There are four more "probable" Covid-19 cases in the Auckland area, the Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield says.
In addition, Bloomfield has named Americold in Mt Wellington and Finance Now in Dominion Road as affected workplaces.
The four probable cases are contacts of the four family members identified on Tuesday as confirmed cases.
Two of the probable cases are workmates and another two are from a "related household", with one of the family members having slept over there.
Bloomfield said all four of the probable cases were symptomatic and are in isolation. Contact tracing has been initiated.
Bloomfield updated on the four family members, two who have tested positive, who visited Rotorua at the weekend.
He said he was confident that the visit to Rotorua has not resulted in anyone who is a close contact and believes Level 2 is appropriate for Rotorua.
The family visited a number of locations including eateries. More details on those eateries would be given as they became available.
The family stayed in the Wai Ora Lakeside Hotel and visited the Skyline Gondola and Lodge and the Heritage Farm and 3D Art Gallery.
Prior to Bloomfield's confirmation of the workplaces involved, interest.co.nz had contacted the owner of Finance Now, SBS Bank and asked whether they could confirm media reports that Finance Now was involved.
SBS chief executive Shaun Drylie had responded: "Appreciate the note but we’re not commenting at this point. Hope you are well - interesting times ahead."
Bloomfield has officially directed (under the Health Act) a wide number of people in connection with the two named businesses to stay at home in isolation and not go to work till contacted by national contact tracing services. Included in this are: employees, contractors, visitors and people who live with any of the aforementioned.
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Another point of view:
Reaching For The Precious
https://youtu.be/a4DQ12216l8
The New Zealand Prime Minister has been singularly obsessed with eliminating the virus from the island.
In this video I discuss the consequences of her actions and compare it to what Sweden did.
Gollum Returns To New Zealand
https://youtu.be/zj3d1oBj3Wo
As i predicted two days ago, the Wuhan Flu has returned to New Zealand.
You can't fool Mother Nature.
The election will be a good indication of the support for the Government's position on Covid 19. The fact that National is not indicating it would do anything different to Labour regarding lock down and quarantine is telling. Most Kiwis don't subscribe to the tin foil hat brigade 5G covid, Bill Gates is the devil, Pizzagate insanity those with low intelligence gravitate towards.
This is a real game-changer if true
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122423538/coronavir…
This is not a game-changer, in that this has been known for years. The fact the Govt. has refused to acknowledge the scientific evidence in this is no different than the evidence they ignore why houses, are cold, damp, and unhealthy. Viruses are most infective in low humidity environments and can be most easily spread in aerosol form in buildings that recirculates the air.
Our indoor environments are now entering some of the lowest humidity conditions for the year. If we were going to get outbreaks, it's from now until late spring or any indoor environment with low humidity and recirculated air. The virus has to be present of course.
Human embryos can be frozen and still be viable at a later date. No great leap to accept that a virus being snap frozen (which is how the stuff concerned here will be).
And then there are things like this https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/08/21/how-arctic-frogs-survive…
I think the only fools here were the Govt for not having a water tight Quarantine/Isolation arrangement in place after all the public faux pas being made. It's hardly rocket science. Announcing a lockdown in Auckland 13hrs before it was set in place was also the height of incompetence. It should have been announced after the checkpoints were set up and manned. Anecdotally the Southern Motorway was packed at midnight with people fleeing, so get set for a nationwide LvL 4 return. The horse hasn't bolted - it just waltzed out the door at it's leisure.. what a screwup
Well unless you put them behind bars you are not going to stop selfish imbeciles breaking out of, and into, facilities. But if this outbreak has occurred outside of those circumstances, eg contact/transmission between say international air crews and airport staff, well then, you are undoubtedly right.
Well I'm not advocating prison but letting Security people moonlight as taxi drivers, nurses returning to general wards. pretty lax physical security barriers and the like could easily have been tightened. Testing should have been done every 4 days on new arrivals (day 3,7,12), the staff working at the facilities should themselves been in some form of stringent isolation for the duration and then further paid self isolation post their rotation. These border facilities are obviously the highest risk vector and the staff working there should be treated accordingly.
