2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2762766 18-Aug-2021 22:49

Oblivian: We're up to 54 POIs.

And as early as Aug 3.

Cruuuddd.. someone's been symptomatic for longer than they should be, or has a long 1:1 link space between

Or asymptomatic. It happens.

Scott3

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#2762767 18-Aug-2021 23:03

Oblivian: We're up to 54 POIs.

And as early as Aug 3.

Cruuuddd.. someone's been symptomatic for longer than they should be, or has a long 1:1 link space between

List here:

https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-public/contact-tracing-covid-19/covid-19-contact-tracing-locations-interest

Until the genome sequencing comes back for the flatmates, we don't know the sequencing of their infections, and some of the POI's may be from the other cases announced this afternoon. Potentially we have 3 or 4 links in a chain, some of whom potentially were never were symptomatic, making it hard to put an outside bound on when they were contagious.

But it wouldn't surprise me if people passed off symptoms as something else, and didn't bother getting tested. Heaps of sickness floating around this winter, and getting into pollen season now too. And after 100+\ of days without community transmission (new definition), people will get complacent.

But, wow, that list is huge, and full of busy locations. We are pretty much going to have to used the lockdown to do the bulk of the work, and largely just wait for this outbreak to burn itself out, with contact tracing helping out where it can.

[edit]

Regarding the Aug 3 date, there is some chance the contact traces are searching for the source of infection rather than people that may have been infected.

This would mean they would throw out the 48hrs prior to onset of symptoms, and run whatever incubation period they use.

Might be 14 days, or they may have shortened it up a little as delta seems faster.

antonknee

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#2762772 19-Aug-2021 00:06

Scott3:

Regarding the Aug 3 date, there is some chance the contact traces are searching for the source of infection rather than people that may have been infected.

This would mean they would throw out the 48hrs prior to onset of symptoms, and run whatever incubation period they use.

Might be 14 days, or they may have shortened it up a little as delta seems faster.

I think this is a distinct possibility. But you would question why no LOIs between now and then if that’s the case? Or perhaps i’m not thinking about ringing

Could also be someone who has tested positive but asymptomatic and they’ve gone back an incubation period (although if this is the case you’d likely expect some LOIs between now and then). Could be someone symptomatic who never got tested but has been isolating since the onset of symptoms I guess.

Could also be there’s some reason to withhold intervening LOIs (or just a homebody I guess).

Wheelbarrow01

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#2762773 19-Aug-2021 01:14

Scott3:

Pretty disappointing the police force didn't make the cut as a priory group months ago. Sounds like 10k+ not vaccinated. They are the people that have to go and arrest maskless lawbreakers during lockdown...

We chose not to take learning from Sydney where essential workers were a major vector for spread in their lockdown, and haven't given any prioritisation yet to those workers.

To the first point above, I absolutely agree - our frontline police should have been at or near the front of the queue. And right about now I feel that supermarket workers should also have been. Imagine what they are putting up with right now in terms of the number of people in close contact with them every day. I have a friend who works at New World and I can assure you she is not enjoying going to work at the moment.

On the second point, I have watched quite a few of Berejiklian's press conferences in the past month or two. It's not clear that NSW has learnt anything at all to be honest. The premier and her advisers outright refused for quite some time to define what "essential" is, preferring to "leave it to workers and employers to agree amongst themselves as adults". The net result has been every man and his dog going to all sorts of workplaces, near or far from home, and in a lot of instances dropping their kids off at daycare along the way. Heck, there's even been people working from home who've still been dropping kids at daycare "so they can get work done in peace". The irony is palpable. My point is that refusing for so long to draw a line in the sand on who is and isn't an essential worker is a big contributor to their high numbers now.

My friend in Sydney thinks it's pretty retarded that his local McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks etc etc are all still open, and he can still just stroll into his local Bunnings or other big retailers if he so wishes - despite being "in one of Australia's strictest lockdowns" according to the premier. Heck, people are playing rounds of golf, then congregating at the clubhouse for drinks and a meal afterwards, but I guess they have to exercise and eat, right?

