2019 Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Discussion

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1199 posts

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#2541015 14-Aug-2020 14:14

networkn:

Considering the language used earlier by Hipkins that L4 wasn't in the frame presently, it would indeed be pretty unlikely.

Cabinet hasn't met yet, that meeting starts at 3pm.

I think these sorts of comments are bound to cause anxiety unnecessarily.

4 words to keep in mind, 4 words used very often.

"Go Hard, Go Early"

We only need to look how quickly the whole of NZ went into L4 originally

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Dingbatt

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#2541028 14-Aug-2020 14:17

JPNZ:

networkn:

Considering the language used earlier by Hipkins that L4 wasn't in the frame presently, it would indeed be pretty unlikely.

Cabinet hasn't met yet, that meeting starts at 3pm.

I think these sorts of comments are bound to cause anxiety unnecessarily.

4 words to keep in mind, 4 words used very often.

"Go Hard, Go Early"

We only need to look how quickly the whole of NZ went into L4 originally

Phil Goff parroted that 2 days ago.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

mkissin

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#2541029 14-Aug-2020 14:20

frankv:

About 10% of covid patients need hospitalisation, I think. So one patient unconnected to the cluster who arrives at a hospital means 9 covid-positive people at large in the community.

That's not how statistics works.

If you have a male baby that doesn't mean you also had a female baby because it was a 50/50 chance.

Fred99

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#2541031 14-Aug-2020 14:20

FineWine:

But if this latest CT episode/s has been caused by Fomites transmission then we are in deep S**T.

I think i's possible but not very likely - hasn't really been confirmed with a high level of confidence elsewhere, in our original outbreaks where NZ did very well on contact tracing and containment, it wasn't reported.

Anyway, consider it added incentive to eliminate C-19 again. NZ exports a lot of chilled/frozen food, if in the unlikely event it's found that such fomite transmission is a real threat, then NZ could be hit very hard by potential import restrictions in our markets.

I'm more optimistic about a vaccine, that it'll be very effective, and that the virus won't mutate to evade immunity very fast. It's not like the 'flu - that has segmented RNA, if RNA from two strains infect the same cell, then routinely the segments can recombine to form a new "hybrid" strain. It's possible that C-19 did appear as a novel strain by recombination, but that probably happened in an animal vector infected with two similar viruses - not in humans. (Nor in a "Wuhan lab")

JPNZ

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#2541032 14-Aug-2020 14:21

Anyway, I'm in Christchurch so whatever will be, will be. Thoughts with all the Auckland posters, could be a rough few weeks ahead again.

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Zepanda66

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#2541035 14-Aug-2020 14:22

I'll be surprised if the announcement doesn't leak to media by 3:30.

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networkn

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#2541039 14-Aug-2020 14:29

Zepanda66:

I'll be surprised if the announcement doesn't leak to media by 3:30.

Until the PM announces it, it's a rumour, something we could use significantly less of.

Geektastic

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#2541044 14-Aug-2020 14:39

JPNZ:

Anyway, I'm in Christchurch so whatever will be, will be. Thoughts with all the Auckland posters, could be a rough few weeks ahead again.

You can thank the Aucklanders who flew into Queenstown etc on Wednesday morning if you get it!

clinty

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#2541049 14-Aug-2020 14:44

Zepanda66:

I'll be surprised if the announcement doesn't leak to media by 3:30.

Considering the cabinet meeting doesn't start till 3.30pm that's not likely

As has been said consistently, cabinet will receive the advice, cabinet will discuss and cabinet will settle on the path forward

The PM will then announce the decision at 5.30pm

Clint

Edit : Couldn't spell my own name :)

antonknee

1133 posts

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#2541052 14-Aug-2020 14:49

JPNZ:

I have heard from a close friend who works for a National long haul trucking company that tonight's 5:30pm announcement will indeed be Level 4 for Auckland City. They have to prepare paperwork for all their drivers that are transporting essential items through the city borders.

I hope its not true but it won't be surprising if it is.

I know it's fun to speculate, but I highly doubt anyone has advance notice of a decision that hasn't been made yet, and I don't think sharing unqualified rumours actually helps anything.

If a business is preparing for potential level 4, this is because they are building a contingency plan to cater for a possibility. Not because they have advance notice of what is actually happening.

Both businesses I am involved with (both large and considered essential services that operated throughout level 4 last time) have been working on plans for level 2, level 3, and level 4 restrictions. Not because we know that level 4 is coming, but because it's good business sense to plan for things, and we want to be prepared for it IF it does.

kingdragonfly

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#2541105 14-Aug-2020 15:17

New York Times: New Zealand Beat the Virus Once. Can It Do It Again?

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has revived her “go hard, go early” approach as officials grapple with a mysterious cluster that might have originated in a frozen food warehouse.

As the week began, New Zealanders were celebrating 100 days without community spread of the coronavirus, drinking at pubs, packing stadiums and hugging friends.

