2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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

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#2516701 3-Jul-2020 11:43

Australian news satire show mentioned New Zealand quite a lot.

It's called "The Weekly With Charlie Pickering"

Here's the Youtube Channel

Or google "The.Weekly.With.Charlie.Pickering.S06E10" to find the entire episode

Here's one segment:

frankv

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#2516721 3-Jul-2020 12:21

1101:

frankv:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/110753822/is-a-life-worth-47-million says a human life is worth $4.7M to NZ. So avoiding 80,000 deaths (economic value = $376B) for only $100B is a real bargain.

Just meaningless numbers. Could literally stick any $ value in there.
It doesnt actually mean anything.

If lives were ACTUALLY worth that to NZ, NZ would be willing to spend that on saving each life .
NZ doesnt and wont spend that on saving lives ( a few exceptions ).
Look at all those organing ~Cake sales~ (givealittle etc) to try and get the $ to buy life saving drugs , or pay for operations

NZ'ers die on waiting lists, so that quoted value of life is meaningless dribble .

This $4.7M value is what Labour introduced with the Wellbeing Budget. National, and those further to the right, would argue that a life is worth a lot less.

Under Labour's system, if trying to decide whether to improve road A or road B, you calculate the predicted lives saved multiplied by $4.7M, then add in dollar values for whatever other benefits there might be (faster transport, less accidents, fuel savings, time savings), subtract the costs, and whichever is the larger figure is the one to go for (if you can afford it).

Likewise, you can compare the cost and benefits (including lives saved) of improving a hospital service against building a road or planting a billion trees or I guess buying the Navy a new ship.

Of course, in the end political considerations come into play, and to get into power you might have already promised your coalition partner a billion dollar slush fund.

To be brutally honest, though, health is a bottomless pit... no matter how much you spend, spending just a bit more will save more lives, and each extra life costs more to save. A doctor once told me that about half the health costs incurred by a person are in the last 6 months of their life. So the life you "save" will likely only be extended by a few months. Eventually you get to the point where building a motorway saves more lives than spending the money on health.

Fred99

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#2516725 3-Jul-2020 12:24

This might (or might not) explain why initial reports from China were slow in confirming human to human transmission.
TLDR: the virus did functionally mutate - which modified protein spikes on the surface, which increased its binding ability to human cells with ACE2 receptors. Thus it became more easily transmitted.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30820-5

(IIRC the mutation was seen months ago - but only recently confirmed to be functional and increase selective fitness of the virus)

MikeB4

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#2516733 3-Jul-2020 12:44

tdgeek:

Yeah, Im quite positive. Positive that this isnt going to drag us into a heap. What we have done to date has worked, I consider the border to be very solid now, but there is always a risk. If one sneaks out I have no doubt it will be ring fenced. Cameron Bagrie said the other day that we will need to either/and tax more, spend less. That conflicts with buying votes at elections, interesting to see how that plays out. If you analogise this to one household, that household needs to watch its money and work hard

The recession is only starting but it is going to be bad. There is already over 200,000 on job seekers benefit and this is climbing quickly.

tdgeek

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#2516737 3-Jul-2020 12:52

MikeB4:

tdgeek:

Yeah, Im quite positive. Positive that this isnt going to drag us into a heap. What we have done to date has worked, I consider the border to be very solid now, but there is always a risk. If one sneaks out I have no doubt it will be ring fenced. Cameron Bagrie said the other day that we will need to either/and tax more, spend less. That conflicts with buying votes at elections, interesting to see how that plays out. If you analogise this to one household, that household needs to watch its money and work hard

The recession is only starting but it is going to be bad. There is already over 200,000 on job seekers benefit and this is climbing quickly.

50,000 of the 200,000 are new, so the result so far is 50,000. The general feel from economists is that unemployment may double but there will be a recovery. I dont feel there will be massive long term unemployment

ezbee

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#2516744 3-Jul-2020 12:56

fred99, The story around the start of this is a bit murky due to lack of ability to investigate.
The stories of Ai Fen, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Fen , and Li Wenliang are probably our most solid info.
Even the Mayor of Wuan , did admit failure , provided some admission that suppression of doctors was wrong.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8173363/Wuhan-doctor-went-public-spread-coronavirus-goes-missing.html

""
Samples analyzed as early as December 26 suggested a new type of SARS was circulating, the Washington Post reported, but Wuhan was not locked down until January 22 - almost a month later.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/02/01/early-missteps-state-secrecy-china-likely-allowed-coronavirus-spread-farther-faster/

""
""
In the interview prior to her alleged disappearance, Dr Ai admitted 'feeling regretful about not speaking out more' after four of her colleagues, including Dr Li, had contracted the virus and died while fighting the outbreak.

