2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2544257 19-Aug-2020 09:26

dafman:

The government have been emphasising the need to unify all contract tracing under the one government app and utilising it across all Metlink services MUST be more efficient than running separate anciliary systems? Buses are high risk becuase of limited social distancing, I mean, how difficult would it be for Metlink to simply install the QR code on buses instead? And if there is a legal requirement to display QR codes, do they have the authority to choose to depart because they think they can do just as well?

Because in this situation Snapper is more useful than QR,

The current government COVID App QR system is checkin only- they can only judge how long you were there by the next code - ( Rippl does allow check out but that is a whoel different kettle of fish)

Snapper tells them what stop you got on at and what stop you got off at. ( + the times) [and importantly the same for everyone else on the bus...)

I'm pretty sure that AirNZ don't have QRs on planes, but they can tell any tracer who else was on the flight and where they all sat.... using different data sources is not really unusual...QRs are not the be all and end all....

MileHighKiwi

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#2544268 19-Aug-2020 09:45

cshwone:
wellygary:

“Currently, QR codes have been rolled out on trains and ferries to encourage the public to check in when using our services. Passengers on buses don’t need to do anything different as Snapper cards act as a journey record for customers when people tag on and off. We continue to encourage people to register their Snapper cards or to make note of their journeys if they are SuperGold Card and cash users.”

This is where the attitude of some organizations is disappointing. They're talking the easy line and doing the minimum instead of being proactive and just rolling out the QR codes for buses.

Based on my experiences scanning in at various places during the last week, having to scan a QR code before you get on a bus would be a logistical nightmare. They run on timetables, can you imagine people trying to do this efficiently at a busy bus stop?

I think Metlink's stance is sensible and if we were doing this properly we would aggregate the data from numerous sources and create a picture of peoples movements.

dafman

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#2544294 19-Aug-2020 10:25

MileHighKiwi:

Based on my experiences scanning in at various places during the last week, having to scan a QR code before you get on a bus would be a logistical nightmare. They run on timetables, can you imagine people trying to do this efficiently at a busy bus stop?

I think Metlink's stance is sensible and if we were doing this properly we would aggregate the data from numerous sources and create a picture of peoples movements.

Simple solution - display three or four QR codes at spaced distances inside the bus. Once on the bus, passengers can scan the code nearest their seat, no need to hold up the flow of people getting on/off the bus. This is what they are doing in the trains.

dafman

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#2544298 19-Aug-2020 10:41

wellygary:

Because in this situation Snapper is more useful than QR,

The current government COVID App QR system is checkin only- they can only judge how long you were there by the next code - ( Rippl does allow check out but that is a whoel different kettle of fish)

Snapper tells them what stop you got on at and what stop you got off at. ( + the times) [and importantly the same for everyone else on the bus...)

I'm pretty sure that AirNZ don't have QRs on planes, but they can tell any tracer who else was on the flight and where they all sat.... using different data sources is not really unusual...QRs are not the be all and end all....

Ok, granted, Snapper provides more detailed information - but that doesn't fix the problem that it is a separate database to the government app database - how do the two databases 'talk' to each other?

For example:

Metlink/Snapper are not performing the contract tracing, so how will they know that data they have on individual is required on any given day?

Or, how will MoH, who are responsible for performing contract tracing, know whether or not the individuals they are tracing traveled on a bus? They only way this could work is for MoH to liaise with Metlink/Snapper over every single individual they are tracing to find out if they have been on a bus. Hardly practical if you are tracing 1,000+ people on any given day (which is the possible future scale we could face).

If Metlink simply displayed QR codes on buses - this would alert MoH that someone had been on a bus, after which the more detailed info held by Metlink/Snapper would become useful.

Oblivian

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#2544299 19-Aug-2020 10:46

dafman:

Metlink/Snapper are not performing the contract tracing, so how will they know that data they have on individual is required on any given day?

Or, how will MoH, who are responsible for performing contract tracing, know whether or not the individuals they are tracing traveled on a bus? They only way this could work is for MoH to liaise with Metlink/Snapper over every single individual they are tracing to find out if they have been on a bus. Hardly practical if you are tracing 1,000+ people on any given day (which is the possible future scale we could face).

If Metlink simply displayed QR codes on buses - this would alert MoH that someone had been on a bus, after which the more detailed info held by Metlink/Snapper would become useful.

That's EXACTLY how they've had to until this week - No different to writing your name on paper and a restaurant or coffee shop needing to handover that paperwork to take up a number of staff to go through. MoH will ask the person their actions. Get a fair idea. And then reach out to each of those locations to hand over the data.

Digital is still faster. It doesn't need to be a specific digital method. Multi layer is of course best. But each single one is not always practical in it's own right.