Just over 100 days of no community transfer. In all but the last few weeks of that no guidelines that face masks were deemed necessary and you had better get one. why the sudden interest? and why simultaneously, the switch to a philosophy of inevitable. surely these factors were just as pertinent at the outset? so what exactly precipitated the late change of tack? Not much time for Mr Gerry Brownlie, but if anyone can smell a rat he probably can, and he has spoken up on this with, quite some cause it would seem.
No it was known before we went into level 3 that masks could help. China and other Asian countries knew that masks helped. They weren't wearing them for fun. They can help to contain the droplets containing the virus within the mask, if someone infected is wearing a mask coughs or sneezes. We were waiting for the WHO it endorse their use, which they finally did after a huge delay. Delaying was the whole reason this virus got a foothold, as it could have been stamped out at the beginning of the year.
We could have educated people how to safety use them, and not infect themselves over the last few months. We have allowed the virus to get a foothold in a country without any social distancing in place, so the transmission rate R0 is probably at it's highest during this period that it was undetected int eh community
People in hospitals wear them because they are routinely coming into contact with a variety of potential pathogens, and they are also valuable people with important skills who we don't want to become sick even if masks only provide very minor help against COVID19 they'd still be worth using for these people. They have also been trained in how to wear masks properly and how to take them off properly.
That is quite a different scenario from:
1. People in general public who may have only incidental contact with a COVID-19 sufferer
2. Don't have proper surgical masks, but home made ones
3. May not wear them properly (see people not covering their nose, or pulling the mask down to speak)
4. Don't know how to take them off without contaminating themselves or other surfaces
So yes, while it might "appear obvious" that masks are helpful for the general public, that's not how scientific research works. The general public are not trained healthworkers, asking people to take precautions that may be of no practical benefit has costs and could embolden people to take risky behaviour that actually puts them at greater risk of catching the disease (oh I don't care about social distancing, I'm wearing a mask).
However we now have sufficient evidence (that didn't come from a 30 minute Google search) that masks are good at protecting everyone *else* from someone who is infected with COVID, who - and this is the crucial part - *often does not know they have COVID*. If everyone knew they had COVID as soon as they got it, they'd all isolate at home and since they wouldn't be in public they would have no need to wear masks.
In reply to your points:
'people in the hospital wear them because they come into contact with pathogens.' Yes, that's the whole point of wearing a mask, if there was no Covid about, then we would not have to wear them, but the main reason we would wear a mask is to stop us from spreading what we might have (unknowingly), not so much from catching something. That is the point of wearing the mask. Ergo masks work.
'People that work in hospitals are valuable.' More valuable than who? You? Me? The people that have caught Covid?
'They have been trained to wear masks properly.' That's right they have been trained. They weren't born knowing this. No one is. There are numerous short Youtube videos showing how to wear masks properly. And you don't need a degree to understand what to do. The Govt. could have run a number of videos or given links. Or are you saying this was too much knowledge for people to understand?
Also wearing a mask is not a binary result, in that many variables help make a mask work to some degree of effectiveness, but to varying degrees they work. Any little bit helps, and you can make it work better by having plenty of the right type available (which we don't) and secondly giving simple instructions on how to make your own effective masks and how to wear them (I haven't seen one TV ad by Govt. on this).
'Embodden to take risks.' Yes, just like making people wear seatbelts makes people drive more dangerously.' Or wearing H&S gear makes your job riskier.
'Makes them not care about social distancing.' No evidence to suggest it would change people's behaviour. But you miss the point totally about wearing a mask. It is a proxy for social distancing, in that by wearing one the aerosol droplets can't travel as far or as many. So if they decided too, they could say wear a mask and reduce social distancing down to 1 meter.
