2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2515040 30-Jun-2020 13:41

Batman: WHO have a responsibility to get things absolutely right. Instead they make statements that while technically not untrue, are misleading. And it did mislead the world. Blind leading the blind.

Well I must have my eyes open - as I had no problem understanding some of the statements that you didn't.

Here's what happened on January 14th: (15th NZ time)

WHO held a press briefing during which it stated that, based on experience with respiratory pathogens, the potential for human-to-human transmission in the 41 confirmed cases in the People’s Republic of China existed: “it is certainly possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission”.

(5 hours later)

WHO tweeted that preliminary investigations by the Chinese authorities had found “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission”. In its risk assessment, WHO said additional investigation was “needed to ascertain the presence of human-to-human transmission, modes of transmission, common source of exposure and the presence of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases that are undetected”.

So, maybe think about "getting things absolutely right" before accusing others - especially when they're authorities on the subject.

The tweet where WHO cited "Chinese Authorities" (not WHO) had found no evidence of human to human transmission was preceded by (5 hours earlier) and the tweet where WHO's own expert very clearly stated that h2h transmission is possible.

This never became a the "big issue" you're making it out to be until - and probably due to abject failure of the US administration to deal with a pandemic - they ("he") retrospectively tried to blame China and WHO. It's Trumpist BS that's become "common knowledge". Sorry that again politics is mentioned - but a lot of the pseudo-scientific nonsense and conspiracy theory in circulation has partisan political roots.

Same in many ways with the blame on China. It was only 3 days earlier they'd established/announced that the disease was in fact from a "novel coronavirus". Before that - they didn't know either. People get sick and die from pneumonia, there will be other pathogens (opportunistic) presence of which could explain the illness. It's never going to be that easy - finding and identifying new viruses is very difficult. We're (humans) full of them.

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#2515105 30-Jun-2020 14:08

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/peters-eu-travel-were-not-going-compromise-our-countrys-health

"We're not changing our settings because of admittedly a very praiseworthy statement from the EU. But we're not going to compromise our country's health."

But .. wasn't he wanting to open New Zealand to Australia, thus compromise our countries health.

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#2515108 30-Jun-2020 14:12

NZ border will stay shut in worsening Covid-19 pandemic, says PM

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300045458/live-too-dangerous-to-reopen-borders-amid-covid19-pandemic-pm-says

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#2515123 30-Jun-2020 14:38

mattwnz: NZ border will stay shut in worsening Covid-19 pandemic, says PM

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300045458/live-too-dangerous-to-reopen-borders-amid-covid19-pandemic-pm-says

There is one option we have and that is it. Im sure I speak for all 5 million of us that we want tourists here for the economy, but A) tourists wont come here for 1-2 weeks and another 2 in quarantine. And B) its patently clear to most of us that we can't have an open border with Australia, the America's, Asia, Europe, etc. Its fine that EU will allow us in with no quarantine (off course, its not here) but the opposite doesn't work for obvious reasons.

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#2515128 30-Jun-2020 14:47

tdgeek:

mattwnz: NZ border will stay shut in worsening Covid-19 pandemic, says PM

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300045458/live-too-dangerous-to-reopen-borders-amid-covid19-pandemic-pm-says

There is one option we have and that is it. Im sure I speak for all 5 million of us that we want tourists here for the economy, but A) tourists wont come here for 1-2 weeks and another 2 in quarantine. And B) its patently clear to most of us that we can't have an open border with Australia, the America's, Asia, Europe, etc. Its fine that EU will allow us in with no quarantine (off course, its not here) but the opposite doesn't work for obvious reasons.

I would like to see some analysis and calculations as to how much NZ will actually lose if we don't have tourists here (except from the islands and some Oz states) for the next 18months. We need to realize the NZers also aren't travelling overseas on holiday, so instead will spend that money here.

I think NZ needs to work out what the costs would be if we lived with the virus, and the how much it would cripple our economy. eg If we were another UK. Would people even travel here if our borders were open. I suspect that number would be down by more than half, and we would be in a far worse position than we are now. We are currently enjoying a covid free life due to the hard work we put in at great cost, which few other countries can do, and we also now have the chance to refocus our economy potentially away from tourism, which wasn't really sustainable long term and was saturated anyway. It also relies on air travel which is not exactly green. Things and economies change. We used to be just a farming economy and sheep decades ago. Luckily, unlike some pacific islands, 70% of our economy isn't based on tourism.

