2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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#2473080 29-Apr-2020 00:11

mattwnz: Noticed a number of concerning photos being posted on Twitter tonight outside or near fast food outlets,

Well I've been playing my part, I've stayed as far as possible from any and all fast food outlets. In fact I started doing that years before Covid19 hit. It was pretty easy, really.

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mattwnz

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#2473081 29-Apr-2020 00:24

neb:
mattwnz: Noticed a number of concerning photos being posted on Twitter tonight outside or near fast food outlets,
Well I've been playing my part, I've stayed as far as possible from any and all fast food outlets. In fact I started doing that years before Covid19 hit. It was pretty easy, really.

Same here, and I am into healthy eating for health reasons. Level 4 has also forced many to cook, so potentially restaurants and food outlets may drop in customers anyway, at least shorter term. I think many people may see this as a good opportunity to change the way they live and eat.

neb

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#2473082 29-Apr-2020 00:28

mattwnz:
Same here, and I am into healthy eating for health reasons.

It wasn't necessarily for health reasons, it was because... McDonalds? How badly must you be eating to consider what they serve you as a better option? Last time I went to a McDonalds was in Latvia in 2007, and that wasn't by choice (the person I was doing the trip with got sick of borscht every day). Same with pretty much ever other type of fast food, I'd rather eat the cardboard box it comes in.

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#2473083 29-Apr-2020 01:36

neb: For more depressing news, 'No Evidence' Yet That Recovered COVID-19 Patients Are Immune, WHO Says. Although it does support most countries' position of not gambling on the herd immunity approach.

Anyone know what this does this do for the prospects of a vaccine if exposure doesn't build immunity?

Handle9

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#2473084 29-Apr-2020 01:43

frankv:
Handle9: Would you borrow to keep paying yourself a salary?

I've lived off my cash reserves between jobs. And, when redundancy loomed, I arranged a mortgage so that I would have time to get another good job. So, although it's to pay living expenses directly rather than to pay myself a salary to pay living expenses, I think the answer to your question is yes.

It's a short term tactic to overcome a temporary cashflow shortage, not a permanent state. It's precisely what the government does... borrow to pay expenses during tough times, to be paid back in better future times.

If you were just borrowing for your salary that may be palatable. When you have to borrow to pay your salary, your staffs salary, your rent, your trade creditors etc it's a fairly different story. If you are borrowing multiples of the businesses annual profit just to pay your salary (and you have to put your house up as collateral) it's not something that is very attractive. This is assuming that a bank will lend to you, otherwise you are into tier 2 or 3 lenders who are definitely not low interest.

We are entering a big recession so it's not like you can expect to have as good a year next year as last year.

A lot of small business people will do it anyway but it's not a particularly rational decision.

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#2473087 29-Apr-2020 06:40

CNN: China is installing surveillance cameras outside people's front doors ... and sometimes inside their homes

...Although there is no official announcement stating that cameras must be fixed outside the homes of people under quarantine, it has been happening in some cities across China since at least February, according to three people who recounted their experience with the cameras to CNN, as well as social media posts and government statements.

China currently has no specific national law to regulate the use of surveillance cameras, but the devices are already a regular part of public life: they're often there watching when people cross the street, enter a shopping mall, dine in a restaurant, board a bus or even sit in a school classroom.

More than 20 million cameras had been installed across China as of 2017, according to state broadcaster CCTV. But other sources suggest a much higher number. According to a report from IHS Markit Technology, now a part of Informa Tech, China had 349 million surveillance cameras installed as of 2018, nearly five times the number of cameras in the United States.

China also has eight of the world's 10 most surveilled cities based on the number of cameras per 1,000 people, according to UK-based technology research firm Comparitech.

But now the pandemic has brought surveillance cameras closer to people's private lives: from public spaces in the city right to the front doors of their homes — and in some rare cases, surveillance cameras inside their apartments.
...

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/27/asia/cctv-cameras-china-hnk-intl/index.html

tdgeek

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#2473088 29-Apr-2020 06:54

GV27:

Both options have costs. The fact that people might (would, really) die if we take a different path doesn't change the reality that people are losing jobs, business owners are losing businesses and in some cases, their own homes with them, and a lot of workers have just had to take a huge hit in earnings in a low-wage economy, with no real timeline on when earnings might return to normal. The social and financial ripple effect of this is huge.

Yes, a loss of life is something we should seek to avoid. But that doesn't mean we should be dog-piling on people who are close to losing everything they have or have to make even smaller pay packets go even further in a high-living cost economy. Their struggles are no less real and the consequences of that need to be acknowledged and understood.

The reason we are where we are now is due to the lockdown. From what the PM has hinted and the control the DG has stated, its highly likely we will be at L2 in two weeks. Do we want a short term hit (where massive wage subsidies and freely available bank loans for cashflow exist) and get back to work sooner, or should we take a punt and make it free reign then go back to L3 on and off? Its better to have a rapid fix and back to normal than a slow burn for the rest of the year. Or should we have said, its only old people that die so lets ignore the virus? I assume you feel that L4 was worth it? If so, we will probably be back to normal in 2 weeks. And employers still have 5 weeks of wage subsidy, even though the business is now BAU. I guess we could have gone L3 from day one, and businesses are still affected and will be for the rest of the year. L4 didn't wipe the virus out during its course, all through we were getting cases after cases. God knows how that would have gone if we placed the 5 week economy first. We would be discussing it till Xmas as it would have got out of control. Clusters at Bunnings, clusters at Farmers, clusters at tennis courts.

