2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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

1 | ... | 602 | 603 | 604 | 605 | 606 | 607 | 608 | 609 | 610 | 611 | 612 | ... | 2399

6103 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2474155 30-Apr-2020 15:53

kobiak:

Technofreak:

If that number is New Zealanders it seems to be a high number to me. Let's accept that it is 30,000 New Zealanders. I would imagine a two week amnesty period to be acceptable therefore these people would not have needed to be accommodated. They would have self isolated.

and that is exactly what government did. they waited until there's enough grounds/accomodation for arriving people before quarantine was introduced. they followed your instructions :)

I not sure you've been following all of what I've been saying. Perhaps I could have been more concise.

Just to quickly comment on your last post.

Yes it seems the government did wait until they had enough quarantine capacity. One of my points was if they had expanded this capacity they could have acted earlier.

The other point was irrespective of how they managed returning New Zealanders the borders could have been closed sooner to non New Zealanders.

It's all history now. While we might have done better we have done OK.

This has turned in to a bit more than I intended when I replied to a post on page 603 where someone was calling for people to unite against Mr Gorman for saying we were caught with our pants down regarding Covid 19. He's right we were. We need to more aware and better prepared next time.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

Sharesies kids

Free kids accounts - trade shares and funds (NZ, US) with Sharesies (affiliate link).

DS248

1661 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2474165 30-Apr-2020 16:12

ezbee: ... Early Feb well I guess Taiwan would have been on its own ...

Not on its own. HK and a few others started taking action in early Jan; eg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Hong_Kong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Singapore

Handle9

9640 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2474169 30-Apr-2020 16:20

Technofreak:

I not sure you've been following all of what I've been saying. Perhaps I could have been more concise.

Just to quickly comment on your last post.

Yes it seems the government did wait until they had enough quarantine capacity. One of my points was if they had expanded this capacity they could have acted earlier.

The other point was irrespective of how they managed returning New Zealanders the borders could have been closed sooner to non New Zealanders.

It's all history now. While we might have done better we have done OK.

This has turned in to a bit more than I intended when I replied to a post on page 603 where someone was calling for people to unite against Mr Gorman for saying we were caught with our pants down regarding Covid 19. He's right we were. We need to more aware and better prepared next time.

For me this is the basic point. As NZ emerges from this then there must be serious analysis about what didn't work and why. It's not really a political topic (although of course it will be) as the pandemic plans have been around for some time, but a preparation for the next time.

The world, including NZ, wasn't prepared for this and there are huge consequences. It can't happen this way again.

ezbee

1681 posts

Uber Geek

#2474175 30-Apr-2020 16:31

GV27:

ezbee:

Opposition here were not screaming to move faster , quite the opposite , well as opposite as you could get and still so.
These are lessons for the future , but improper to use as judgement on those who had to make decisions with what they had.

This isn't correct. Bridges was asking for tighter borders about a week before it actually happened. And there was this, well before the actual decision on quarantining incoming returnees, which everyone has been ignoring:

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/simon-bridges-calls-government-quarantine-test-everyone-still-arriving-into-nz

Point to you GV27,

True Simon Bridges , his press release at the start was generous to the Government.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/03/25/1100027/simon-bridges-full-speech-on-state-of-emergency

Sorry I miss-took Mike Hosking etc for the opposition .

tdgeek

28600 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2474177 30-Apr-2020 16:39

DS248:

tdgeek: ... You need to stop making things up. To help you, someone has stated that NZ performance with this virus is woeful. I have merely asked how did we line up globally. ...

"Stop making things up"? Who is making things up? He (ezbee) never said "NZ performance with this virus is woeful". My reading was that his comments were to the effect that we were not initially prepared for it, which was the case on a number of fronts (testing, contact tracing, ...). Hence MOH early on pushing the government hard to close initially NZ borders to all people, including NZ citizens returning from overseas (Bloomfield at briefing today/yesterday?).