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#2515131 30-Jun-2020 14:54

Recent paper arguing that "weekly COVID-19 testing with household quarantine and contact tracing is feasible and would probably end the epidemic" (Peto et al 2020, RSoc Open Sci 7, 200915)
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.200915

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#2515137 30-Jun-2020 15:07

robjg63:

vexxxboy:

it's not tricky it just maybe illegal. you cant stop NZ citizens coming back to their country and im pretty sure charging them to do it is also a no go.

If you can charge an Airport tax why not a 'Covid-19 processing tax'?

My partner and I had this discussion (ahem) last night.

I suggested that a New Zealand Bed Tax needs to be discussed again. Or we up the New Zealand Tourist Tax.

Either way he countered the legality of charging returning Kiwi's.

I countered that they haven't been paying NZ tax for x number of years, they can start at the border.

He politely reminded me that we only returned in 2014 after 30 years in Australia.

Whilst the difficult we can do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. However, miracles you will have to wait for.

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#2515141 30-Jun-2020 15:09

mattwnz:

I would like to see some analysis and calculations as to how much NZ will actually lose if we don't have tourists here (except from the islands and some Oz states) for the next 18months. We need to realize the NZers also aren't travelling overseas on holiday, so instead will spend that money here....

BNZ's Stephen Toplis reckons the net effect is 2%.

"This has shut down international travel completely. The impact on the tourism sector and airports alone will knock around 6.0% off GDP. There is an offset in a GDP sense as there will be no visitor outflows either. Net these off and GDP still falls at least 2.0% from this source alone."

https://www.interest.co.nz/bonds/104082/our-economists-are-talking-recession-capital-r-it-wont-be-shallow-one

Indirect GDP from tourism is worth about 4% of GDP (a little over half of that domestic.

In addition education exports are worth about 2% of GDP.

So not crippling from a GDP perspective, but not cheap either.

The bigger issues are:

Balance of trade - tourism accounts for 20.4% of our exports - While this will be partially offset by less outbound tourism, it's still going to have a big impact.
Employment - Being a low productivity industry, tourism employs disproportionately many people for it's GDP contribution. 14.4% of jobs in NZ are directly or indirectly from tourism. Tourism is great for employing low skilled people in low paying jobs. If we can move these people to more productive work, great, but it is a lot of people to move. I don't know how much for the tourism workforce is on Temporary visa's like working holiday (will run out at some point and the border means new people aren't coming in), or essential skills (requires NZ skills market check. Low skill has stand down every 3 years - anybody that leaves cannot be replaced). When I was in Franz Joseph, a decent chunk of the workforce spoke Tagalog which my wife loved.
Tourism (especially international) is concentrated in a few geographic areas.

wellygary

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#2515142 30-Jun-2020 15:10

mattwnz:

I would like to see some analysis and calculations as to how much NZ will actually lose if we don't have tourists here (except from the islands and some Oz states) for the next 18months. We need to realize the NZers also aren't travelling overseas on holiday, so instead will spend that money here.

Its a pretty easy number to calculate from the Annual Balance of Payments figures, most recent is for March 2019 year,

https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/balance-of-payments-and-international-investment-position-year-ended-31-march-2019

Table 4 ( Current Account Services)

Travel exports, $14 Billion ( $4 billon is education related travel-students, $10 billion is regular tourists)

Travel imports $6.6 billion,

So that's a ~$7 billion hole ($4 billion students, and $3 billion in NZers holidaying offshore )

Scott3

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#2515147 30-Jun-2020 15:19

trig42:

I think it is a bill of rights issue. Can't see political will to change the bill of rights act. /MyOpinion

Section 18 of the bill or rights act is entitled "Freedom of movement" has the right for every New Zealand citizen to enter NZ.

Note that it does not require the movement be "free of charge". We already charge returning residents a customs levy, further supporting the case that entry does not need to be free of charge.

Note it only covers citizens (Not Residents, family etc).

Also note that the Bill or Rights act allows for the freedom of movement within NZ of people legally here. Something overridden by level 3 & 4, and other laws that give power of arrest etc.

