Sigh. Anyone else feel like we're just in a holding pattern until this spills over? 

GV27:

 

Sigh. Anyone else feel like we're just in a holding pattern until this spills over? 

 

Very much so. The way things are globally, a holding pattern here is a break, almost. AUS, SEA is a mess, UK. At least these bubble states will be shut for a good while. Not sure how risky TAS, WA, NT are, I guess that depends if they can or do bypass east coast hubs

tdgeek:

 

GV27:

 

Sigh. Anyone else feel like we're just in a holding pattern until this spills over? 

 

 

 

 

Very much so. The way things are globally, a holding pattern here is a break, almost. AUS, SEA is a mess, UK. At least these bubble states will be shut for a good while. Not sure how risky TAS, WA, NT are, I guess that depends if they can or do bypass east coast hubs

 

Depends on how good the borders are between the states too, as it seems to have jumped between states already. Essentially NZ is just another state under this bubble. 

I do wonder if everyone in the UK think it is a mess. They have a big resurgence in the number of cases, but few deaths so far. I guess it is just an experiment, but they have high vaccination compared to NZ and Oz. But they have better health capacity to cope than NZ ever had. NZ barely has the health capacity to cope with normal winter illnesses.  

Fred99:

 

BUT - the vaccines do work incredibly well to save lives and reduce disease severity and probably long term or permanent damage - they are a no-brainer.  

 

We're still going to have to deal with the consequences of anti-vaxxers, to support them through possible life-long consequences of the severe infections many of them will get, and to somehow protect those in our community for whom the vaccines can't be used or wont work.

GV27:

 

Sigh. Anyone else feel like we're just in a holding pattern until this spills over? 

Yep and oh the social injustice of being pressured to help protect my follow human being, let alone my loved ones and friends.

If you listen to a pro-vaxxer and an anti-vaxxer discussion you will see a perfect demonstration of the morals + ethics = emotivism paradigm shift. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious.

mattwnz:

 

 

 

Depends on how good the borders are between the states too, as it seems to have jumped between states already. Essentially NZ is just another state under this bubble. 

 

 

 

I do wonder if everyone in the UK think it is a mess. They have a big resurgence in the number of cases, but few deaths so far. I guess it is just an experiment, but they have high vaccination compared to NZ and Oz. But they have better health capacity to cope than NZ ever had. NZ barely has the health capacity to cope with normal winter illnesses.  

 

I watched The Open golf, huge crowd no masks. I watched the British Grand Prix, 360,000 in the race weekend, no masks. 

NZ is a state I agree but they are not sea locked. And they are well over it. 

As to hospital capacity, yes I get that, NZ is poor, but how many covid cases are there? 0. Whatever we have done despite 545,458 complaints at GZ, check the rest of the globe. We should be handling cases everyday, lockdowns here and there.No cases, no deaths, stadiums full. No Steve, thats not arrogant, its fact. When, and I say when we get Delta, the slack scanning will go up, thats human nature. 

Upsurge in community cases in Singapore over the last week.  Worse now than NSW.

mattwnz:

 

I do wonder if everyone in the UK think it is a mess. They have a big resurgence in the number of cases, but few deaths so far. I guess it is just an experiment, but they have high vaccination compared to NZ and Oz. But they have better health capacity to cope than NZ ever had. NZ barely has the health capacity to cope with normal winter illnesses.  

 

I only know a handful of people in the UK now. 3/4 are very happy with what is happening and have no issues with it. The other can't believe what they're doing.

The issue has become one of politics, particularly those who hate the Tories and the PM.

sbiddle:

 

mattwnz:

 

I do wonder if everyone in the UK think it is a mess. They have a big resurgence in the number of cases, but few deaths so far. I guess it is just an experiment, but they have high vaccination compared to NZ and Oz. But they have better health capacity to cope than NZ ever had. NZ barely has the health capacity to cope with normal winter illnesses.  

 

 

I only know a handful of people in the UK now. 3/4 are very happy with what is happening and have no issues with it. The other can't believe what they're doing.

 

The issue has become one of politics, particularly those who hate the Tories and the PM.

 

I hate the Tories and their PM primarily because what they're doing has the potential to create a living petri dish which might result in creation of a far worse immune escape variant of C-19 with potential to absolutely devastate the vast majority of people on the planet who have no chance of being vaccinated in time to meet the challenge of delta, let alone what his ongoing and pathetic mis-management of a pandemic did unleash on UK citizens.

Populist leadership has strongly correlated with dire consequences for the citizens of so many nations in this pandemic.  It's been absolutely incredible to witness endless abject stupidity in a nation gifted with remarkable resources and expertise.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01589-0/fulltext

GV27:

 

Sigh. Anyone else feel like we're just in a holding pattern until this spills over? 

 

Yes we absolutely are.

With our low vaccination rate and population demographics, delta c-19 has potential to overrun our country with consequences much closer to the original worst case scenarios (CFR, hospitalisation/ICU rate) presented at the outset of the pandemic.

With the high R0 of delta, the country could be overrun with cases in weeks and even if enough vaccine arrived tomorrow it would take too long to get shots into arms, the only possible way to keep things manageable is endless lockdowns until high vaccination rates can be achieved.