'Appears obvious & scientific research.' If you have a science background then it is probably more obvious than not, which I do. And common sense and logical thought would lead you to the same conclusion never the less.
'Now have sufficient evidence.' There was always sufficient evidence and was readily available on Google, you only needed to look for it. Ignorance of something does not mean that evidence does not exist.
You spend most of your argument arguing why we should not or did not wear marks and then have an epiphany in the last paragraph why they do work and why we should wear them.
If you'd had any experience of Security Guard intelligence you'd be reading plenty into it. The majority of them are the thickest of the thickest.. make a brick look smart. Nice guys, polite and well meaning, cheerful, but they only do what they're told.. like an organic robot. Nothing more .. nothing less. They're incapable of independent thought/analysis.
TVNZ1 news tonight
Barbara Drever PI correspondent identifies the family as Pacifika
5 minutes later a Church Elder identifies the family as Samoan
Two minutes later another Elder notes there are 5000 PI overstayers in South Auckland who won't get tested because they are not registered on the NHI health system. He wants an immediate amnesty for the 5000 so they can come forward and get tested
All on TVNZ1 news
The plight of the 5,000 odd undocumented/overstayed was highlighted back in April.
This turns into/ brings in an immigration dimension, what was I Lee's G doing (other than the sex with working team).
Was he blind to the plight of Pacifica. Did no one tell him.
# Pajamas party COL.
Too true... But that's the kiwi way!!! We are lax and steady as she goes bunch so we get what we deserve including our mps of all sides.
I bet if we were to put snipers on top of these isolation centers with a you walk you die policy we would achieve zero escapee rating with everyone falling in line to follow the rules
The results of mass testing hasn't come back yet and already 4 more probable cases, better chance than average they have passed it on to a few each as well.
This is going to an Alk lvl 4 LD.
3 days to evaluate, seriously????? Calm the masses for 3 days before Lvl 4 LD.
Just another Labour lie!
Estimated 5000 over stayers instant community, over crowding in houses, churches, low social economic group, traveled and most like more issues.
It would have started with one infection crossing over from a boarder entry or such and now you are saying 24 cases are guess in a couple to three weeks.
Chances of it stopping without lvl 4 slim to none.
This is an airborne virus, mutating constantly and staying ahead of the game. It is a moving target and humans have no guns pointed at it. No one is safe or immune. Personal care and caution is the only way to stay uninfected. Masks are a must for the next 6 months. I have seen people in Auckland wearing them even while they are inside their own houses. Pretty wise folks, them.
Only one issue.. masks have been proven ineffectual unless you also wear eye protection. If you've worn a mask you'll notice all your exhaled breath travels up and past your eyes. Also given your eyes are another mucous membrane connected to your respiratory tract they're only really a placebo.
A mask MIGHT reduce your chances of inbourne virus particles but it won't stop outgoing ones
That's the problem Lanth, a mask worn for several hours becomes damp and an even better vector. It doesn't stop you spreading things but might stop you contracting it.. if it's relatively freshly donned and dry, otherwise it's just something to make the wearer feel good but not an actual effective barrier. Trotting around with a damp mask is probably worse than none at all, gives people a false sense of security
???
Person A is infected. Person A wears a mask. Person A's mask stops the particles from spreading to others. Person A's mask becomes wet, but is still stopping particles reaching other people.
Person B is not infected. Person B's mask becomes wet from person B's own respiration. Person A's particles never reach person B because of person A's mask. Person B's wet mask does not pose any risk of infection to person B.
Also generally people aren't going to be wearing these masks for hours on end. You put on a mask to go shopping, wait outside in the line for 20 minutes, get into the store and complete your trip in 40 minutes, get into your car and take your mask off.
Part of the point of using 5 star hotels is to limit the spread of COVID amongst the staff and also the guests, and 5 star hotels have the space and layout to do this effectively.
Cruise ships, on the other hand, are known petri dishes for the spread of diseases, including COVID and are also likely to have tight quarters and limited space for organisation.
