Here is the media Statement from the Ministry of Health:
Alert Levels update
- From 6am on 28 February Auckland will move to Alert Level 3 and the rest of New Zealand to Alert Level 2.
- You are legally required to wear a face mask or covering on all public transport and flights throughout New Zealand.
- For more information about Alert Levels, see the Unite Against COVID-19 website.
- Find out about travel within New Zealand during this period.
Anyone who has cold or flu symptoms, including muscle aches and fatigue, should get a test and stay home until you have a negative test result. Find your local testing facility on the Healthpoint website.
Case numbers
As at 9 am 27 February 2021 there are 66 active cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand. See our Current cases page and the latest News and media updates.
Current situation details
As announced by the Director-General of Health this evening, a further person in the household of Case M has returned a positive result.
The latest case, known as Case N, is currently asymptomatic.
The three other members of the household have returned negative tests. All family members are isolating.
Locations of interest
Case M is a student at the Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) and also works part-time, one day a week, at Kerry Logistics (Oceania) Limited. Affected MIT students have been emailed this evening.
A number of locations of interest that Case M visited have now been advised. These include Hunter Plaza, Burger King Highland Park, Your Health Pharmacy, and Pak n Save Manukau. City Fitness in Hunter Plaza, a gym the person attended, has also advised its members by email directly of the time and day of interest.
Details on locations of interest is available on the Ministry’s website and will continue to be updated as they come to hand.
People who were at these locations of interest should isolate for 14 days and if symptoms develop, get tested.
Up-to-date information on testing locations in metro Auckland
Additional community testing centres are available in Auckland this weekend, many with extended hours. These are in Otara, Botany, Pakuranga Heights, Balmoral, Henderson and Northcote.
In East Auckland, a CTC at Lloyd Elsmore Park, Pakuranga Heights, will be open from 8am – 4pm Sunday.
The Botany CTC at Golflands will be open from 9am - 5pm Sunday.
244 Comments
If that is the case then the horse could have already bolted, but there is no reason to have the South Island in level 2, until there is proof it is there, going to level 2 still allows for transmission should it be there, just stop flights to the SI from Auckland, and allow traffic from regions other than Auckland plus all freight traffic, that should minimise most of the risk. All Jacinda is doing is stopping every event scheduled down there from going ahead.
Such an arrogant and blatantly uneducated response. There were three large festivals on this weekend and this kid has been in the community for over a week - there is a high chance the virus has spread outside Auckland which means it could be anywhere - the whole Country should be in level 3, JA is just trying to minimise the public backlash. To assume the South Island is unaffected just because no one has tested positive is completely arrogant. I bet you haven’t been tested just in case, so how would you or anyone else down there know?
Sam Morgan must be feeling vindicated ... 'cos the Misery of Health showed little interest in his CovidCard ... that wouldve been $ 100 million well spent .... given how much debt the government has racked up since , and how many businesses have been destroyed ... if the founder of TradeMe wasnt worth listening to , who was ....
What about all the people returning from Auckland to the SI? Or getting out early? No different to some remote parts of the NI being put into level 2. But level 2 is pretty unrestricted. Mainly no large groups of people etc. People should be grateful they live in NZ which hasn't been that affected compare to most other countries.
I wondered why there was so much traffic southbound last night, all off to their holiday houses.
Hopefully the vaccine can be rolled out quickly, these events are increasing in frequency and it seems only a matter of time before we have to deal with a far more serious scenario.
Please share your evidence for the virus "taking weeks to register".
If you're talking about the case in January who tested negative on day 12 testing at the Pullman MIQ and subsequently tested positive after leaving, its because they were infected while at the Pullman in their last few days there and this followed the usual "up to 14 days incubation" period (actually 97.5% will test positive at day 11), not because it took weeks longer than usual to incubate. That's why they shut the Pullman down and investigated its air filtration systems, and why they tracked down all other recent releases from the Pullman and had them tested, and IIRC found 3 further cases that way.