The NSW premier took an absolute hammering from the media at her 11am press conference today, and her only rebuttal to criticism was that there will always be a small number of citizens who do the wrong thing. Both she and her advisers refused to be drawn on whether the restrictions were tight enough and in fact they deflected most questions without giving any real answer to anything at all.

mattwnz

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#2762775 19-Aug-2021 01:23

NSW is a real worry. It really could get out of hand, more so than it already has. It is a bit like watching a slow car crash. NZ should have stopped the bubble far sooner than it did too, as it was very clear they weren't following an elimination policy but had CT, and we may have avoided our current situation. I think we may find out how it got in this time. IMO we played Russian roulette and our luck ran out. It is not even hindsight because I was posting that the bubble needed closing and we were playing russian roulette well before it eventually was. IMO opening the bubble was political, and didn't make any sense financially, and risked billions in costs if it went wrong.

I think based on the R0 of Delta being up to 6, whereas the R0 of regular covid being about half that, and based on all the POI, and Churches, Uni, school , casinos, etc involved, I think we will be in lockdown for a few weeks at least, and infections will be in the 100's. Maybe 300+ if we are lucky. We are only at day 1, and it is 10+.

But what I don't understand is why we suddenly got all these cases in a day. Is it because these people had symptoms already, but didn't get tested. Or are they close contacts and didn't have any symptoms

If people have had cold symptoms but didn't bother getting tested, and POIs go back to early August, I just hope that we haven't had Delta in the community for 2+ weeks. Although if that is the case, I would have expected to see more hospital admissions,. But if a lot of older people are already vaccinated, this may mask the cases somewhat.

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#2762782 19-Aug-2021 07:02

mattwnz:
NSW is a real worry. It really could get out of hand, more so than it already has. It is a bit like watching a slow car crash. NZ should have stopped the bubble far sooner than it did

I don't think it would have made any difference. I'm Assuming this wasn't a bubble leak transmission of course.

But yes if this was from the bubble then you'd be right!

Been a bit confused. We stopped the bubble in July. Maybe you're right. Now we print another few billion dollars too...

tdgeek

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#2762783 19-Aug-2021 07:16

Scott3:

But, wow, that list is huge, and full of busy locations. We are pretty much going to have to used the lockdown to do the bulk of the work, and largely just wait for this outbreak to burn itself out, with contact tracing helping out where it can.

I think that's already a given. Tracing is well after the fact, so when they find a clue, great, but that clue has already spread it. POI is large now, factor in how many people were potentially exposed, and where they have been, its exponential and when they find things its already history. Lockdown is the only tool now. If the outbreak was with a less infectious Covid and the POI werent mass events and it was found sooner, then tracing can round up the cases and contacts, and keep up with them so spread isn't running away. The size of some of these POI means its running away, so lockdown needs to be followed by all, and I hope many are random testing rather than waiting for sniffles

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tdgeek

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#2762784 19-Aug-2021 07:24

Batman:
mattwnz:

NSW is a real worry. It really could get out of hand, more so than it already has. It is a bit like watching a slow car crash. NZ should have stopped the bubble far sooner than it did

I don't think it would have made any difference. I'm Assuming this wasn't a bubble leak transmission of course.

But yes if this was from the bubble then you'd be right!

Been a bit confused. We stopped the bubble in July. Maybe you're right. Now we print another few billion dollars too...

Agree, makes no difference. We have been allowing people in for a long long time. It would never be 100% secure, we all know that. The inevitable outbreak happened, so we need to accept that. Pointing the finger at the bubble is a bit pointless, if this turns out not to be a bubble link, then we can say that bubbles are great, thats also a silly conclusion. MIQ or bubbles, they aren't risk free. If we want risk free then shut out everyone. That's also not an option. End of the day we have done extremely well to go this far, so just stay at home and ride it out

Fred99

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#2762785 19-Aug-2021 07:51

Was the bubble with Aus - combined with NZ's "level 1" (= de facto level 0), 10% compliance with QR scanning - a good idea?

Enjoy the next ~6 weeks. We've reaped what we've sown.

tdgeek

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#2762791 19-Aug-2021 08:07

Fred99:

Was the bubble with Aus - combined with NZ's "level 1" (= de facto level 0), 10% compliance with QR scanning - a good idea?

Enjoy the next ~6 weeks. We've reaped what we've sown.