Furthermore, if you kept beds on a cruise ship empty in order to make up that space, you'd effectively be throwing money away. Cruise ships would also have to be supplied with diesel to keep them operable which would add a lot of expense to ongoing upkeep.
But in terms of being physically isolated from the rest of the population, it is an idea worth considering. I wonder if the MoH considered it; I'd say there's a good chance they didn't.
Oh yes! Back in March it was obvious that Pacifica communities in reasonable density in Auckland were at prime risk of becoming large clusters of infections. But they did not thank goodness. Back in March there was a lot less known about the virus than there is now and our health system was only just gearing up to cope. Here then is NZ, Auckland, with news that there is more threat now to these communities, after all that has been actioned and learnt and sacrificed, than there was five months ago. Go figure.
Yeah, except mass death! We don't have the health system and ICU capacity to cope with large scale infections, unlike a lot of Europe, so our system may get overwhelmed. It will put huge stress on nurses and doctors and will mean that other treatments and surgeries maybe delayed, causing more problems and death..
So we have no choice to do what we have done, and figures appear to show that eliminating covid, is better economically, than living in a covid country. You just have to look at UKs economy now, or the US one.
this was always going to come in again,
we have daily flights from melbourne, 3 hours away , USA 18 hours away, no one that works at the airport not involved in quarantine is temp checked at the start of shift , wears masks or gloves, or is tested for covid unless they get sick and go to the local GP.
they are now looking to see if it came in as chilled/ frozen cargo.
the local DHB identified this as a problem weeks ago and suggested everyone on the airport precinct has to be temp checked before they start work, wear masks, and be sent for tests if they show flu symptoms. international freight forwarders already run these protocols as most of the regional headquarters are in singapore so the instructions come from them as to what to do, but many of the airline companies that service the planes dont
There was also a time when we thought that allowing people to self isolate at home was enough, but that failed miserably. We just seem to tighten the rules a little bit each time, then it then fails, so we tighten them a bit more, it fails, etc. Rather than going the full slog and making sure would quarantine facilities are actually watertight. It is possible to do, and I imagine Chinas quarantining is pretty watertight.
There is no statistical correlation between lockdowns and Covid19 death rates (the Lancet). In other words lock downs do not work.
The mortality rate of C19 is the same as the flu; the average age of death is over 80; 60% of all humans have T cell immunity to it; and there is no excess total mortality anywhere in the world over the last eight months. In my humble opinion therefore, this was the same as a flu wave and should have been treated the same.
We now, clearly have the worst PM in our history. Governmsnt debt is going fron $20 billion to $200 billion from a Moronsville panic.
You haven't been proved wrong sunchap. This is certainly not like small pox or even polio. More like a bad flu season when you look at the graphs:
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country
The graphs show that 2017 had a greater mortality spike than 2020 for Austria, Finland, Germany, Greece, Norway and Portugal. A lot of people died of flu that year but as the disease is only notifiable if a child dies in most countries we will never know. The graphs show it was quite high.
I suspect this is a little like the AIDS debacle. When that arrived we were all going to die and extreme measures were taken. They oversubscribed medication that possibly killed 500k people. With Covid excessive use of ventilators and over hospitalization of people seemed to cause more deaths than there should have been. I would be very reluctant to take the vaccine for Covid in case it has a similar history to AZT.
My son who works in Wellington rang me on Monday about 1pm and told me to prepare for another lockdown. He has sources in the Ministry of Health who he went to university with. I did not take his revelations seriously. Interesting that he knew but Jacinda did not.
This sort of advanced and insider information has pretty serious implications for stock markets. Wonder if there was abnormal trading activity on Monday?
Why is bureaucratic instinct always towards hiding and covering up info? Letting population know immediately that there were positive tests would produce immediate useful results in terms of people sharpening up their general levels of care/isolation. Protecting their organisation and their political masters should always come second to protecting the best interests of the country.
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