2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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

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#2545065 20-Aug-2020 11:25

MikeB4:

Batman:

"first 9 days of lockdown was illegal but justified"

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/lockdown-unlawful-first-9-days-high-court-rules

I really don't know how to process this.

The law is an ass.

Occasionally it's exactly right, occasionally it's completely wrong. Mostly it's approximately what is right & just & sensible.

This was one of the times it was wrong. Which is acceptable for a once in a century event, but, given we have had similar events (1919 flu, SARS scare), the circumstances really should have been foreseen and the law amended.

frankv

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#2545078 20-Aug-2020 11:38

University of Auckland's Public health lecturer Simon Thornley told Kathryn Ryan an antibody blood test may indicate whether a third party at the hotel could have been an intermediary passing on the virus somehow.......

......“It’s also been important overseas for dialling back how lethal the virus has been. Initially the World Health Organisation came out with figures that three in a 100 of us were going to die. Once the antibody tests were coming back it became more like two-in-a-thousand deaths.

I can see how identifying a third party may be possible via antibody testing, although it probably won't be definitive. You'll know that this third party once had covid, but not when, unless they have also had a negative antibody test just prior to Aug 31 or thereabouts.

I can't see how antibody tests can affect the lethality of the disease. Could someone enlighten me?

PolicyGuy

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#2545085 20-Aug-2020 12:00

tdgeek:

National will tighten the border if elected by ensuring all travellers get a negative test before they board

1. If they are newly infected, but no symptoms, they will always give a positive test?

2. Where is the test done? At the airport then onto the aircraft? At a doctor or test centre then wander through Melbourne until the result comes through? Then wander through Melbourne to the airport?

Unless they go to an MIQ hotel, get a test, then if negative then monitored transport to the airport, thats not watertight. The proposal means get a test, hang around in a Covid environment for 3 days then fly here.

I suspect that in very many countries a small bundle of $US50 notes will obtain either a genuine "Coved tested negative" certificate, or one that looks so much like the genuine article that no airline check-in clerk could tell the difference.

This just won't work until there's a high-reliability test that takes less than 15 minutes.

frankv

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#2545088 20-Aug-2020 12:03

Scott3:

Hospitalization rate of this outbreak seems a lot higher than last time. I don't have enough info to form a conclusion, but I have heard demographics (age / ethnicity) speculated.

My memory is different... 22 fatalities from 1100 cases gives a CFR of 2%. Hospitalisation was quite a lot higher than 2%.

When we did the initial lock-down the main concern was about the virus's ability to overload our hospital system, leading to fatalities from other stuff as well. The ability of Covid-19 to consume a large amount of hospital resources seems well in excess of influenza. (that said we do have hospitals overflowing in bad flu years).

Correct. But hospitals *did* cancel/postpone lots of treatment in February/March, so even though covid *didn't* overload the hospital system, some people didn't get the treatment they needed. Presumably some of those treatments were life-saving (or, more accurately, life-extending) rather than improving quality of life, so some people did (or will) die of cancer or whatever as a result of covid.

An example... a week or so ago I had a minor medical investigation. My appointment was brought forward due to the cancellation of all appointments for rest home inhabitants subsequent to Level 2. So all rest home inhabitants will not be getting investigations they need, so some of them won't get their problem diagnosed until later, and some of those will die because their problem won't be treated until too late.

Batman

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#2545098 20-Aug-2020 12:15

PolicyGuy:

tdgeek:

National will tighten the border if elected by ensuring all travellers get a negative test before they board

1. If they are newly infected, but no symptoms, they will always give a positive test?

2. Where is the test done? At the airport then onto the aircraft? At a doctor or test centre then wander through Melbourne until the result comes through? Then wander through Melbourne to the airport?

Unless they go to an MIQ hotel, get a test, then if negative then monitored transport to the airport, thats not watertight. The proposal means get a test, hang around in a Covid environment for 3 days then fly here.

I suspect that in very many countries a small bundle of $US50 notes will obtain either a genuine "Coved tested negative" certificate, or one that looks so much like the genuine article that no airline check-in clerk could tell the difference.

This just won't work until there's a high-reliability test that takes less than 15 minutes.

US50 is a month's wages in many countries. I'd go USD1 to be competitive.

