2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2493241 27-May-2020 23:44

wellygary:

We went to Level 2 on 14 May... 4 weeks would take us to 11 June, just after the review on the 8th June...

Even Dr Bloomfield is now saying "there is no community transmission" so going to Level 1 on 11 June should be foregone conclusion...

It will also satisfy the epidemiologists who have been saying we need 4 weeks of no new cases (exc imports).... the last time we had a real "new" case was 11th May...

Would appear the clock was set from today for the 4 weeks. A review on the 8th, With a target to change/no later than date of 22nd. 2 full incubation cycles.

So something earlier would be a bonus/outside the recommendation.

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#2493255 28-May-2020 00:35

freitasm:

Not only that but if we lived in London in the UK, 1 in 20 of our older people in rest homes would have already died from COVID 19, in just this first wave within the last few months. I am really scared about what is going to happen over in the UK longer term, not just health wise, but economically and socially.

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#2493256 28-May-2020 00:43

wellygary:

mattwnz:

Is he using those words exactly?.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/417651/no-new-cases-of-covid-19-nobody-in-hospital-with-the-coronavirusat

at 18: 30

in reference to wearing masks

"the use of masks needs to be put in the context of the situation we are in right now, in alert level 2 going to alert level 1, with a record 5 day in a row with no cases , and really no evidence of community transmission..."

He will know the case histories of the remaining 21 cases, and know they are very close to being "recovered" he knows the 3 cases in the last 2 weeks have all been either fully recovered cases ( weak postives) , or very close to recovered ( the toddler vanished from active cases in 5 days ) ...

There is a pretty big difference in the statements there is 'no evidence of community transmission' , and 'there is no community transmission'.

Obviously there is currently no evidence of community transmission, but if a CT case does popup, then prior to that being detected, they were still 100% correct that there was still no evidence of CT at that time, until the date that the new case occurs.
But if someone says 'there is no community transmission' and a CT case then pops up, then they weren't correct at the time when they said that was was 'no community transmission', because there had to be CT occurring, for that CT case to occur.

That is why I didn't think he would ever say there was 'there is no community transmission occurring' , only that there is 'no evidence' of it.

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#2493295 28-May-2020 01:24

tdgeek:

Very much so. We had ONE pain. ONE. Not ongoing month after month and its still on us. Our issue now is can we holiday on the Gold Coast, thats quite a turnaround.

Not dismissing the effect on the economy, but IMHO that was unavoidable, and it was relatively short, well placed to build on that now. Dodged a bullet, still need to be careful though.

Two schools closed in Sydney. Everytime I see these stories popup from over in OZ, I hope the NZ PM is also reading them.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-26/nsw-coronavirus-case-at-sydney-school-waverley-college/12284242

Earlier this month, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said "a return to full-time face-to-face teaching is safe", but conceded her Government expected coronavirus cases would rise as students returned to campuses.

They haven't really got it under control over there, and if they expect cases to rise as students return to campuses, they are on a completely different path to NZ. NZ made sure that there was a very high likelihood of no CT occurring, before lowering the levels and letting students return. Also just goes to show that children can also get it and spread it.

Some states in Oz are really only about 'suppression', and not 'elimination' , so I can't see how we can go into a travel bubble with Australia, unless it is only some of the states, but that could be difficult. Some politicians have claimed we should open up the travel bubble now, but that is maddness IMO.

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#2493305 28-May-2020 06:37

covid activity in West Akl rest home - sounds complicated and still being investigated so i'll just put the link - can't really summarise

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12335285

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#2493319 28-May-2020 08:07

Started by Auckland Airport, and co-ordinated by the Australia New Zealand Leadership Forum (ANZLF), the team of 40 experts have been working for the past two weeks on recommendations for the re-opening of borders between Australia and New Zealand.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/121640611/coronavirus-hopes-to-get-transtasman-bubble-flying-by-july

Huge pressure now on this. Tourism experts have their opinion, health experts have theirs. It comes down to, are we all happy to take on potential outbreaks. If that happens, what economic damage will that do, if say Queenstown, Rotorua etc had a spate of new cases.

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#2493326 28-May-2020 08:16

mattwnz:

tdgeek:

Very much so. We had ONE pain. ONE. Not ongoing month after month and its still on us. Our issue now is can we holiday on the Gold Coast, thats quite a turnaround.