Batman

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#2544301 19-Aug-2020 10:58

Wuhan seemingly back to normal

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/18/asia/wuhan-water-park-party-intl-hnk/index.html

DS248

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#2544306 19-Aug-2020 11:09

Now the legal bun fight

https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/victorias-covid-death-toll-prompts-class-action-against-epping-gardens-aged-care-facility-c-1248118

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wellygary

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#2544308 19-Aug-2020 11:12

dafman:

Or, how will MoH, who are responsible for performing contract tracing, know whether or not the individuals they are tracing traveled on a bus?

They only way this could work is for MoH to liaise with Metlink/Snapper over every single individual they are tracing to find out if they have been on a bus. Hardly practical if you are tracing 1,000+ people on any given day (which is the possible future scale we could face).

If Metlink simply displayed QR codes on buses - this would alert MoH that someone had been on a bus, after which the more detailed info held by Metlink/Snapper would become useful.

If you are so worried about the MoH not knowing you have been on a bus you can write it in as a manual entry (that's what the feature's for)

But given the Metlink say they have been working with the Government (presumably the MoH) I'm guessing the current solution is acceptable,

In Auckland ( Which is under higher restrictions,) there appears no requirement of QR scanning on public transport and the HOP cards at to be used for any contact tracing - indicating that the MoH are happy for there not to be QR codes

https://at.govt.nz/about-us/news-events/covid-19-information/

DS248

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#2544310 19-Aug-2020 11:17

AU Govt secures deal to produce Oxford University coronavirus vaccine for AU, NZ & Pacific (assuming the current trials do pass muster). But not confining its search to just the Oxford University vaccine.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-18/australia-locks-in-oxford-astrazeneca-coronavirus-vaccine-deal/12571454

Zepanda66

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#2544314 19-Aug-2020 11:26

Batman: Wuhan seemingly back to normal

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/18/asia/wuhan-water-park-party-intl-hnk/index.html

They earned it tbh. Didn't they basically test everyone in the city over a couple of weeks?

http://www.speedtest.net/result/7315955530.png

dafman

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#2544339 19-Aug-2020 12:12

wellygary:

If you are so worried about the MoH not knowing you have been on a bus you can write it in as a manual entry (that's what the feature's for)

But given the Metlink say they have been working with the Government (presumably the MoH) I'm guessing the current solution is acceptable,

Both of above are sub optimal to the simple alternative of taking five minutes of an employee's time to put the QR codes in the buses - just like every other business is required to do.

And in relation to your first point, yes I am so worried - there's a global pandemic sweeping the globe that's killed near a million people.

DonH

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#2544348 19-Aug-2020 12:35

For bus QR codes to be useful there would need to be a different QR code for each route and service on the timetable. Otherwise there'd be no way to match passenger journeys to positive cases. Buses and, to a lesser extent, drivers don't do the same route every day. Each driver would have to pick up the correct pack of QR codes when coming on shift and remember to change them at the end of every service. The packs would have to be maintained and lost/damaged codes replaced. Reducing the boarding queue by having multiple copies on the bus would exacerbate the issues.

Personally, although I have a Goldcard, I use my Snapper.

Edit: On thinking some more, fixed (unchanging) QR codes might be enough. You could be alerted if you rode the same bus as a positive case on the same day.

People hear what they see. - Doris Day

cshwone

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#2544401 19-Aug-2020 12:49

DonH:

For bus QR codes to be useful there would need to be a different QR code for each route and service on the timetable. Otherwise there'd be no way to match passenger journeys to positive cases. Buses and, to a lesser extent, drivers don't do the same route every day. Each driver would have to pick up the correct pack of QR codes when coming on shift and remember to change them at the end of every service. The packs would have to be maintained and lost/damaged codes replaced. Reducing the boarding queue by having multiple copies on the bus would exacerbate the issues.

Personally, although I have a Goldcard, I use my Snapper.

Edit: On thinking some more, fixed (unchanging) QR codes might be enough. You could be alerted if you rode the same bus as a positive case on the same day.

On the Wairarapa Line each individual carriage has it's own QR Code.

A lot of the previous posts have been around the concept that the current solution on the buses of using Snapper leaving cash and Goldcard users to make a manual entry is acceptable and meets MoH requirements. It might do, but for the sake of a few posters in each bus we can have a better solution for everyone.

Scott3

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#2544407 19-Aug-2020 12:59

Batman:

every time i hear on the news "we have no new cases" "we have no community transmission for x days"

it just sickened me to know there was no testing and people were mixing so what was the point of those statements. now all sorts of blaming and excuses but i better stop right here or else

*OTOH, i don't think any other govt (as we have seen in 195 countries) can do a lot better, and it is also possible that - no matter what you do, it was going to come in anyway.

Remember at the end of the last lockdown when we were cerebrating no active cases in NZ at all. Then we started testing those in managed isolation, finding that roughly one case a day was getting imported into NZ.