Yes, the same could be said for most countries, with many in worse positions. And it was all of us unprepared, not just the authorities. There were a few jurisdictions (Taiwan, HK, ... ) that were well prepared and started setting up pandemic response plans in early January, within a few days of initial reports coming out of China about the virus. Eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Hong_Kong

But that is now a lesson for the future. Given the ill prepared state we were in, the government & MOH have done well to contain the spread of the virus as well as they have, albeit at a very large cost (a tiny fraction of which would have housed your '12,000' a day).

The stop making it up comment by me was this, not ezbee

Start

iamaelephant: No one is claiming we were the worst or even necessarily worse than any other individual countries. Whataboutism is lazy, come on.

You need to stop making things up. To help you, someone has stated that NZ performance with this virus is woeful. I have merely asked how did we line up globally.

The obvious conclusion is that either NZ was woeful by itself or it wasnt, and the latter means that the writer should have stated that the globe was woeful, and asked himself why. If you compare SARS and SARS2 its quite a stretch to expect SARS2 to infect millions in half the time SARS hardly did anything. Hindsight and the accompanying blame game. Its more productive to assess the issue correctly, and prepare if it happens again

End

tdgeek

28600 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2474181 30-Apr-2020 16:44

DS248:

But that is now a lesson for the future. Given the ill prepared state we were in, the government & MOH have done well to contain the spread of the virus as well as they have, albeit at a very large cost (a tiny fraction of which would have housed your '12,000' a day).

The whole point, is that an article stated NZ was in a poor state. Not anyone here. Des Gorman was it? I think we all agree on that. My issue is that the globe was in a poor state, so why call out NZ? The real question, albeit less clickbait, is why was the world not prepared.

tdgeek

28600 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2474189 30-Apr-2020 16:52

Technofreak:

This has turned in to a bit more than I intended when I replied to a post on page 603 where someone was calling for people to unite against Mr Gorman for saying we were caught with our pants down regarding Covid 19. He's right we were. We need to more aware and better prepared next time.

My point is we were, ALL countries were. Its not a NZ issue.

Why was the WORLD not ready? Id say because the world doesn't feel a need to increase ICU beds by a factor of 100 or hospitals by a fact of 10 to cater for a 100 year event such as the Spanish Flu. SARS went nowhere did nothing, MERS, Ebola, West Nile etc they all happened, but didn't do what Covid-29 is doing in terms of spread. Perhaps also, is that Givts are reluctant to annoy people. Many here say we locked down too late. What if we locked down on Jan 26, and it ended up like SARS, and given that Covid-19 is SARS2 its quite believable that if we looked at what SARS did after 8 months, (which was bugger all compared to Covid-19)it would not tell us to expect over 3 million infections in 5 months.

Handle9

9640 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2474191 30-Apr-2020 16:56

tdgeek:

My point is we were, ALL countries were. Its not a NZ issue.

Why was the WORLD not ready? Id say because the world doesn't feel a need to increase ICU beds by a factor of 100 or hospitals by a fact of 10 to cater for a 100 year event such as the Spanish Flu. SARS went nowhere did nothing, MERS, Ebola, West Nile etc they all happened, but didn't do what Covid-29 is doing in terms of spread. Perhaps also, is that Givts are reluctant to annoy people. Many here say we locked down too late. What if we locked down on Jan 26, and it ended up like SARS, and given that Covid-19 is SARS2 its quite believable that if we looked at what SARS did after 8 months, (which was bugger all compared to Covid-19)it would not tell us to expect over 3 million infections in 5 months.

If it's not an NZ issue then there is no need for any news or opinion about what is happening in NZ as it's just part of the "world".

It is entirely appropriate to say that New Zealand was woefully unprepared for this. There is next to nothing NZ can do about "the world". There is a lot NZ can do about NZ.

tdgeek

28600 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2474194 30-Apr-2020 17:05

Handle9:

If it's not an NZ issue then there is no need for any news or opinion about what is happening in NZ as it's just part of the "world".

It is entirely appropriate to say that New Zealand was woefully unprepared for this. There is next to nothing NZ can do about "the world". There is a lot NZ can do about NZ.

Does stating that not imply that NZ was woeful, but apparently every other country was ok? I would have thought stating that the world was woeful, including NZ, and here is why, would be a more accurate and interesting topic. I can list any one of 185 countries that were woeful. That doesnt tell us anything, the real question is why were all countries not prepared. That ALL were woeful matters. If 55 countries were very good and 130 were woeful that's a whole different feel to the question.