We also had cases from India last year where long-tail infection was considered a real possibility as well so this isn't news. There was even discussion of extending MIQ, but it was decided against on the basis that a mega-high (something like 97% of cases) would be picked up by the day 12 test, and the MIQ follow-ups were sufficient to provide the additional certainty.
And that's fine in MIQ, but if you return a negative test when you live in the community because you were tested early, it's not super unreasonable to think people would resume some degree of normality, having already followed instructions and already been tested. And these are kids - they make stupid mistakes, they go places they forget or they shouldn't be and sometimes they'll be reluctant to tell adults who they're meeting up with and why.
We also had cases from India last year where long-tail infection was considered a real possibility
Sequencing of the RNA in that case show the man caught it from another passenger on his flight to NZ.
so this isn't news.
The issue isn't whether it "is news" or not. It's whether you have any evidence to back up your claim that the disease is frequently appearing after 14 days in quarantine.
It isn't and you don't have any evidence to show that it is.
And that's fine in MIQ, but if you return a negative test when you live in the community because you were tested early,
You haven't shown any evidence that people were "tested early". In the Papatoetoe high school case, the student who was infected (case B I believe?) was last at school on Wednesday 10th February. We went onto lockdown on Sunday 14th February and the school students began to be tested on Monday 15th February and later. That is 5 days after their last possible exposure to the infected student, and the advice is for the first test to be done on or about 5 day. No one was tested "too early" as you claim.
The new category of "close plus contacts" (I think the naming is stupid) requires people to isolate for 14 days at home and get tests on day 5 and day 12.
While I generally think your contributions to COVID discussion on interest.co.nz are helpful, a lot of the time you simply aren't across the details of what you're talking about, and start talking about your impression of things as if they're facts, when they aren't facts.
I was not aware of the developments from the case from India. If that's the case then yes, that resolves the only one I am personally aware of where there was a suggestion of long-tailed incubation.
I make no attempts to present myself as an expert, I have literally no training on the subject and I am quite happy to accept when I don't have knowledge or short-comings in my understanding.
No, you were right. My reply was unhelpful and combative. Having taken a moment to think about it, I get out of my tree each election time when all and sundry suddenly become tax or finance experts and I appreciate the stakes are significantly higher at the moment when it comes to a pandemic. I'll try and maintain more of a questioning tone from this point, rather than an assertive one as noted.
Resarch has shown anywhere from 3-30 days for the virus to incubate. By your own stats 97.5% at 11 days.
So what we know is that the initial lockdown a week or two ago was for 3 days. Those that were tested could easily have been negative at the time, but positive now.
MIQ is 14 days for a reason. L3 in Auckland should have been for 14 days.
Resarch has shown anywhere from 3-30 days for the virus to incubate.
Please cite this research.
Those that were tested could easily have been negative at the time, but positive now.
MIQ is 14 days for a reason. L3 in Auckland should have been for 14 days.
The way the government has managed the latest outbreak is by mandating that those people who could have the disease isolate at home for 14 days, ie they go into their own mini level 4 bubbles, thus no need to lock Auckland down.
The problem is people didn't follow the rules, and the government doesn't seem to have proper systems in place to account for this (other than locking an entire city down for long time - using a sledgehammer to crack a nut).
Lth explains the unfortunate truth of the matter. Has it been forgotten that a staff member at MIQ, trained and equipped, disregarded all of that in pursuit of having it off with an identity in quarantine. So that illustrates the reality of human failure and that reality is more the greater, out there in the community, quite obviously.
Lanthanide....you seem both knowledgeable and interested in the whole covid situation so I would like your opinion on a couple of things. According to the CNN website(as at 27 Feb, after being in receipt of 60K vaccinations for 12 days) NZ has now administered 1000 doses or less than 1% as a percentage of population. We are close to the very bottom of the list.
