2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2542061 16-Aug-2020 09:45

RNZ item on the media and how its been doing reporting the pandemic and conspiracies.
For NZ perspective.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018759504/covid-19-confronting-the-deluge-of-conspiracies-over-the-latest-lockdown

How do you report a conspiracy without promoting it ?

FineWine

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#2542065 16-Aug-2020 09:55

Fred99:

Actually mentioning shoes is relevant as if fomite transmission is a thing, then expelled droplets end up on floors, they transfer to shoes, from there you can infect yourself or others. So taking shoes off outside - and washing your hands immediately with hand sanitiser seems sensible.

How long does the virus survive on ground based surfaces; concrete, dirt, pebbles, grass, vehicle carpets, linoleum, floor boards, different carpet piles - then cold, warm, hot, wet, oily ground based surfaces?

Should we start having disinfectant footwear dip trays or footwear sanitiser mats. How about a broad-spectrum germicidal UV light array tunnel which you walk through on entrance.

Mmmm interesting.

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

Gordy7

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#2542066 16-Aug-2020 09:55

neb: The emergency alert just came through, at least on Android listed as a "Presidential alert". Can't have come from him though, it made sense.

Same 'Presidential Alert' (on 12th) came through on my wife's Android phone which is only set up for voice and text... no data.

The same message content as on my Android phone but without the 'Presidential Alert' heading.

I agree... the message made sense... :-)

Gordy

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kingdragonfly

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#2542068 16-Aug-2020 10:00

Science MagThe spread of true and false news online

Lies spread faster than the truth

There is worldwide concern over false news and the possibility that it can influence political, economic, and social well-being. To understand how false news spreads, Vosoughi et al. used a data set of rumor cascades on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. About 126,000 rumors were spread by ∼3 million people.

False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people.

Falsehood also diffused faster than the truth.

The degree of novelty and the emotional reactions of recipients may be responsible for the differences observed.

Fred99

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#2542120 16-Aug-2020 10:17

dejadeadnz:

Fred99:

Seeing someone normally sensible calling for AB to be fired because of CT that he's been "lying to the public" - yet for that to be based on nothing more than gossip and conjecture is an example.

The conspiracy theories are unhelpful. But almost equally pathetic is the unbounded adulation for Bloomfield and close-to-non-existent willingness to seriously hold the MoH to account for its abject failures in terms of:

Upholding basic rule of law (see Christiansen decision and the subsequent remark by another HC judge that he would have also ruled against the MoH for its behaviour regarding exemption applications if the death of the relative of the applicant hadn’t essentially rendered this moot).
The wide-spread non-testing of people who were compassionately released from isolation.
And what had been happening with widespread non-testing of MIQ staff.

"Unbounded adulation?" ROFL.

If you want to really destroy the hope for NZ to continue to succeed, then overturn everything, fire the boss, kill public confidence and confidence in the system by the people working at the coalface.

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#2542129 16-Aug-2020 10:55

Fred99:

"Unbounded adulation?" ROFL.

Well you may laugh, but the ‘warm and fuzzy’ media coverage of a civil servant who is doing the job he is paid for, reached ridiculous levels. Ashley Tee-shirts, posters, tattoos and even coverage of a club rugby game all support the “unbounded adulation” by the media at least.

The only time the Director General seemed to be ask any ‘hard’ questions was a weekly interview on breakfast radio. The “relax, we’ve got this” message was broadcast far and wide, parroted by a largely unquestioning media. So it came as a shock when the virus reappeared.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

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#2542137 16-Aug-2020 11:18

So I saw Fauci say the U.S. might not return to normal until the end of 2021. Yea there's no way the U.S. are following social distancing and staying locked down till then. My guess is the U.S. as a whole will move on from COVID at the end of this year with or without a viable treatment option. COVID may become like HIV in the U.S. (always in the background, better treatment options over time) or it will mutate into a weaker strain and become the new yearly flu over there. They are way past containment and mitigation at this point.

Makes me incredibly grateful we have competent leadership. And we got to enjoy 102 days free of COVID and once we get the Auckland outbreak under control which I think we will in a few weeks time. Well go back to having another long streak without COVID. However its highly likely we're going to be in out of lockdown until a vaccine with small outbreaks occurring every now and then. But at least we're lucky we aren't going to have to just accept a future living with COVID.

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Fred99

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#2542138 16-Aug-2020 11:18

Dingbatt:

Fred99:

"Unbounded adulation?" ROFL.

Well you may laugh, but the ‘warm and fuzzy’ media coverage of a civil servant who is doing the job he is paid for, reached ridiculous levels. Ashley Tee-shirts, posters, tattoos and even coverage of a club rugby game all support the “unbounded adulation” by the media at least.

The only time the Director General seemed to be ask any ‘hard’ questions was a weekly interview on breakfast radio. The “relax, we’ve got this” message was broadcast far and wide, parroted by a largely unquestioning media. So it came as a shock when the virus reappeared.

I don't care. Sure - it's a bit of a cringe, but at least (and rare in NZ) - people looking for a hero found (an unwilling) one in a person of science, not the usual culprits.

He's a Dr - not a lawyer, politician, professional manager. How's it worked out for countries where politicians and partisan appointees have managed the response?

