I recall that being about a month too

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#2484626 15-May-2020 19:17

mattwnz:

This virus really shows how much international travel and incoming people into the country without quarantining, is such a big factor in this. We are all animals, and mostly all animals entering NZ are quarantined for 6 months minimum to prevent them bringing in disease. But we don't do this for humans, and quarantine doesn't seem to be a palatable solution for some reason.
IMO opening up a bubble to any countries that haven't eliminated this virus, risks a repeat. The only countries I would be happy opening up to at this point in time are some of the pacific island countries that have had no cases, or have shown to have eliminate it. Australia still has CT and they appear to also be investigating opening their bubble to other countries including Japan, which means that they would also be joining our bubble. IMO the risk shouldn't be more than the reward. It is already going to cost NZ the best part of 100 billion by the time it is over according to at least one top NZ economist.

But if you are happy to include Pacific Islands as they have had not had cases, how would they feel? We have had 1500

I think we have a way to go. At least we need tests that can be taken at the airport and give an accurate quick result.

The other issue is that tourism in NZ is half local. Surely we can bump that up? So its 75% local? No, its not the excessive charges, its Kiwi prices, but tourism needs to adapt to a new market.

mattwnz

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#2484643 15-May-2020 20:01

tdgeek:

mattwnz:

We are all animals, and mostly all animals entering NZ are quarantined for 6 months minimum to prevent them bringing in disease. But we don't do this for humans, and quarantine doesn't seem to be a palatable solution for some reason.

I can't speak for all animals, but racehorses travel a lot, here and back to AUS, and the US. Quarantine is not 6 months, IIRC it used to be a month. My ex was to bring her cat here from the US, I recall that being about a month too

I understand we have an exemption with Australia for some animals. But this page says 180 days, https://www.petraveller.com.au/blog/quarantine-in-new-zealand-all-you-need-to-know but rereading that some information seems to conflict. It appears 170 days can be spent in quarantine in the home country though, and then 10 days in NZ, for a total of 180 days. But whatever the case, they are still quarantined.

Fred99

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#2484644 15-May-2020 20:01

tdgeek:

I do agree, but we are small, so the rest home fatalities skewed it somewhat. Lets suppose that rest homes stayed secure, there were still a good number of over 60's that were infected, but excluding rest homes shows quite a low mortality. OTOH its a fair point to not exclude them, but if we look at the active population in NZ (like my Mum in Law who is 81) we seemed to have a disproportionately low fatality rate? Were the strains that got here weaker? (Didn't come direct from China but via this and this country) Or as it was not Winter, that was a big gain? That the Autumn has been mild?

There were a lot of young (18-30 YO) women in the early cases. I guess @frankv might be able to extract stats. My guess would be that we recorded deaths in the aged community very accurately (compared to other countries - thus the true mortality rate in the elderly may be underestimated overseas), but we had a low mortality rate overall - skewed because of imported cases with many infected young travellers returning and transmission in a young - middle aged "socially mobile" demographic.

mattwnz

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#2484646 15-May-2020 20:13

tdgeek:

But if you are happy to include Pacific Islands as they have had not had cases, how would they feel? We have had 1500

I think we have a way to go. At least we need tests that can be taken at the airport and give an accurate quick result.

The other issue is that tourism in NZ is half local. Surely we can bump that up? So its 75% local? No, its not the excessive charges, its Kiwi prices, but tourism needs to adapt to a new market.

I think they would feel the same way I would feel, about letting Australia join our bubble in the very near future. Eg we may have effectively eliminated it, and Australia haven't, and they still very likely have CT occurring. The problem is that we still have people high up in NZ who are saying that it isn't realistic for NZ to eliminate it and so we can join a bubble with Australia, as we have both got low numbers and have suppressed it.

So the Pacific islands, should insist that we have been certified by the WHO has having eliminated it first. Likewise we should request the same from Australia IMO. But as Australia's policy is suppression and not elimination, and they don't see elimination as realistic, at the moment, I can't see us joining with them for a very long time. Probably won't be until after Christmas IMO.

The problem is IMO that it has now just got so political, that I fear that the wrong decisions are going to be made, putting short term money from tourism and travel first, over long term health benefits. When it is travel distributes this virus into a country.

It is interesting, because I was watching a new documentary about South Koreas management of the virus, and early on they were able to use heat scanning systems successfully at their airports to detect people who had this virus. In NZ we didn't employ these, even though there were people suggesting it early on as a good idea. I wonder how many people we could have ended up detecting at the border with this virus if we had.