So first question is how would you rate that performance? Second question is are there any specific reasons why our vaccination program has been so slow, even in comparison to most third world countries, many of which suffer huge financial and logistical hurdles that we do not have to overcome? Third question (which is a little personal but not rude) is are you employed directly or indirectly by the Govt and if so are you in the health or medical sector? (this question is asked to help me assess the possibility of any bias in your response).
I look forward to your reply, which will hopefully give me more insight as to why we seem to be moving so slowly and doing so badly on the vaccination front. With what has now happened it has become clear how important it was to be "at the front of the queue" (as promised) and to be fully ready to vaccinate people as quickly as we possibly could. Thanking you in advance for your advice.
Not sure what you're expecting the NZ government to do when we don't locally manufacturer any of the vaccines and the countries that do have first dibs, for a product that every country in the world wants to get their hands on, and for which we demonstrably have lesser need.
There is also (still!) no firm evidence that it stops transmission from vaccinated people, only that it stops infection in those who receive the vaccine. It is expected that it will stop transmission, and there is some early study data supporting this, but it has not yet been peer-reviewed and published.
1. And what bad thing has occurred because they made that promise, exactly?
2. No one was certain it would take 1 year to get the vaccine out, or what form it would take. Bill Gates invested 5 billion to build 5 factories for vaccines, in the expectation 4 of them wouldn't be needed because they weren't for the type of vaccine that would ultimately be shown to work.
The bad thing that happened was delay. Delay in everything as "the vaccine is just around the corner."
Certainty was not required. Sometimes you need to push ahead without knowing the outcome. Bill Gates understood that on a global scale covid was clearly one of those times. This political "fear of failure" attitude is crippling us.
There are so many examples where innovative thinking and bolder action could help NZ. Covid card? Location tracing in the app? Vaccination around hotspots? Dedicated pandemic organisation to run things?
What can the govt do? A hell of a lot more Lanth, that is very clear.
The bad thing that happened was delay. Delay in everything as "the vaccine is just around the corner."
So you're claiming that the ministry of health delayed doing things because they were told by public PR briefing that "the vaccine is just around the corner", despite the fact that the ministry of health themselves had the internal details of how the procurement process was going?
Certainty was not required.
Uncertainty increases costs and drastically increases the likelihood of wastage.
What "delayed action" that we "all" did has had negative impacts? I think you're just saying they shouldn't have made that promise and somehow suggesting that because they did, bad things happened, but you haven't actually identified a single bad thing, just general "delayed actions", but you can't say what they are who did them or how they made things worse.
Frazz....Australia was near last in the world with us in receiving it. Being 30 times bigger than NZ they must be facing far more difficult logistical problems than us yet have administered 25 times more doses than us (according to CNN). That is like Australia beating the ABs 300 points to 10 in a test match. Low population is a poor, irrelevant excuse for piss poor performance.
Lanthanide...I was expecting us to be around the middle of the queue (at worst) for receiving vaccinations and near the front in terms of (speed in) administering it. With the small size of our country, our health system, first world transportation systems and covid budget I cannot accept that we are not administering it faster than most other countries rather than being in the slowest 20 in the world. Please explain why this is the case? We have a right to know the answers to these questions.
Karl surely even you must accept that there is a greater need elsewhere in the world than here. You don't have to be a brain surgeon to understand something as simple as that. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with the factors you've outlined and everything to do with one simple fact - NEED
Hook.... there is an argument for us being near the bottom of the queue due to our need compared to others. TBH I really am unsure where I stand on that side of things. It could be viewed in different ways ie selfishly looking after kiwis first or valuing non kiwi life equally to our own citizens lives. Many other countries pushed to get as many vaccines as fast as possible regardless of their need compared to others.
But as for administering it now that we have it, the figures indicate, our performance in terms of the speed (or lack of) requires a clear and logical explanation. I am only asking for clarification as to why we have been so slow in giving the jabs compared to almost every country in the world? Waiting.