As for "it came as a shock". Then blame stupid people and/or stupid media - it was never the message from MOH - nor any of the other respected health experts who've been getting plenty of coverage. What's happened was almost inevitable - and it's always been stated as such. Our response to the latest cluster is orders of magnitude better than what's happened in Victoria. Fingers crossed we'll be back to level 2/1 nationally in a couple of weeks. With the election behind us - then hopefully much of the whining, conspiracy theory, and abject counter-productive selfish cynical BS will also go away.

Edit to add a comment about "confidence" and the economy. If you want to really kill the economy, then have everybody in the country wake up every morning thinking we're doomed / the world is ending. It's a fine line between giving assurance that we'll be okay, so get on with normal life/business - and risking complacency.

GV27

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#2542141 16-Aug-2020 11:23

We have so very few public servants who have as much media facetime as Bloomfield - usually we only hear from them when their department has made an almighty cock-up and they're trying to deflect blame with pre-packaged, carefully worded statements that talk about unfortunate but unintentional outcomes as to avoid further liability.

Let the Bloomfield-stans have their moment. Frankly I wish the rest of our top-level public servants were as direct and up-front as he is. Compare and contrast him to the CEO of Watercare, who is currently presiding over a very predictable yet crippling water shortage in Auckland, while currently avoiding talking about his massive salary to boot.

Rikkitic

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#2542146 16-Aug-2020 11:31

Dingbatt:

Fred99:

"Unbounded adulation?" ROFL.

Well you may laugh, but the ‘warm and fuzzy’ media coverage of a civil servant who is doing the job he is paid for, reached ridiculous levels. Ashley Tee-shirts, posters, tattoos and even coverage of a club rugby game all support the “unbounded adulation” by the media at least.

The only time the Director General seemed to be ask any ‘hard’ questions was a weekly interview on breakfast radio. The “relax, we’ve got this” message was broadcast far and wide, parroted by a largely unquestioning media. So it came as a shock when the virus reappeared.

That isn't correct. Both Ashley Bloemfield and the PM repeatedly warned that the virus would re-emerge.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

ezbee

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#2542147 16-Aug-2020 11:32

Perhaps part of the problem is that Snr Managers closer to the coalface are not facing the media.
Given that Auckland region is the one in level 3.
So would that be the Auckland DHB who actually run and supply Auckland testing infrastructure ?
They could explain why Hotel, Transport and Border Airport/Port testing has been well resourced or not.
The Military chap who was put in charge of the Hotels ?
Part of our problem may be those more directly responsible are invisible.

The well attended pop up done before the start of this showed that people would get tested if it was made easy.
Otherwise you had contradiction of outlets were scaled down such that it was inconvenient , and call to test.
Doctors there seemed to be confusion on charges, and swab rationing, so some/many got nothing but push onto somewhere else that was far away at inconvenient hours, having burned time off work to go to the doctor.

For vulnerable people this is not a small thing, not all managers are at all nice over repeated short notice requests for some hours off.

Almost 2/3 never tested and the staff themselves outing concerns to media says the excuse of "we can't force people" was utter rubbish.
Why would people who don't want to be tested out to media their difficulty getting tested ?

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#2542148 16-Aug-2020 11:38

Dingbatt:

Fred99:

"Unbounded adulation?" ROFL.

Well you may laugh, but the ‘warm and fuzzy’ media coverage of a civil servant who is doing the job he is paid for, reached ridiculous levels. Ashley Tee-shirts, posters, tattoos and even coverage of a club rugby game all support the “unbounded adulation” by the media at least.

The only time the Director General seemed to be ask any ‘hard’ questions was a weekly interview on breakfast radio. The “relax, we’ve got this” message was broadcast far and wide, parroted by a largely unquestioning media. So it came as a shock when the virus reappeared.

Not to mention those who think the PM and the Director General are the ones making our policy. They're not.

Our original lock down strategy involved a number of people (including modelling done by both Otago University and AUT) as well as some from Australia because it was a joint strategy which Australia decided to adopt differently because of their significant CT at the time. By the time information is put on the desks of either it comes with very strong recommendations that they can choose to follow or ignore.

MikeB4

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#2542150 16-Aug-2020 11:42

In times of adversity people need heroes, they give them a positive focus and hope. Rightly or wrongly Dr Bloomfield and to a degree Jacinda Ardern provided the hero focus. One just has to look at Great Britain 1939 desperately needed a hero and Churchill became that focus way above what he should have been assigned.

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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#2542151 16-Aug-2020 11:44

ezbee:

Almost 2/3 never tested and the staff themselves outing concerns to media says the excuse of "we can't force people" was utter rubbish.
Why would people who don't want to be tested out to media their difficulty getting tested ?

I suggest you spend a little bit of time reading our testing strategy that was put in place in June. The MoH created this policy and very clearly pointed out the reasons why there would not be mandatory testing of all border and MIQ staff. From the 10th of July there were some minor changes when MBIE took over running MIQ facilities from the MoH.

https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-surveillance-plan-and-testing-strategy

There is no conspiracy or incompetence here - there was a strategy and testing methodology put in place that everybody was aware of - seemingly everybody except the PM and Health Minister.

GV27

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#2542152 16-Aug-2020 11:45

ezbee:

Almost 2/3 never tested and the staff themselves outing concerns to media says the excuse of "we can't force people" was utter rubbish.

I agree this was a pretty bad answer given we're now forcing people under health orders to go into quarantine if they test positive.

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