IMO we should make drastic cuts to inbound arrivals immediately (as they've done in Aus - despite us being far more "kind" and willing to cater for endless sob stories) and for the remaining essential inbound arrivals, get every single person who's not yet vaccinated but with possible contact with o'seas arrivals the hell out of being in that position. 

Impact of Delta on USA:

Maybe they are trying to see how far they can get teh graph to go up this time?

IMO, the time to relax measures is when the population is all immunized. Even Australias PM seems to think they only need to immunise about 50% before getting to the stage where lockdowns won't be necessary in the future. 

Fred99:

 

GV27:

 

Sigh. Anyone else feel like we're just in a holding pattern until this spills over? 

 

 

Yes we absolutely are.

 

With our low vaccination rate and population demographics, delta c-19 has potential to overrun our country with consequences much closer to the original worst case scenarios (CFR, hospitalisation/ICU rate) presented at the outset of the pandemic.

 

With the high R0 of delta, the country could be overrun with cases in weeks and even if enough vaccine arrived tomorrow it would take too long to get shots into arms, the only possible way to keep things manageable is endless lockdowns until high vaccination rates can be achieved.

 

IMO we should make drastic cuts to inbound arrivals immediately (as they've done in Aus - despite us being far more "kind" and willing to cater for endless sob stories) and for the remaining essential inbound arrivals, get every single person who's not yet vaccinated but with possible contact with o'seas arrivals the hell out of being in that position. 

 

It's not much of a change really, currently we will still need to lock down hard (potentially Level 4) and fast in response to eliminate any outbreak.

Not really viable to panic vaccinate as a main response to an outbreak (look at how that is going for fiji), but perhaps we could do it to supplement a lock down is a smaller population center like wellington or Queenstown is affected, and staff from other locations can be brought in to man the operation.

We absolute should be doing everything we reasonably can to minimise risk of an outbreak here for the next 8 - 10 weeks that gives us 4 weeks to ramp our vaccination program up to say 300,000 doses a week, and 4 - 6 weeks running at that rate. Should be up around the 3m doses given point then (a little over 30% of the population with first doses, a little under fully vaccinated). That level of vaccination should be starting to drag down the R0 a little and make the virus easier to eliminate if it gets into NZ. 

I'm not to worried about volumes coming through MIQ. It is widely understood that the number of rooms being released is quite a bit lower than it was a year ago. Plus a decent percentage of guests will be vaccinated (Many of the popular countries of origin have had reasonable vaccination availability for some time now). Combined with vaccinated staff, and infection control learning's from prior incidents the risk posed by MIQ seems tolerable.

Glaring issue is Aussie. SA going into lock-down, but NZ is quite happy for people to jet back in and go nightclubbing... as long as they are "normally resident in NZ" (which if they use the same rules as for other states means anybody with a NZ passport / residency, or any Aussie that has taken a holiday here since April).

Decision might look a bit different if we had something like 65% of our population vaccinated. Still would need an expensive lockdown to eliminate it, but possibly something like a perpetual level 1.5 - 2, combined with a big vaccination push would be sufficient to keep the virus from getting out of hand. By then we will be starting to come out of summer too. Would be quite tempting to try level 2, and if that dosn't work call time on our elimination stratergy.

Re-opening isolation free arrivals is going to be a really tricky political decision. Seems heard immunity against delta strain isn't feasible with current vaccines. And given what happened with RSV in NZ this year, I don't think that re-opening in late summer to winter is viable. Basically gives the options of Nov - Dec this year, or wait until the likes of September next year and risk an outbreak forcing our hand in the mean time.

Potential delta specific booster vaccines are another spanner in the work's. I doubt we will be early in the queue for these, but there will be a lot of people keen to wait for them before re-opening.

mattwnz:

 

Maybe they are trying to see how far they can get teh graph to go up this time?

 

IMO, the time to relax measures is when the population is all immunized. Even Australias PM seems to think they only need to immunise about 50% before getting to the stage where lockdowns won't be necessary in the future. 

 

Well the Aus PM is a marketing man with a superficial smiley optimistic nature.  There is absolutely zero chance that's acceptable.

For obvious reasons there's been a major global focus on mortality stats, a well targeted 50% population vaccination rate can drop that to much lower and "acceptable" levels even with Delta.

Younger people at much less risk of death should not be exposed to this virus.  The long-term consequences are not fully known, but medium term consequences (sequelae) can be dire, there's definite measurable neurological damage even from mild cases, definitely damage to lung function, damage to pancreatic beta cells which could mean we're left with an ongoing toll of an epidemic of diabetes with a list of other consequences for sufferers, damage to circulatory system with unknown long-term consequences.  Sure - it "might" not be that grim.  But if "might be".

The "denialists" are out there saying things like "but this can happen with the flu".  Yup - it can, but rarely - and not on the massive global scale that this has potential to unleash.

Then as for old folks and younger folks who are immunocompromised, endemic C-19 will simply cut their remaining lives short.

Long Covid is a problem quite a few people seem to suffer from months later. 

Apparently Queensland have some Community Transmission cases too in the last day or so. Is our 'bubble still open to them? I have lost track on which states are open and closed now. As these states have totally different rules, and when they should and shouldn't  lockdown (Victoria and NSW are two different extremes), I hope we are following NZs tolerances. 

I wonder who is going to be accountable when we get a CT case of the Delta from Oz from this bubble?