There does not seem to be any issue about getting enough vaccines. We do not even seem capable of administering the ones we have in anything close to a timely manner. In fact according to the CNN vaccine website we are administering the doses at the slowest rate in the world, except a few (mainly dysfunctional third world)countries. We have had months to plan the roll out. Why so slow????
So you think we should just vaccinate anyone who rocks up for an appointment, instead of prioritising border staff? Just so we could administer the vaccine ASAP, who cares if it's actually a sensible use of it?
The UK is also prioritising who gets the vaccine first, you know. They just have a hugely bigger supply of it, because they manufacture it themselves, hence why they can vaccinate people so quickly.
No you should have a plan of how to vaccinate thousands of people a day. Of course with an order of priority. But they have had months to work this out while they wait for the vaccines to arrive. The medical profession has been putting needles into peoples arms for over a century. It is not rocket science. No need to reinvent the wheel. They should have hit the ground sprinting not crawling on all fours.
No you should have a plan of how to vaccinate thousands of people a day.
We have those plans and the government is working on them. We don't have thousands of vaccines to distribute every day.
They should have hit the ground sprinting not crawling on all fours.
The first 5 days after the vaccines arrived were used for quality control checks and other assurances. You don't want vaccines to turn up in a country, be immediately injected into people without checking and assuring the safety of them first because that'd be a major scandal and then people like you would be demanding the government do a better job because they're not "reinventing the wheel". It's also the first time the processes and procedures were used, so obviously they want to get them right so that subsequent deliveries can be handled more quickly.
The proof is really going to be how fast they get through vaccinations over the next 2 weeks - I would expect that we see some days with at least 1,000 doses administered, potentially many many more.
we have had 10 months to develop both a plan and a priority number -- and lots of international evidence of what that should be - We have also had several years of mass vaccinating with the ordinary Flu Jab - so there is no excuse for not hitting the ground running.
Yes the quality control and safety delay is necessary -- but given teh very small number of vaccines we have - no excuse that we have not already used at least 90% of these -- they are no good stuck in the freezers!
Border workers / MI workers - Frontline Healthcare - Resthomes - over 75's is a no brainer -- after that we could priorities 65+ or serious health especially breathing conditions - or communities most at risk -- but no real excuse not to be goign hell for leather with the first groups
I manage nearly 120 high care beds in Dementia/Mental Health / TBI ( and a load of other services) -- and my nurses could vaccinate the whole lot and our 250 staff tomorrow if we had access to the required number of doses - Its a 2 hr training module - and these nurses have been giving injections for years - We could keep the records and hand it back to MOH with a nice red ribbon on it the following Day --
No reason this could not and should not be happening now for every Dose we already have.
The vaccines were supplied by Pfizer. A multi billion dollar global pharma company. I am sure they probably have a quality control process. Vaccinations with the same vaccine formula have already been taking place overseas for months. The same farce of having to wait for Medsafe to "approve" the vaccine. Just placating a a few bureaucrats and wasting time. Every vaccinated person is a brick in the wall to stop transmission. Build the wall
he vaccines were supplied by Pfizer. A multi billion dollar global pharma company. I am sure they probably have a quality control process.
Yes, a reasonable approach to take. However, if something *had* gone wrong, are you sure that you would absolve the government of all blame?
And if something *had* gone wrong, what do you think that would do for the uptake of vaccines in NZ? Do you think it would increase or decrease vaccine hesitancy?
The fact is, we don't have COVID rampant in our communities, so we can afford to take things more slowly and ensure we get it right, because in the long run getting 85% of people vaccinated instead of 70% because we avoided early scandals is what matters. Whether we started vaccinating people on 1st February or 11th February or 21st February with a few hundred vaccines is unlikely to make any difference, come October when we've vaccinated 1-2 million.