In hindsight no. Had AUS and NZ enjoyed the freedom from Covid we have had, the answer would be yes. We can also ask the same question about MIQ is that a good idea? That has spawned outbreaks here, so the answer is also no. The risk from MIQ has still allowed freedom here, and we got unlucky that the new bubble coincided with a leak over there, that was always a risk from both sides. personally the bubble shows no economic benefit, the only benefit I can see is family contact. With Raro we should cancel that also? Same thing really. They could do a Fiji. Or we could do a NZ, which we have

sbiddle

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#2762793 19-Aug-2021 08:08

antonknee:

Oblivian: Still think some retail are stretching it.

I thought it was lvl3 that was 4 with takeaways and more outdoors CnC right?

Because they are stretching it. Defining essential and setting up an offer that meets the letter and spirit of the law is literally what I’ve spent the last two days doing, and it’s frustrating knowing that I’m putting the effort in while others play fast and loose at the potential expense of their team, and of everyone else’s efforts in the lockdown.

Some retailers went early with promoting “deliveries still available across our full range”. I have no clue why - this is incorrect and would never have been allowed. The guidance was very clear that it’s essential only (if you are non-food retail). Some are claiming the guidance is not clear - it’s pretty clear.

Put on your big boy pants and apply a reasonable definition of essential. Cologne and Christmas lights are not essential.

The problem was that there has been no level 4 guidance available for the last ~6 months online.

We had a business.govt.nz offical site that had nothing up until 1am or so on Wednesday morning https://web.archive.org/web/20210524114445/https://www.business.govt.nz/covid-19/operating-at-alert-levels/

We had a covid19.govt.nz official site that had nothing up until 1am or so on Wednesday morning http://web.archive.org/web/20210730145050mp_/https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-levels-and-updates/alert-level-4/

Every business should have been able to find clear and concise information about what would and would not be able to happen under level 4 because we've been told for weeks now that any new L4 could be quite different.. But nobody could do that because the information didn't exist.

Combine this with the fact cabinet had to actually decide yesterday after we were in L4 what a new mask mandate for L4 would look like and it just looks more and more like nobody was actually prepared for L4.

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#2762794 19-Aug-2021 08:17

Fred99:

Was the bubble with Aus - combined with NZ's "level 1" (= de facto level 0), 10% compliance with QR scanning - a good idea?

Enjoy the next ~6 weeks. We've reaped what we've sown.

yes. i think they even saw it coming, as we were warned about this last week

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#2762795 19-Aug-2021 08:19

sbiddle:

The problem was that there has been no level 4 guidance available for the last ~6 months online.

we've mentioned this a lot. reactive vs predictive + pro-active

no need to do anything until 5 million people point it out.

but i am not politicking. it will happen whoever group is governing. it's the kiwi way.

sbiddle

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#2762801 19-Aug-2021 08:29

Scott3:

With hindsight our vaccine prioritisation was far from optimal given our strategy was to lock down hard at the sniff of a case.

Pretty disappointing the police force didn't make the cut as a priory group months ago. Sounds like 10k+ not vaccinated. They are the people that have to go and arrest maskless lawbreakers during lockdown...

It seems that prioritising vaccines to those more likely to be exposed & spread the virus, would have served NZ better the approach of prioritising based on risk of harm if they were exposed.

We chose not to take learning from Sydney where essential workers were a major vector for spread in their lockdown, and haven't given any prioritisation yet to those workers.

Ultimately (beyond groups 1 & 2) we have ended up with the vaccine going disproportionately to demographics that have less social contact.

Which is everything many people in this thread have been saying for the last few months. Maybe we're all a lot smarter than the so called experts?

At least Police have indicated this morning that there is some progress on accelerating their vaccine rollout

sbiddle

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#2762802 19-Aug-2021 08:32

Batman:

sbiddle:

The problem was that there has been no level 4 guidance available for the last ~6 months online.

we've mentioned this a lot. reactive vs predictive + pro-active

no need to do anything until 5 million people point it out.

but i am not politicking. it will happen whoever group is governing. it's the kiwi way.

It's not so much a government issue but a failure of the public service. MBIE are responsible for much of this.

It should have been very clear to everybody what a L4 lockdown would look like. Instead for some it's like we are in March last year where there is uncertainty.

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