Technofreak

6103 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2474197 30-Apr-2020 17:11

tdgeek:

Technofreak:

This has turned in to a bit more than I intended when I replied to a post on page 603 where someone was calling for people to unite against Mr Gorman for saying we were caught with our pants down regarding Covid 19. He's right we were. We need to more aware and better prepared next time.

My point is we were, ALL countries were. Its not a NZ issue.

Why was the WORLD not ready? Id say because the world doesn't feel a need to increase ICU beds by a factor of 100 or hospitals by a fact of 10 to cater for a 100 year event such as the Spanish Flu. SARS went nowhere did nothing, MERS, Ebola, West Nile etc they all happened, but didn't do what Covid-29 is doing in terms of spread. Perhaps also, is that Givts are reluctant to annoy people. Many here say we locked down too late. What if we locked down on Jan 26, and it ended up like SARS, and given that Covid-19 is SARS2 its quite believable that if we looked at what SARS did after 8 months, (which was bugger all compared to Covid-19)it would not tell us to expect over 3 million infections in 5 months.

Did you read Mr Gorman's comments? He wasn't suggesting things like increasing ICU beds by a factor of 100. He did point out though that Australia had 10 ICU beds per 100,000 people, Germany 33 per 100,000 and New Zealand 3 per 100,000, that's right 3.

We cannot fix the worlds preparedness but we can fix our own preparedness. Why shouldn't we discuss this and improve it where we can.

Sony Xperia XA2 running Sailfish OS. https://sailfishos.org The true independent open source mobile OS
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6
Dell Inspiron 14z i5

mattwnz

19378 posts

Uber Geek

#2474216 30-Apr-2020 17:41

Technofreak:

He wasn't suggesting things like increasing ICU beds by a factor of 100. He did point out though that Australia had 10 ICU beds per 100,000 people, Germany 33 per 100,000 and New Zealand 3 per 100,000, that's right 3.

Source for NZs ICU beds?

This article implies about 10 ICU beds per 100,000 in NZ, based on about 500 beds https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12321390

On March 20, an updated Ministry of Health stocktake found a maximum of 563 ICU capacity beds in a total restructure of the country's hospitals.

However Europe appears to have a lot more. I heard TVNZ One news quote that in Europe they have 4000 ICU beds per million, but I can't find any detail in writing anywhere that support that high number. But they can potentially afford to let it spread more, without overwhelming their health system. It is when it is overwhelmed, that you then get death rates escalating. Although in the UK they haven't yet come close to using all their ICU capacity, but they already seem to have a very high death rate, especially as it doesn't include everyone, which is a concern.

In NZ we can't let infections increase significantly without overwhelming our health system due to a relatively low number of ICU beds, which IMO is one reason we had no choice but to go into level 4 when we did, and to go down this route of elimination to stamp it out, which doesn't appear to be what Australias target is, and tey plan to be in lcokdowns for 6 months if longer. So I can't see how NZ politicians are entertaining the idea that we can go into a 'bubble with Australia' until they also eliminate it. At least not without requiring they quarantine for 14 days if they come in. I believe Cook Islands are requiring 14 day quarantining at both ended with NZ!

Also in order to show a country has eliminated it, doesn't the WHO have to certify that a country has eliminated it?

tdgeek

28600 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2474222 30-Apr-2020 18:04

Technofreak:

[

Did you read Mr Gorman's comments? He wasn't suggesting things like increasing ICU beds by a factor of 100. He did point out though that Australia had 10 ICU beds per 100,000 people, Germany 33 per 100,000 and New Zealand 3 per 100,000, that's right 3.

We cannot fix the worlds preparedness but we can fix our own preparedness. Why shouldn't we discuss this and improve it where we can.

Matt seems to have a differing number re ICU beds.