The 60000 doses of vaccine we received were just a randomly assigned fraction of the millions of doses that were produced in that Belgian Pfizer factory in one day. Do you think Pfizer would risk sending a bad batch of vaccine anywhere in the world right now? New Zealand's bureaucrats have nothing useful to add here. We either accept that the global drug companies know what they are doing and we take the vaccine . Or we don't and take the consequences.
Westie, every country currently using the vaccine has had to go through internal approval processes - it's just how it is. Lanth is right - it requires approval by MedSafe - it's the law. Otherwise we'd have people injecting or drinking a cattle drench (according to fat pat it's good to go) or ingesting Hydroxychloroquine or all manner of other so called cures. We have minor community spread and what we do have is being controlled (so far). There's no rush.
Lanthanide... sorry you will need to explain that one. We have 60K doses here and have administered 1000. Please explain how if we had 60 MILLION doses how that would have helped us administer more doses than we have. After 12 days we have administered 1000 doses or less than 2% of our current stock. It really does sound like you are making excuses. You are not related to any of these partners in crime are you?
Hook... not sweating it at all. I just find it difficult to accept how inefficient and ineffective the people and the system seem to be. I am not fixated on a quick vaccination as I feel the risk for me (and my family) personally is very low from both a health and financial perspective. However, the people we are entrusting this whole thing to should be completely fixed on vaccinating people safely in the fastest possible time. The fact that Australia (among others) are vaccinating 30 times faster than us is a disgrace. I have asked for reasons why we have been almost the slowest in the world at administering them once received and am yet to receive a reply. If there are things I am unaware of I would like to know what they are. There may be valid reasons but we have the right to know what they are if we are to accept this snail-like vaccination roll out. Open communication.
Karl tbh you do seem to be "sweating it". Things are what they are. Whether you accept or not the pace of rollout, it won't change anything. Whether you know the reasons why or not won't change anything either. If there's 5 million or so people in the country we'll need 10 million doses - 560K doses is a drop in the bucket. Given there's more than 280K border workers, vaccinators and vulnerable people in the country I dare say prioritising who gets it and when is a logistical nightmare. Who knows - maybe the Govt is holding the vaccines in storage until they have enough to do all the above list.
Hook... When we see clear inefficiency in the public service we should call it out. It may not change anything but we as taxpayers pay their wages. To prioritise who gets it and when should have been done at least six months ago. There is no excuse (that I know of) for them not to have done so before vaccines were received. If "Govt are holding vaccines in storage until they get enough....". as you suggest then you are probably right and I should not even bother as they would clearly be beyond redemption and completely incapable of organising anything. Personally I think they are useless and ineffective but not as bad as you suggest, but maybe they are. All we want to know is why the figures show that they have been so slow in administering the vaccines. Is it too much to ask that we are given reasons for the pathetic number of jabs given in the last two weeks? Since nobody has responded providing any justification for the snail-like roll-out surely it must be assumed that disorganisation, inefficiency and possibly lack of caring are the reasons.
You are probably right, they will always be inefficient and will never do a competent job (despite being paid handsomely by us) but we can only try to pressure them and hope it leads to at least some kind of accountability.
Not sweating it in the slightest. Getting covid for me is very very unlikely and I am too healthy too be badly affected by it. Even a long term lockdown would not affect me too much. I just hate people completely taking the piss while pretending to be caring and kind.
Nifty... driving into somebodys car is a mistake. Going to the gym on the way home from a covid test (or sleeping with your brothers wife) is not a mistake. It is a grossly selfish, irresponsible and conscious decision made with complete disregard to others. It should be labelled as such and the person concerned should be named and completely shamed regardless of how our PM tries to spin things. A public shaming would go a long way to reducing the chances of a similar incident reoccurring. And if we really want to get tough there must be many laws (relating to endangering public safety etc) that we might need to look at using in order to hand out community service in order to discourage others from acting in such a selfish way in future and as a way for this numbskull to at least partly repay the public for such stupidity. Your right to kindness can be forfeited.