1101

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#2545103 20-Aug-2020 12:21

tdgeek:

National will tighten the border if elected by ensuring all travellers get a negative test before they board

completely unworkable.
Kiwi's will be stuck overseas, sitting in the overseas airport, with no money and no way to pay for these tests .
So we just leave them there to rot: some kiwis overseas are out of money already .
Others could just obtain bogus negative tests , or tests from an unreliable lab . NZ will have zero control over how these tests are done .
How 'new' will that test need to be. Any test more than a day old could be worthless as they could get infected after the overseas test .

Just what are Nationals Policies regarding everything Covid : carry on as is, allow tourists?, allow Chinese students?, allow overseas 'skilled' workers? , lockdown or no lockdowns ?
do National even have a plan or will they also just wing it like Labour is ?

Is Nats plan to charge everyone for their quarenteen going to be challenged & overturned in the Courts (if they get elected )

ezbee

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#2545121 20-Aug-2020 12:26

Test and Fly seems to have a number of holes.

1/ Quality of the test in offshore location .
2/ False test papers
3/ Does not catch people early in infection , so infected still get through.
4/ People think they are clear and behave like they are including ignoring any later mild symptoms.

Thus our first arrival test being at 3 days , time to incubate enough virus.
Second test before release, catch the really slow incubators and possible cross contamination.

We have a good number of cases that passed first time and did not show up till second test as our own proof.

Even if you have people pre-quarantine before flying , you have problems of fake passes.

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Rikkitic

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#2545124 20-Aug-2020 12:33

I am disappointed at the holes in our border protection, but improvements are constantly being made as deficiencies are pointed out. I don't see what purpose could possibly be served by suddenly bringing in a new lot with no prior experience of this and letting them start all over learning as they go.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

ezbee

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#2545126 20-Aug-2020 12:36

Chinese students from Taiwan would seem to be fine as would tourists from Taiwan.

But they would want to wait till we were clear first.

tdgeek

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#2545129 20-Aug-2020 12:44

Rikkitic:

I am disappointed at the holes in our border protection, but improvements are constantly being made as deficiencies are pointed out. I don't see what purpose could possibly be served by suddenly bringing in a new lot with no prior experience of this and letting them start all over learning as they go.

Exactly. How can you complain about the border then announce get a test before you fly then we will accept 3 days of risk in a COVID riddled country then you hop on the plane, thats totally bizarre. Run out of ideas or there is no easy fix

tdgeek

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#2545218 20-Aug-2020 13:20

Why is Americold surface infection ruled out "at this point"? They did surface testing, and 4 of 35 gauze swabs showed the virus. yes, its low levels, but we now know that there is/was Covid on Americold surfaces.

TechSol

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#2545223 20-Aug-2020 13:29

tdgeek:

Why is Americold surface infection ruled out "at this point"? They did surface testing, and 4 of 35 gauze swabs showed the virus. yes, its low levels, but we now know that there is/was Covid on Americold surfaces.

Because there is no way to tell if the surface that has tested as contaminated infected the patient, or whether the patient left virus on the surface.

tdgeek

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#2545239 20-Aug-2020 13:35

TechSol:

tdgeek:

Why is Americold surface infection ruled out "at this point"? They did surface testing, and 4 of 35 gauze swabs showed the virus. yes, its low levels, but we now know that there is/was Covid on Americold surfaces.

Because there is no way to tell if the surface that has tested as contaminated infected the patient, or whether the patient left virus on the surface.

So how can you rule it out? By your own words, it could have been the source. But it cannot surely be ruled out

TechSol

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Technical Solutions Aust

#2545244 20-Aug-2020 13:41

tdgeek:

So how can you rule it out? By your own words, it could have been the source. But it cannot surely be ruled out

Because there is no further line of enquiry to run down? Its semantics at this point to say it's possible when we would never know.

GV27

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#2545245 20-Aug-2020 13:41

TechSol:

tdgeek:

Why is Americold surface infection ruled out "at this point"? They did surface testing, and 4 of 35 gauze swabs showed the virus. yes, its low levels, but we now know that there is/was Covid on Americold surfaces.

Because there is no way to tell if the surface that has tested as contaminated infected the patient, or whether the patient left virus on the surface.

It sounds like they've only seen enough confirm it was there at the same level they'd see where people have brought it in, as opposed to it being present in enough quantities to be the source.

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