'If I had known what would have happened today, I wouldn't have cared about the reprimand. I would have told whoever and wherever I want,' said Dr Ai.
""

""
Chinese authorities initially reported that the virus could not spread person-to-person, despite evidence that it was spreading rapidly through the city of Wuhan including doctors being infected by patients.

This was used as justification for keeping the city of Wuhan operating as normal through a major CCP conference that was held between January 11 and 17, with authorities claiming zero new cases in this period.
""

MikeB4

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#2516746 3-Jul-2020 13:00

tdgeek:

50,000 of the 200,000 are new, so the result so far is 50,000. The general feel from economists is that unemployment may double but there will be a recovery. I dont feel there will be massive long term unemployment

The 200,000+ is only one metric. Total joblessness will be considerably higher. We are currently experiencing a post lockdown bubble in retail spending and Kiwis travelling that is not going to last much longer and Wage subsidies will start finishing. When the full impact arrives it is going to be very painful.

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Batman

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#2516747 3-Jul-2020 13:07

ezbee:
fred99, The story around the start of this is a bit murky due to lack of ability to investigate.
The stories of Ai Fen, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Fen , and Li Wenliang are probably our most solid info.
Even the Mayor of Wuan , did admit failure , provided some admission that suppression of doctors was wrong.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8173363/Wuhan-doctor-went-public-spread-coronavirus-goes-missing.html

""
Samples analyzed as early as December 26 suggested a new type of SARS was circulating, the Washington Post reported, but Wuhan was not locked down until January 22 - almost a month later.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/02/01/early-missteps-state-secrecy-china-likely-allowed-coronavirus-spread-farther-faster/

""
""
In the interview prior to her alleged disappearance, Dr Ai admitted 'feeling regretful about not speaking out more' after four of her colleagues, including Dr Li, had contracted the virus and died while fighting the outbreak.

'If I had known what would have happened today, I wouldn't have cared about the reprimand. I would have told whoever and wherever I want,' said Dr Ai.
""

""
Chinese authorities initially reported that the virus could not spread person-to-person, despite evidence that it was spreading rapidly through the city of Wuhan including doctors being infected by patients.

This was used as justification for keeping the city of Wuhan operating as normal through a major CCP conference that was held between January 11 and 17, with authorities claiming zero new cases in this period.
""

CCP's record of zero transparency and denial of everything means we will never know. Hence based on that impressively consistent history the world majority only has one conclusion.

KrazyKid

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#2516766 3-Jul-2020 13:42

MikeB4:

tdgeek:

50,000 of the 200,000 are new, so the result so far is 50,000. The general feel from economists is that unemployment may double but there will be a recovery. I dont feel there will be massive long term unemployment

The 200,000+ is only one metric. Total joblessness will be considerably higher. We are currently experiencing a post lockdown bubble in retail spending and Kiwis travelling that is not going to last much longer and Wage subsidies will start finishing. When the full impact arrives it is going to be very painful.

To be honest it won't be that bad - S&P has just predicted a peak of 5.8% unemployment

(Stats NZ has unemployment rate 4.2% in March - peak of 6.7% after GFC and 11% in 1991)

In terms of numbers unemployed was 116,000 in March, (299,000 underutilized) out of a workforce of just over 2,771,000

Stats NZ page

Jobseeker numbers were 145,000 March 20 which is higher than the unemployment figures, but if you assume s&p is correct the peak quarterly average should be about 50% higher so around 220,000. So maybe a jobseeker peak of 250,000 (out of a workforce of 2.8 million) during the quarter. And yes people will leave the job market so not be counted as unemployed ...

Not good, but not a disaster. Of course regions and industries will be effected differently.

Fred99

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#2516781 3-Jul-2020 13:54

Batman:

CCP's record of zero transparency and denial of everything means we will never know. Hence based on that impressively consistent history the world majority only has one conclusion.

That begs clarification.

From an article in NYT that I believe to be accurate - and it's not "biased" to favour the CCP viewpoint.

After doctors in Wuhan began treating clusters of patients stricken with a mysterious pneumonia in December, the reporting was supposed to have been automatic. Instead, hospitals deferred to local health officials who, over a political aversion to sharing bad news, withheld information about cases from the national reporting system — keeping Beijing in the dark and delaying the response.

The central health authorities first learned about the outbreak not from the reporting system but after unknown whistle-blowers leaked two internal documents online.