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#2473127 29-Apr-2020 08:44

neb:
neb: For more depressing news, 'No Evidence' Yet That Recovered COVID-19 Patients Are Immune, WHO Says. Although it does support most countries' position of not gambling on the herd immunity approach.
Anyone know what this does this do for the prospects of a vaccine if exposure doesn't build immunity?

Yes - it probably eliminates the prospect of a long-acting vaccine ever being made.

WHO copped a lot of criticism for that comment - mainly because it was misinterpreted. But actually in my opinion a fair call - similar here with the "elimination / eradication" misunderstanding. Maybe a bit more care is needed in defining things so that everybody understands.

There is no evidence yet that recovered C-19 patients are immune over a longer term - they probably are, or at least most of them probably are. For how long - nobody knows. If there's a vaccine developed then it'll probably not be long-lasting, if C-19 becomes endemic/seasonal (likely), then you'd possibly need regular booster shots. If it turned out that immunity lasted for a long time - years - then hooray. But that can't be proved - for a long time.

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#2473128 29-Apr-2020 08:49

I've been pondering Germany reopening.https://home.nzcity.co.nz/news/article.aspx?id=310708

What's the difference between lockdown -> reopen vs staying open?

gzt

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#2473131 29-Apr-2020 08:58

Treatme is advertising dance classes this morning with a picture of 10+ people in a room dancing. Someone is betting on return to normal I guess.

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#2473133 29-Apr-2020 09:00

Fred99:

... If there's a vaccine developed then it'll probably not be long-lasting, if C-19 becomes endemic/seasonal (likely), then you'd possibly need regular booster shots. ...

I'll pose this as a question rather than an informed opinion because I really don't know a lot about these things. Would this not then put Covid-19 on a par somewhat with the flu, in that:

both are caused/transmitted by a contagious virus
many,many people around the world get it every year, the vast majority recover but large numbers do die from it.
with an available vaccine you can control/limit the spread

It's far from ideal but I'm assuming that this is the generally accepted status for the flu, so would it not be the same for Covid-19 once the vaccine is available and therefore allow a return to some form of 'normality'.

After I was born, I didn't talk to my parents for two years.

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#2473140 29-Apr-2020 09:14

scuwp:
freitasm: The Clark story. He says he moved the week BEFORE lockdown. The Herald headline seems a bit... Clickbait?
Surely you are not implying that one of our mainstream media companies, who are "essential" to our livelihood and well being, would stoop so low as to fail to to present a balanced and impartial piece of investigative journalism?

The story is accurate. The headline is misleading. This has a long tradition. Newspapers have been doing this kind of headline for a long time. In the pre-internet age, this was used to sell newspapers based on the board outside the shop.

tdgeek

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#2473143 29-Apr-2020 09:19

Congregation inside a Burger Fuel, Police involved. Given this, the large increase in road traffic in the last week, and the regular stories here of socialising, it seems some of NZ are bypassing L3 and using L2, yet still not adhering well to social distancing. Makes 5 weeks of L4 seem wasted.

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#2473148 29-Apr-2020 09:23

tdgeek:
Congregation inside a Burger Fuel, Police involved.

Bugger - that's probably the one FF joint that I would consider going to.

Fred99

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#2473149 29-Apr-2020 09:23

floydbloke:

Fred99:

... If there's a vaccine developed then it'll probably not be long-lasting, if C-19 becomes endemic/seasonal (likely), then you'd possibly need regular booster shots. ...

I'll pose this as a question rather than an informed opinion because I really don't know a lot about these things. Would this not then put Covid-19 on a par somewhat with the flu, in that:

both are caused/transmitted by a contagious virus
many,many people around the world get it every year, the vast majority recover but large numbers do die from it.
with an available vaccine you can control/limit the spread
It's far from ideal but I'm assuming that this is the generally accepted status for the flu, so would it not be the same for Covid-19 once the vaccine is available and therefore allow a return to some form of 'normality'.

Yeah - it possibly would - including a hypothetical C-19 vaccine in an annual seasonal flu jab may even be a possibility. It should be made free for everybody and very widely freely available.

As I understand it, the main problem with immunity from the flu is that flu viruses mutate rapidly (much faster than C-19) so vaccination against one strain won't give full immunity against different strains of the same virus. Maybe there's partial "cross-immunity" and maybe that's why the 1918 pandemic hasn't happened again - we're far more likely to exposed to multiple flu strains over our lifetime due to population and global travel than 100 years ago.

Mutation could happen with C-19, but as far as I know based on comments from experts, so far from all the different mutations observed, they're all functionally the same - a vaccine that works for one should work for all.

But there's a long way to go in developing an effective C-19 vaccine. You'd need some empirical evidence that the immunity lasts and that it is safe - some strange things can happen - such as antibody-dependant enhancement.

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