Not dismissing the effect on the economy, but IMHO that was unavoidable, and it was relatively short, well placed to build on that now. Dodged a bullet, still need to be careful though.

Two schools closed in Sydney. Everytime I see these stories popup from over in OZ, I hope the NZ PM is also reading them.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-26/nsw-coronavirus-case-at-sydney-school-waverley-college/12284242

Earlier this month, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said "a return to full-time face-to-face teaching is safe", but conceded her Government expected coronavirus cases would rise as students returned to campuses.

They haven't really got it under control over there, and if they expect cases to rise as students return to campuses, they are on a completely different path to NZ. NZ made sure that there was a very high likelihood of no CT occurring, before lowering the levels and letting students return. Also just goes to show that children can also get it and spread it.

Some states in Oz are really only about 'suppression', and not 'elimination' , so I can't see how we can go into a travel bubble with Australia, unless it is only some of the states, but that could be difficult. Some politicians have claimed we should open up the travel bubble now, but that is maddness IMO.

cases also spiking in south korea after a long period of zero cases

19 day before, then 40 yesterday (i could be a day off)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/south-korea-reports-biggest-spike-coronavirus-cases-49-days-200527060215158.html

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#2493419 28-May-2020 09:51

Related press-release:

A collaboration between Otago & ESR has received a substantial government grant to lead an international team of scientists to sequence the genomes of all of New Zealand’s positive COVID-19 cases and track how the virus spread across New Zealand.

Dr Jemma Geoghegan, a Senior Lecturer from the University of Otago’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology, who is also an Associate Senior Scientist at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), has been allocated $600,000 from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) COVID-19 Innovation Acceleration Fund.

The $25 million total fund allows for the rapid development of innovative solutions by New Zealand-based entities in response to COVID-19, and aims to alleviate the direct impacts of the virus threat.

Dr Geoghegan will lead a 12-month project along with ESR lead bioinformatics researcher Dr Joep de Ligt. The aim of the project is to generate virus genomes from all of New Zealand’s confirmed positive cases.

Their team of 14 world-leading experts in virus evolution and phylodynamics will create a user-friendly web browser application that will be available to the public online and will track and explain the evolution, epidemiology, population dynamics and transmission chains of COVID-19 in New Zealand.

An example of this type of application already in use is Nextstrain.org, which provides real-time tracking of pathogen evolution and is co-developed by team member Dr James Hadfield.

Dr Geoghegan’s team’s advanced use of genomic data will be critically important to New Zealand during the wait for a safe and effective vaccine, she says.

“When combined with geographic information we will be able to reveal pathways of viral spread (including from the global population) domestically and at the community level.

“These results can be used to direct public health interventions such as quarantine, highlight transmission hotspots to target community testing and assess the impact of other interventions such as travel restrictions and border closures.”

Until recently, studies of viral outbreaks have been retrospective, where the evolution and spread of a virus within a population is only realised after the fact, she says.

“Now however, advances in the next generation sequencing can generate whole viral genomes directly from patient samples within hours of the sample being received.”

Analyses of genomic data have played an important role in tracking the epidemiology and evolution of the virus in real time, and there has been an enormous global effort to contribute and share genomic data to inform local authorities and the international community about key aspects of the pandemic.

This has led to a greater understanding of different COVID-19 outbreaks, and its spread.

As part of ESR’s strategy, it has invested in genomics capability and technology to support infectious disease surveillance and genomics research.

The use of genomics in surveillance has been done in close collaboration and support of the Ministry of Health.

The scale and speed with which this pandemic developed and needed to be tracked led ESR to invest in additional technology to leverage the strengths of both Illumina and Oxford Nanopore sequencing to increase capacity to over 200 genomes a week.

Under a Ministry of Health contract, ESR has processed urgent samples, as determined by epidemiological investigations and public health professionals within 48 hours.

Dr Geoghegan’s project will focus on a wider investigation of all genomes that arrived in New Zealand.

This will provide a valuable data source for future monitoring and in the potential event of a second wave.

Co-lead researcher Dr de Ligt says the project will also enable scientists to understand how to manage and reduce the impact of outbreaks on vulnerable communities.