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DS248

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#2484739 16-May-2020 09:23

Deaths from COVID-19 vs Seasonal Influenza

An explanation of the apparent 'equivalence' of Covid-19 vs seasonal flu deaths. Equivalence that is, at the time that the article was written. US Covid-19 deaths now well above the 65,000 quoted, and rising.

Have to admit I was not aware of this and have been puzzled by apparent discrepancy.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2766121?guestAccessKey=28f9727c-0a86-4d26-8900-e4391ec18af2&utm_source=silverchair&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=article_alert-jamainternalmedicine&utm_content=olf&utm_term=0051420

Fred99

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#2484747 16-May-2020 10:21

Highest number (31) in 4 weeks of new cases reported in Australia today.

(Most are in Vic - and hopefully all tied to the one meat processing plant cluster)

https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers

Fred99

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#2484748 16-May-2020 10:26

This is plain stupid:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/121527841/coronavirus-party-at-auckland-bar-headquarters-despite-level-2-rules

Stupid people - no doubt encouraged by politicisation of pandemic response here - "we're too tough - it's not fair on churches".

Bar owner (who blames gay people for Covid in Korea) and a religious leader who just hates and hates. Jesus would weep.

Oblivian

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#2484750 16-May-2020 10:38

Fred99:
This is plain stupid:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/121527841/coronavirus-party-at-auckland-bar-headquarters-despite-level-2-rules

Stupid people - no doubt encouraged by politicisation of pandemic response here - "we're too tough - it's not fair on churches".

Bar owner (who blames gay people for Covid in Korea) and a religious leader who just hates and hates. Jesus would weep.

Very public about their feelings and action's on social media

Same crowd that did a witch hunt against a pilot they accused of refusing to follow isolation rules at the risk of their Business. And now turned around and done this.

Credibility was out the window long ago.

KrazyKid

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#2484827 16-May-2020 13:44

Fred99:
Highest number (31) in 4 weeks of new cases reported in Australia today.

(Most are in Vic - and hopefully all tied to the one meat processing plant cluster)

https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers

Victoria has 2 major clusters at the moment. The meat place is the largest but there is a McDonalds store which is the source of another.

mattwnz

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#2484921 16-May-2020 16:30

KrazyKid:
Fred99:

Highest number (31) in 4 weeks of new cases reported in Australia today.

(Most are in Vic - and hopefully all tied to the one meat processing plant cluster)

https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers

Victoria has 2 major clusters at the moment. The meat place is the largest but there is a McDonalds store which is the source of another.

This is definitely a major concern for New Zealand IMO if we are still thinking of joining a no quarantine travel bubble with them in the medium term. I think Australia needs to figure out what they want to do. Do they want to just suppress the virus, so they go down the long term herd immunity route, and live with physical distancing for potentially years. Or do they want to eliminate it and go the hard yards to eliminate it and not relax the levels until there is no sign of community transmission still occurring. So they can them return to a normal domestic life, and then other countries who have eliminated it can potentially join a travel bumble with them. These numbers are also potentially 2 weeks behind what the actual number of infected people are, which is why because they ever went into a level 4 bubble, they could really struggle to contain these clusters now, especially as they now also appear to be relaxing their lockdown in places.

Rikkitic

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#2484957 16-May-2020 17:05

If you look at public behaviour here and elsewhere, especially America, I think there is only limited acceptance of lockdowns and once out of level 4, you would practically need martial law to get back to it. Only widespread deaths across the entire population would change the public mood. People simply are not taking this seriously enough. For better or worse, it is very much a one-way street.

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KrazyKid

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#2485035 16-May-2020 19:28

mattwnz:
This is definitely a major concern for New Zealand IMO if we are still thinking of joining a no quarantine travel bubble with them in the medium term. I think Australia needs to figure out what they want to do. Do they want to just suppress the virus, so they go down the long term herd immunity route, and live with physical distancing for potentially years. Or do they want to eliminate it and go the hard yards to eliminate it in places.

Although Australia hasn't said that they are going for elimination I think they are in fact aiming for a elimination as well. Yesterday Victoria did 20,000 covid tests and for six out of the last eight days Australia as a whole has done more than 30,000 tests. That's equivalent to our 6,000 tests a day on a per capita basis.
They like us are also rolling out sentinel testing.

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