While you may well be right, about other governments not being able to do better, but NZ is in a different situation to other countries (including having somewhat competent governance), so we don't need to follow other countries leads.

Regarding it coming in being inevitable, we could completly close our boarders and have the military paroling to shoot down rouge aircraft, and boats who breach. Of course not having any imports (and having five times as much food as we can consume), along with abandoning New Zealanders currently out of the country would we disproportionate for the severity of covid-19 - Perhaps a movie level virus could justify this...

Given the above, we accept risk at the border, in return for the rewards of having trade and limited travel. Essentially an odds game. I think we should be stacking the odds in our favor as much as is reasonable.

kingdragonfly

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#2544420 19-Aug-2020 13:19

Sorry about the length of this excerpt. I found it well written, and hard to compact.

New York Times: A Warning for the United States From the Author of ‘The Great Influenza’

If we don’t get the virus under control, the devastation will get worse.

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”

So said the poet T.S. Eliot. It’s an apt explanation for the White House’s failure to respond adequately to the pandemic that has swept across America and the rest of the world.

Even as reality continues to intrude, President Trump has either largely dismissed or ignored his science and medical advisers. And the result is that the economy, the one thing he seems to care most about, and which he hoped would escort him to a second term, has been devastated.

As both history and data from today demonstrate, health and the economy are not antagonistic; they are dance partners, with public health taking the lead. The safer people feel, the more they will engage in economic activity.

A recent study of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic by a member of the Federal Reserve board and economists at the Fed and M.I.T. compared cities that imposed stringent public health measures — including school and church closings, public gathering bans, quarantines and restricted business hours — with cities that opened faster and imposed fewer restrictions. The more stringent cities not only had fewer deaths but experienced “a relative increase in economic activity from 1919 onward.”

Containing the virus has allowed many European economies to recover far better than the U.S. Look at Germany, which has an unemployment rate of 6.4 percent. The rate in the U.S. is 10.2 percent. In March and April, according to OpenTable, the reservation booking company, business in restaurants in Germany and the U.S. were in the identical place, down over 90 percent year over year. Since then they have diverged widely: data for Aug. 16 (the latest data at this writing) shows German restaurants enjoyed 9 percent more business than last year, before the pandemic, while U.S. restaurants were down around 50 percent.

And in a report last week, the National League of Cities said that precipitous declines in tax revenues were forcing cities to “severely cut services at a time when communities need them most, to lay off and furlough employees who make up a large share of America’s middle class, and to pull back on capital projects, further affecting local employment, business contracts and overall investment in the economy.”

In June the World Bank estimated that global G.D.P. this year would decline by at least 5.2 percent and possibly much more. The Congressional Budget Office expects G.D.P in the U.S. to fare worse, down 5.9 percent for the year, even after factoring in projected third quarter growth of more than 20 percent. But that projection assumes the containment of the virus, a huge assumption.

Indeed, a Morgan Stanley model predicts that under current policies the U.S. is currently on track to have 150,000 new cases a day later this year. And that number is not even a worst case. If we do suffer case counts anything like those, dramatic growth in the economy simply won’t happen.

Bad as the virus has been this summer, it actually spreads better in low temperatures, and when temperatures fall, more people will be inside in poorly ventilated areas where transmission is also more likely. If the U.S. goes into the fall with new daily cases in the tens of thousands, as they are now, then the numbers could explode and the Morgan Stanley prediction could come true. Considering our containment efforts to date, there is little reason for optimism.

If that occurs, the economy will not come back. Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said as much recently. “The path forward for the economy is extraordinarily uncertain and will depend in large part on our success in keeping the virus in check,” he said at a July 29 news conference. He added: “A full recovery is unlikely until people are confident that it is safe to re-engage in a broad range of activities.”

But containment, and the confidence that goes with it, is not remotely where we are at the moment. Among developed nations, the U.S. ranks first in categories one would prefer to be last in: number of cases and number of deaths. It lags well behind in economic recovery as well...

Bringing the economy back requires precisely the same three measures that controlling the virus does: First, better compliance with social distancing, wearing masks, personal hygiene and avoiding crowds; second, finally — finally — getting the supply chain and personnel infrastructure in place to support the necessary testing and contact tracing; and, third, the bitter medicine of regional shutdowns.

The same Morgan Stanley model that predicts that the U.S. is on track to reach 150,000 cases a day also has a “bullish” scenario in which the U.S. case counts decline to European levels. But for that to happen, the modelers assumed “more strict restrictions and broader interventions” such as lockdowns “similar” to those imposed by China and major European Union countries.

Without active, aggressive White House leadership we cannot achieve that and — reality again — there isn’t the slightest hint that will happen. But in 1918 leadership came from cities and states. If governors and mayors act aggressively, especially if they act jointly, we can still make significant progress.
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