So it was a failure of local health authorities because of fear of being shot as the messenger (or blamed for poor decisions). "Endangering public safety" is a capital offence - and the more anybody involved thought the outbreak could be pinned on them, the more they might be inclined to hope against odds that it would go away - and around it goes. I'd guess that the local officials were loyal bureaucrats - not medically trained people.

Anyway - it's too late now. War to "punish" China isn't an option. Everybody will lose.

wellygary

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#2516791 3-Jul-2020 14:20

KrazyKid:

To be honest it won't be that bad - S&P has just predicted a peak of 5.8% unemployment

S+P's outlook is by far the most optimistic of the predictions doing the rounds,

Treasury's weekly updates shows unemployment rising by about 4K a week, after slowing through May,

https://treasury.govt.nz/system/files/2020-07/weu-3jul20.pdf

September will be a very interesting time, The wage subsidy extension will start to finish up, + the Covid Benefit ( CIRP) will also start to end and people will move to regular benefits..... + there is an election smack bang in the middle of the month,

Batman

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#2516796 3-Jul-2020 14:24

1. Ask China what happened at Tianamen Square.

2. Nobody wants to start a war against China. But that doesn't mean there are many who find any reason to believe what they say, publish, write, post, in their newspaper, TV, official statements, journals, science books, etc.

Fred99

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#2516803 3-Jul-2020 14:52

Batman:

1. Ask China what happened at Tianamen Square.

2. Nobody wants to start a war against China. But that doesn't mean there are many who find any reason to believe what they say, publish, write, post, in their newspaper, TV, official statements, journals, science books, etc.

Yet here we are, they probably made your computer, your phone, your TV set, your clothes, if not the finished pharmaceuticals keeping us alive then the chemical intermediates used to make them, almost every major global corporation has a presence or JV in China, one of the leading candidate C-19 vaccines under trial is a canadian/chinese JV, and once identified they were very quick to upload the full genome of the virus to public databases. They also take ~30% of our exports - and if we start or join in a trade war to protest the bad things the CCP does, we'll lose. Start a thread in the politics forum. It's pointless discussing it here.

mattwnz

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#2516818 3-Jul-2020 15:36

1101:

frankv:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/110753822/is-a-life-worth-47-million says a human life is worth $4.7M to NZ. So avoiding 80,000 deaths (economic value = $376B) for only $100B is a real bargain.

Just meaningless numbers. Could literally stick any $ value in there.
It doesnt actually mean anything.

If lives were ACTUALLY worth that to NZ, NZ would be willing to spend that on saving each life .
NZ doesnt and wont spend that on saving lives ( a few exceptions ).
Look at all those organing ~Cake sales~ (givealittle etc) to try and get the $ to buy life saving drugs , or pay for operations

NZ'ers die on waiting lists, so that quoted value of life is meaningless dribble .

There is actually a value put on a human life in NZ, and it is in the multiple millions per person. There was an expert on this on Q&A several months ago from teh US, discussing this exact thing and associating it to the costs with COVID, and the costs eliminating it. Can't recall exactly the amount they were quoting per NZ life, but it was certainly in the multiples of million. Think about how much is spent when there is a car crash involving serious injury.

mattwnz

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#2516820 3-Jul-2020 15:40

KrazyKid:

MikeB4:

The 200,000+ is only one metric. Total joblessness will be considerably higher. We are currently experiencing a post lockdown bubble in retail spending and Kiwis travelling that is not going to last much longer and Wage subsidies will start finishing. When the full impact arrives it is going to be very painful.

To be honest it won't be that bad - S&P has just predicted a peak of 5.8% unemployment

(Stats NZ has unemployment rate 4.2% in March - peak of 6.7% after GFC and 11% in 1991)

In terms of numbers unemployed was 116,000 in March, (299,000 underutilized) out of a workforce of just over 2,771,000

Stats NZ page

Jobseeker numbers were 145,000 March 20 which is higher than the unemployment figures, but if you assume s&p is correct the peak quarterly average should be about 50% higher so around 220,000. So maybe a jobseeker peak of 250,000 (out of a workforce of 2.8 million) during the quarter. And yes people will leave the job market so not be counted as unemployed ...

Not good, but not a disaster. Of course regions and industries will be effected differently.

I think that is based on this point in time. But things can easily change with COVID, and as teh WHO has warned, it is far from over, even though some world leaders think otherwise.

We have been both careful and lucky so far. But if we get a breach at our border, like has happened in Oz, and we get another outbreak, most likely in one of our main cities, then we maybe forced into lockdowns again. It wouldn't be good if it occurred in Auckland for example. But potentially it could occur anywhere.

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