2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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2513 posts

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#2440727 18-Mar-2020 14:47

"Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is advising anyone who has been overseas in the last two weeks to self-isolate, even if they got back before the official deadline."

Looks like they have realised the folly of allowing a whole bunch of people to race in before the cut off time for self isolation. Will be interesting to see how many of the latest cases were part of that group.

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mattwnz

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#2440729 18-Mar-2020 14:58

geekiegeek:

"Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is advising anyone who has been overseas in the last two weeks to self-isolate, even if they got back before the official deadline."

Looks like they have realised the folly of allowing a whole bunch of people to race in before the cut off time for self isolation. Will be interesting to see how many of the latest cases were part of that group.

Yeap. I just can't understand why they didn't backdate it at the time, because even two Politicians went in to self isolation voluntarily at the weekend after returning from Oz, as they thought it was the prudent thing to do. Is this new announcement voluntary, or a requirement, as they have used the word 'should' self isolate, and not 'must'. If voluntary, how many people are not going to do it?

wellygary

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#2440730 18-Mar-2020 14:59

mattwnz:

NZ should be learning from all this. WHO has said TEST TEST TEST .

On monday apparently they increased testing. But to increase it up to 1000 and over a day they need staff to do another shift, and they don't want to wear out staff at this early stage, which is understandable. From what they were saying the only limitation on testing was staff. It doesn't sound like they have any limit on the number of test kits they have. Apparently they will be able to do a maximum of 1500 tests a day.

Today they announced they have sent 30,000 swabs around the country to do more testing.

Korea with a population of 50 million is doing 20K tests per day, For NZ to be equivalent we need 2,000 tests a day,

1000 /day is certainly moving in the right direction...

tdgeek

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#2440733 18-Mar-2020 15:03

wellygary:

Korea with a population of 50 million is doing 20K tests per day, For NZ to be equivalent we need 2,000 tests a day,

1000 /day is certainly moving in the right direction...

Who will we test, and why? Serious question, re the benefit

MikeB4

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#2440736 18-Mar-2020 15:07

tdgeek:

wellygary:

Korea with a population of 50 million is doing 20K tests per day, For NZ to be equivalent we need 2,000 tests a day,

1000 /day is certainly moving in the right direction...

Who will we test, and why? Serious question, re the benefit

Simply those whom doctors believe should be tested based on the given criteria.

geekiegeek

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#2440739 18-Mar-2020 15:09

I believe they will start testing anyone who is slightly symptomatic, basically lowing the threshold of who gets tested. "Fever Clinics" in the community will also allow for better access to testing instead of having to go to a GP or Hospital.

dogstar001

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#2440742 18-Mar-2020 15:12

"Do 70% of people get the normal flu? Or is this far more contagious than they first thought? Is the 70% based on people just living their life as normal without any isolation? WE also have to remember that this virus is in addition to the normal flu, so we will still get sick people going to hospital with the normal flu, unless they have been vaccinated. But there are about 1.8 million flu vaccinations, so 3 million people will miss out on it if they want it, at least initially, unless they order more

I know someone in the UK whose work closed last week and they are now all working from home for the next 3 months.

Older and at risk people are going to have to essentially be self quarantined, because will the health system cope? That is now occurring in the UK, who appear to have now flip flopped and will now be following WHOs advice, after modeling showed the path they were following was going to lead to many deaths.

In Italy 80% of those that have died apparently are male, which is apparently partly because females have better immune systems.

In Australia they are putting far more measures in place over the last few days. Considering how fast thngs are chaging, I wonder why more restrictions are coming in in NZ, as now is the time to act, not tomorrow. We won't see the effects of what we have done today to try and change the path, for up to a few weeks".

Only about 10% of people get the flu each year

The R0 for the flu is about 1.3, Coronavirus has an R0 of 2.0-2.5.

DS248

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#2440746 18-Mar-2020 15:16

jonathan18:

dogstar001:

...The only reason it hasn't been detected is because they aren't testing for it.

They refuse unless you have recently come from an infected country. Germanys numbers show that if you test aggressively infections pop up.

You're referencing on the 18th of March a story from the 14th of March that relates to requests to test before that date. Things are moving so fast it does pay to check to see if there's more contemporary information.

The following article from yesterday indicates tests are (or will be) more freely available; would be interested to know if it's happening on the ground. I'm pretty sure I heard mention on Morning Report this morning that there was now the capacity for 1500 tests a day, which this other article suggests would mean numbers similar to what South Korea has been doing (edit: proportional to population, to be clear!).

PM to doctors: test more people for Covid-19

New Zealand should fall in line with international best practice and begin testing large numbers of people for Covid-19, the Prime Minister said this morning

The Government has heeded the World Health Organisation's advice to "test, test, test", Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday morning.

Ardern insisted doctors have always had the ability to order tests for patients but encouraged them to do so more liberally now.

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/03/17/1086633/pm-to-doctors-test-more-people-for-covid-19

That's fine. But a [very belated] change of mind yesterday does not suddenly bring to light at the CT cases that have been missed to date. So the comment by dogstar001 still stands. We will only find out if there has been CT once results of much more widespread testing become available.