Two days later, that suddenly changed: Four new cases, all related, emerged in Auckland. On Thursday, officials said the cluster had grown to 17, as they struggled to map out how the virus had returned to an isolated island nation championed for its pandemic response.

One theory is that it could have come through cargo. Some of the infected New Zealanders worked at a cold storage warehouse with imported food. Another focus is quarantine facilities for returning travelers, the source of an outbreak tearing through Melbourne, Australia.

A mystery and a few cases — that’s all it took for New Zealand to say goodbye to normalcy. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern immediately announced a new lockdown for Auckland, a city of 1.7 million people, along with a huge testing, contact tracing and quarantine blitz that aims to quash Covid-19 for the second time.

“Going hard and early is still the best course of action,” Ms. Ardern said on Thursday as she had relaunched her daily coronavirus news briefings. “We have a plan.”

Many other places have faced a similar challenge — Hong Kong, Australia and Vietnam have all confronted new waves after early triumphs. New Zealand, while disappointed by the abrupt resurgence, has reacted with an extraordinary level of urgency and action that it hopes will be a model for how to eliminate a burst of infection and rapidly get on with life.
...
To investigate the unproven idea of a spread through cargo, health officials have tested everyone at Americold, the cold storage company where some of the first cases appeared, with fast-tracked results identifying a total of seven workers with the virus. Scientists, aware of how the virus has thrived in cold storage at meatpacking plants in other countries, are also testing surfaces at the company’s two facilities.

If the virus is found to have moved through freight, the consequences could be significant for global trade. It could mean deep cleaning and lengthier wait times between shipment and delivery, along with more monitoring on ships and in ports.

But epidemiologists said such transmission was improbable: human-to-human contact was the most likely source. “Ninety percent of cases occur in houses and workplaces,” Dr. Bloomfield said.

The cluster’s growth so far points to a path through kitchens and break rooms
...
All of those newly infected will be placed in government quarantine facilities, in an escalation over containment measures during New Zealand’s first lockdown in March and April.

New Zealand has apparently learned what not to do from its neighbor and rival Australia, where 800 people who had tested positive in Melbourne were recently found not to be at home during random checks of self-isolation.

Australia’s missteps have also led New Zealand to focus on quarantine facilities — in Melbourne, the virus moved from travelers to hotel workers, who then carried it home.

Dr. Bloomfield said Thursday that workers at all 32 quarantine facilities that handle returning travelers would be tested for the virus this week, and once a week after that. Relatives of the workers may also be tested, along with every border official at New Zealand’s airports and other ports — between 6,000 and 7,000 federal employees.

“It will help us avoid any further and inadvertent spread into the community,” Dr. Bloomfield said.

The lockdown aims to do the same, and it’s being strongly enforced. In its first day and a half, the authorities stopped 17,000 vehicles at 10 checkpoints. Most were traveling for the right reasons — for work, food or care-taking — and only 312 were turned back for trying to leave Auckland or other violations of the rules.
...
Still, despite the new cases, many New Zealanders recognized their enviable position.

...Dr. Baker, the epidemiologist, said that New Zealand’s prior success, and the sustained elimination of the virus in other places, such as Taiwan and Fiji, suggested room for optimism. He said the latest outbreak could be small and quickly brought under control.

“The government moved incredibly fast and decisively with the lockdown,” he said. “If there are any undetected chains of transmission, they will peter out.”

Batman

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#2541110 14-Aug-2020 15:32

travellers who have left NZ test positive https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12356631

debo

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#2541115 14-Aug-2020 15:36

Fred99:
So they're doing genome testing on retained samples from positive cases picked up in quarantine in attempt to match with the virus in the cluster. So far no match found, but if and when there is a match, then you've probably found the index case. If you don't find a match after testing all samples, then that strengthens the case that the virus got in through an undectected case through quarantine, or on contaminated chilled/frozen cargo.

It's weird. They had mapped out the genome of the new cases by yesterday but have not ruled out a connection yet. It sounds like they have waited for an outbreak to occur before they started mapping out all the previous cases. Very reactionary.
However, once mapped out, there is another interesting result they case look for. What if some of the previous cases have identical genomes but the returnees came from different places? It may indicate that people have been infected at the quarantine facilities.

Zepanda66

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#2541118 14-Aug-2020 15:38

Batman:

travellers who have left NZ test positive https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12356631

If this gets confirmed at the next 1pm update. IMO it confirms the virus must have been silently spreading for a while and we likely weren't doing enough testing to detect it. Just shows how important it is to keep those testing numbers up.

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trig42

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#2541120 14-Aug-2020 15:40

Zepanda66:

Batman:

travellers who have left NZ test positive https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12356631

If this gets confirmed at the next 1pm update. IMO it confirms the virus must have been silently spreading for a while and we likely weren't doing enough testing to detect it. Just shows how important it is to keep those testing numbers up.

Or, like the Korean one, they contracted it in transit?

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