For a country that Mr Gorman says/implies etc that NZ was not ready, and despite this virus attacking the world by storm, and how apparently poor we were in closing the borders way too late and not properly, and all the other complaints made here, we dont seem to have much of a need for ICU beds, or hospitals. Not sure why that is. Maybe we actually did really well? :-)

Yes, there were factors that were not ready. We didn't have 400 people on phones for contact tracing on day one etc, we are too poor for that. Our health system runs at the margin, there has been under funding for years, still is now, thats NZ, we aren't Brunei. Like every other country this this got bigger and bigger and everyone was learning on the fly, we even said that in the daily updates ages ago. Seat of the pants stuff. Should we have outfitted ourselves with more hospitals and ICU in case of a pandemic? Im not sure we could afford that. But despite playing catchup with tracing and testing, we have caught them up just when we need them, L3, so we have seemingly managed these and the virus really well. So I did take exception to what appears to be a very negative article on NZ. Places such as Italy, Spain, USA to name just a few, left it too late, we didn't, so the word overwhelmed hasn't needed to have been said down under.

I think the most difficult thing by a wide margin, is for any Govt to look at early Covid-19, and have to make a decision to screw the country by acting early, then it doesnt become the escalation it has, and they are left with an unnecessarily damaged country. Or to wait and wait then they are screwed as they waited too long. We made that call. Maybe a week too late maybe too early, but we made the right call. With what we knew THEN

Handle9

9640 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2474232 30-Apr-2020 18:34

tdgeek:

Matt seems to have a differing number re ICU beds.

For a country that Mr Gorman says/implies etc that NZ was not ready, and despite this virus attacking the world by storm, and how apparently poor we were in closing the borders way too late and not properly, and all the other complaints made here, we dont seem to have much of a need for ICU beds, or hospitals. Not sure why that is. Maybe we actually did really well? :-)

Yes, there were factors that were not ready. We didn't have 400 people on phones for contact tracing on day one etc, we are too poor for that. Our health system runs at the margin, there has been under funding for years, still is now, thats NZ, we aren't Brunei. Like every other country this this got bigger and bigger and everyone was learning on the fly, we even said that in the daily updates ages ago. Seat of the pants stuff. Should we have outfitted ourselves with more hospitals and ICU in case of a pandemic? Im not sure we could afford that. But despite playing catchup with tracing and testing, we have caught them up just when we need them, L3, so we have seemingly managed these and the virus really well. So I did take exception to what appears to be a very negative article on NZ. Places such as Italy, Spain, USA to name just a few, left it too late, we didn't, so the word overwhelmed hasn't needed to have been said down under.

I think the most difficult thing by a wide margin, is for any Govt to look at early Covid-19, and have to make a decision to screw the country by acting early, then it doesnt become the escalation it has, and they are left with an unnecessarily damaged country. Or to wait and wait then they are screwed as they waited too long. We made that call. Maybe a week too late maybe too early, but we made the right call. With what we knew THEN

New Zealand has done well at limiting COVID19 but at a massive economic cost. If the country had been better prepared could that cost have been significantly less? If New Zealand wants to just pat itself on the back then this has all been for nothing. It will just happen again and at significant cost.

There is much to be proud of and even more to do better.

New Zealand - we're not as crap as Spain!

Sounds like something to aspire to /s

mattwnz

19378 posts

Uber Geek

#2474237 30-Apr-2020 18:45

Handle9:

New Zealand has done well at limiting COVID19 but at a massive economic cost. If the country had been better prepared could that cost have been significantly less? If New Zealand wants to just pat itself on the back then this has all been for nothing. It will just happen again and at significant cost.

That reminds me of the 'Mission Accomplished' meme out there. I feel the attitude of some NZers has changed in recent weeks. I saw on the news someone taking their kids to school, and saying that we have to get on with our lives. IMO the time to get on with our lives as normal is when we have actually eliminated it from NZ, and then we can at least have a domestic economy, and then get on with our lives as relatively normal. If we don't eliminate it, then we risk going in and out of level 4 type lockdowns for at least year or more, which is going to be 'horrific' as per the PMs words today.

GV27

5422 posts

Uber Geek

#2474241 30-Apr-2020 19:12

Apparently vehicle emissions are higher now than they were before Level 4.

This isn't going to work out well for us.

1 | ... | 602 | 603 | 604 | 605 | 606 | 607 | 608 | 609 | 610 | 611 | 612 | ... | 2399