The criteria for testing applied (in practice) until yesterday has greatly reduced the likelihood of CT being detected.

And not quite a full hearted endorsement of WHO's advice? Ardern "If you think you need to test, test." (vs WHO "test, test, test") 😀

Batman

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#2440749 18-Mar-2020 15:19

geekiegeek:

"Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is advising anyone who has been overseas in the last two weeks to self-isolate, even if they got back before the official deadline."

Looks like they have realised the folly of allowing a whole bunch of people to race in before the cut off time for self isolation. Will be interesting to see how many of the latest cases were part of that group.

edit - found it

it will be interesting to see how many actually do

SJB

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#2440751 18-Mar-2020 15:21

wellygary:

dogstar001:

Alot of uncertainty as to what the true fatility ratio is. Proabably the best indicator is the diamond princess 7 deaths currently of 712 infections. 514 have recovered. Following this trend you

should get about 3 more deaths & the rest should recover. 10/712 is about 1.4% death rate.

NZ's population is 4,800,000, with a 60 % infection rate we get 2,880,000 infections. A death rate of 1.4% is 40,000 dead.

The Cruise Ships are useful, but don't tend to be very representative in terms of populations ( lots of old folks, not so many young ones)

Korea is running at about 0.7% because they are mass testing and picking up lots of mild cases, and it has not overwhelmed the medical system, Italy on the other hand is just scary and very sad...

Also different parts of the country will experience different rates.

Auckland, with a large Polynesian population who have a high rate of diabetes, could have a significantly higher death rate than say Invercargil. Same for Northland where they tend to have poorer health outcomes.

MikeB4

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#2440752 18-Mar-2020 15:24

SJB:

Also different parts of the country will experience different rates.

Auckland, with a large Polynesian population who have a high rate of diabetes, could have a significantly higher death rate than say Invercargil. Same for Northland where they tend to have poorer health outcomes.

Also need to factor in our high Asthma rate which is circa 15%

mattwnz

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#2440755 18-Mar-2020 15:30

tdgeek:

wellygary:

Korea with a population of 50 million is doing 20K tests per day, For NZ to be equivalent we need 2,000 tests a day,

1000 /day is certainly moving in the right direction...

Who will we test, and why? Serious question, re the benefit

People around NZ who have symptoms but not necessarily been in contact with anyone from overseas?. However it the main concentration of testing would probably be in Auckland and other centres where there have already been cases. NZers can move around the country a lot. I would have thought tourist area too, considering millions of tourists will go to those areas each year.

Handle9

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#2440764 18-Mar-2020 15:47

SJB: They are part of the Me Me Me generation....

I thought we were talking about University students not boomers ..

There are plenty of idiots to go round in every generation. Lucky infection number 7 was a case in point.

cddt

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#2440766 18-Mar-2020 15:51

SJB:

Also different parts of the country will experience different rates.

Auckland, with a large Polynesian population who have a high rate of diabetes, could have a significantly higher death rate than say Invercargil. Same for Northland where they tend to have poorer health outcomes.

Not to mention overcrowded housing.

Scott3

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#2440770 18-Mar-2020 15:54

Are we still going early and going hard?

We have missed out window for keeping this out at the boarder, so need to fight this on a domestic scale (Through our flu season).

I'm not an expert, but hope too see:

Full boarder closure to Non-citizens, non-residents or their immediate family when traveling together (exclude air / sea crew, but they need to be strictly quarantined when on NZ soil). Include pacific nations except those that agree to immediately ban flights to anywhere but NZ.

Every extra person through the border presents a risk, there is no need for us to carry that risk for people that risk. Also our healthcare system is about to get slammed, every person we don't add to our population the better off our health care system will be.

Also we are projecting an unemployment spike. Shouldn't need to import seasonal workers in such times.
Change self isolation to self quarantine with Singapore / china level enforcement (Twice daily checks, either in person, or by video call).
Shut down:
- Schools & daycares (except for those working in essential industries without alternative childcare arrangements
- Universities to go online only.
- Events of more than 20 people.
- Bars, restaurants, Nightclubs etc. (excl takeaway / delivery / drive through food) - No on site orders for takeaways - phone / internet order pickups.
- Public transport (except where there is no alternative, such as inter-island ferry, and ferries to islands, excl domestic flights at this stage)
Ask everybody who can to work from home (voluntary at this stage)
Ask people undertake aggressive voluntary social distancing
Start spinning up extra medical capacity.
- Get special temporary licencing ready to allow the following to practice: - retired medical staff - med / nursing students and even to allow vets to practice.
- See if we can source more ventilators
- Identify which private medical resources (i.e. private operating theaters that could be converted to ICU beds) could be used if required. (get a process set up to nationalize these if they are not voluntary made available).

Economic impact will be massive, but if we can't get on top of this in the next three weeks, we will have to lock down our country so people can't leave home for basically the entire winter.

Note that Wuhan is still under lock down. They have had Covid-19 since November (officially December), and china put resources into wuhan from all over the country, something we do not have capacity for.

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