Section 4 of the bill or rights act, effectively states that other acts override the bill or rights. So (even if the above was not good enough) there would not need for any amendments directly to the bill or rights.

I'm sure actual lawyers are looking into this in detail.

Ultimately parliament is supreme, and can do what they like.

I don't think there is public appetite for the taxpayer to pay peoples isolation when they return from their Europe holiday. Situation is kinda pressing given Europe is reopening to us tomorrow.

KrazyKid

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#2515153 30-Jun-2020 15:30

It seems to me that everyone is in way to much of a hurry to get back to normal. Covid is starting not peaking or ending so we can (and should) take our time to set things up correctly.

It is unfortunate that it is an election period as that is leading to extra political statements raising emotions.

We should be leaving the borders alone for another 4-8 weeks to ramp up and fine tune the quarantine system.
This includes working out who we should charge and how much.

At this point (or in parallel) we can also sort out how to manage and charge foreign students who what to study here.
Bring in anything like the previous numbers of students will be a strain on quarantine rooms.
And they will need proper monitoring and enforcement of systems using the lessons learnt recently.

And come September we can see how Aussie is going. Hopefully by them Victoria will have got it's outbreak sorted.
(as an aside there will be good lessons for us here for what to do if/when we get a outbreak we need to control).

At that point we can look at opening up to the Islands or Aussie.

But really everyone just needs to relax, enjoy winter and count their blessings.

Some people have lost jobs and had bad things happen who will need support, but overall we are bloody lucky.

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#2515166 30-Jun-2020 16:00

KrazyKid:

And come September we can see how Aussie is going. Hopefully by them Victoria will have got it's outbreak sorted.
(as an aside there will be good lessons for us here for what to do if/when we get a outbreak we need to control).

Morrison is sending 800 extra federal staff to Vic - they're going to have an all-out effort with the state Govt to try and stamp it out.

I understand that may include "local" lockdowns. If they do, it'll be interesting to see if / how well it works. An immediate problem I could see if that if cafes and bars are closed in one area - the ones in adjacent areas will be packed. It would probably need a high level of voluntary compliance.

frankv

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#2515170 30-Jun-2020 16:17

Fred99:

Morrison is sending 800 extra federal staff to Vic - they're going to have an all-out effort with the state Govt to try and stamp it out.

So their policy is now elimination?

Wondering what the 800 federal staff are... I'm not familiar with Australia's federal system. Does the federal government have doctors and nurses? I thought health was state-based. Maybe it's 800 federal police or military to enforce lockdowns.

I understand that may include "local" lockdowns. If they do, it'll be interesting to see if / how well it works. An immediate problem I could see if that if cafes and bars are closed in one area - the ones in adjacent areas will be packed.

And likely packed with the people who would normally have gone to the closed cafes and bars. i.e. the people with a high enough risk of carrying the infection that it would warrant closing their cafes and bars.

wellygary

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#2515172 30-Jun-2020 16:23

Fred99:

Morrison is sending 800 extra federal staff to Vic - they're going to have an all-out effort with the state Govt to try and stamp it out.

I understand that may include "local" lockdowns. If they do, it'll be interesting to see if / how well it works. An immediate problem I could see if that if cafes and bars are closed in one area - the ones in adjacent areas will be packed. It would probably need a high level of voluntary compliance.

Local lockdowns can only work if you prevent most travel out of the local region... otherwise as you said everything just moves to the nearest region not in lockdown

The UK are trying it with Leicester with a travel "discouragement" so it will be interesting to see how it goes,

Everywhere else in OZ is doing very well, so lets hope they throw truckloads of resources at this to stamp it out in VIC,

I've still get September picked as a potential travel bubble date for OZ, assuming they don't allow all the states Ex VIC to go earlier...

Fred99

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#2515173 30-Jun-2020 16:29

frankv:

So their policy is now elimination?

Wondering what the 800 federal staff are... I'm not familiar with Australia's federal system. Does the federal government have doctors and nurses? I thought health was state-based. Maybe it's 800 federal police or military to enforce lockdowns.

I guess 800 admin staff and seat-warmers got volunteered to do manual contact tracing etc. According to Wikipedia, they've got almost 5,000 staff.

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