“During the 2009 flu pandemic, the mortality rate among Māori was 2.5 times the rate of non-Māori,” he says.

Data from Māori communities will be incorporated into the project results, under the guidance of Māori biostatistician Andrew Sporle.

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wellygary

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#2493429 28-May-2020 10:15

Batman:

cases also spiking in south korea after a long period of zero cases

19 day before, then 40 yesterday (i could be a day off)

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/south-korea-reports-biggest-spike-coronavirus-cases-49-days-200527060215158.html

South Korea is not quite there yet,

Thave have had ~11,000 cases and around 700 are still active (claimed to the quarantined), so the pool for virus leakage into the community of still quite large, 6-7% of total cases...

In NZ we have ~1500 cases ( inc probs), but our actives at 21 is just over 1%... the pool is much smaller,

ezbee

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#2493596 28-May-2020 12:04

Seems large countries are tricky as larger populations and geographies give more room for C19 to hide.
The statistically unlikely oddities, by virtue of the larger more diverse population, get more opportunities to pop up.

Australia has Queensland kicking up some puzzles for contact tracers, is identifying sources.
A 30 year old Queensland Miner, and a Nurse who went 200Km to see the sunrise.
But no connection to these cases or any other source.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/coronavirus-deaths-blackwater-man-rockhampton-nurse-restrictions/12291484

Potential for a very rare exceptional cases to churn on at low level or 80days.
However its still early days for the science and more study to really see what is going on.
Seems not to be a case of still shedding virus DNA after recovery as they present symptoms this is presumably live virus that can infect others.
Luckily we have hopefully avoided having any of these we know of ?.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-27/coronavirus-queensland-abnormal-incubation/12268794

On the good news front.
Potentially good news for vaccines and treatments is that SARS antibodies appear to be effective against CV19.
Its potentially not kicking up big enough changes to be problematic to targeting the major features, even its very different nearest relative.
https://www.livescience.com/sars-antibody-inhibits-new-coronavirus.html

Maybe the dice will roll in our favor once again.

Time will tell which is maddeningly annoying we are many months from knowing for sure.

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#2493605 28-May-2020 12:20

ezbee:

On the good news front.
Potentially good news for vaccines and treatments is that SARS antibodies appear to be effective against CV19.
Its potentially not kicking up big enough changes to be problematic to targeting the major features, even its very different nearest relative.
https://www.livescience.com/sars-antibody-inhibits-new-coronavirus.html

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#2493621 28-May-2020 12:47

Don't venture into labours post about that on facey this morning.

It's a dangerous hole. Keep seeing the stupid from others I'm linked to replying

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#2493734 28-May-2020 15:33

ezbee:

A 30 year old Queensland Miner, and a Nurse who went 200Km to see the sunrise.
But no connection to these cases or any other source.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-28/coronavirus-deaths-blackwater-man-rockhampton-nurse-restrictions/12291484

Actually, the article says she went to see the sunset. But here's a Google streetview of Blackwater, looking west (or maybe east,it's hard to tell). Struggling to see how that's much different from anywhere else for at least 100km or so. Maybe she has a thing for watertowers at sunset?

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#2493744 28-May-2020 15:45

ezbee:

Potentially good news for vaccines and treatments is that SARS antibodies appear to be effective against CV19.
Its potentially not kicking up big enough changes to be problematic to targeting the major features, even its very different nearest relative.
https://www.livescience.com/sars-antibody-inhibits-new-coronavirus.html

I wonder if this is a reason that covid-19 didn't spread exponentially in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Taiwan, all of which had a small number of SARS cases (1755, 238, 63, and 346 respectively). Perhaps those populations already have some immunity to covid-19?

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#2493787 28-May-2020 16:34

frankv:

I wonder if this is a reason that covid-19 didn't spread exponentially in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and Taiwan, all of which had a small number of SARS cases (1755, 238, 63, and 346 respectively). Perhaps those populations already have some immunity to covid-19?

I would doubt it. SARS wasn't as contagious or didn't have the same incubation period as I understand it, potentially making the R factor far lower, but it was far more deadly. NZ too didn't have huge spread either, considering how many people were returning to NZ and passed it on, and Australia is similar. Although Australia is becoming more of a worry as each day passes in some of the states.

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