But you can reduce the odds, which is almost always all you can do with everything in life. When clowns behave like him it makes a mockery of the lifestyle and financial sacrifice so many of us have made through lockdowns. They need to be given the message, loud and clear.
Clearly the government hasn't got a handle on people who don't follow the rules. There's also concern that people are going to work because they need the money.
Here's a semblance of an idea, I don't know how realistic it is in practice, but if anyone is told they need to isolate for 14 days because they're a close contact or whatever, then pay them a $500 stipend (or whatever you want to call it) for the 14 days. If they're later found to have breached the rules in some way, take the $500 away. Perhaps structure it so they get the $500 at the end of the 14 days. This gives people a direct incentive to stay home and would help to alleviate people's need to go to work.
The key problem in this case is that apparently case M was supposed to be isolating, but they didn't. Perhaps if there had $500 on the line (and knew about it), they would have.
Paying $500 per family member for ~4000 people told to isolate from the school is cheaper than putting Auckland back into lockdown for 7 days as we are now doing.
Also in the case of the school, we know they didn't bother to visit households until this last Monday for contact tracing purposes. Did they mail out notices telling everyone to isolate at home, and list all the support and benefits available? They have all their addresses, so seems like there's no reason not to. Another step that could have helped people follow the rules.
I'm sure you're aware that employers are already supported to pay wages in the event of an isolation requirement. Possibly the wage payment could be made directly via MSD so that casual employees aren't disadvantaged and there's no "gaming" of the system by employers.
If people have a casual attitude to isolation requirements then no amount of "help" will get them to toe the line. Compulsion probably wouldn't work either and possibly isn't legal anyway
There's multiple schemes available for employers and others from MSD for employees. If the employee has no sick leave then I guess some union intervention might be needed. No sane employer wants a symptomatic employee on site so I'm sure there would be work arounds. I agree the support isn't large but most employers running a shift system should be financial enough to cover the cost
Yes, I am aware of all of that.
Obviously it's not working or the message isn't getting through. The point of the $500 payments is that it would be on top of all of that, and directly from the government, which they can then use as both a carrot and a stick to get people to comply. They've been very clear that they don't want to punish people who don't follow the rules, because that would encourage others to not own up to mistakes out of fear of being punished. Structuring this as a carrot and a stick lets them give people something to follow the rules, and take it away if they don't.
Well if it's in addition to the other support payments it would be a useful encouragement I guess. Logistically it would be difficult to manage. Thing is Lanth, there are always contrarians and fools in any community, so far we've not needed to actually bribe people's compliance - hopefully we don't need to start now, the herd self preservation mentality is still generally the most effective deterrent (usually)
It's only partly a bribe to get people to comply, it's also recognising that if you can't work for 14 days and your employer is only passing on the minimum COVID wage subsidy to you, then you may be substantially disadvantaged, which then encourages people to break the rules.
What the government needs to do is get the root cause (as best they can) as to why people are breaking the rules, and then come up with mitigations for that. This is an example of a mitigation that might work for a type of root cause.
So the government needs to go hard and early on providing support to people that are isolating. And also hard and early on outlining severe punishment for anyone not following the rules. We don’t want a massive outbreak and economic carnage, do we? We were told that Labour are COVID managers par excellence, but actually their management style seems reactive not proactive.
The reason they aren't punishing people is because it would encourage others who have messed up to them not do the right thing. If you think "oh, I should have gotten tested 24 hours ago, but I didn't, but now if I get tested today, they'll know I broke the rules and I'll be severely punished. So instead I'll just stay home and not get tested at all".
It's insane. Meanwhile Sweden is doing better than most European countries in terms of excess deaths proving that lockdowns do absolutely nothing but destroy the economy. https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
It's a fact that the virus less dangerous than seasonal flu for most people in terms of infection fatality rate. I think with proper infection control, and with ivermectin and vitamin D3 the risk to the vulnerable population could easily be mitigated to the point where it's "business as usual".
That’s absolute bollocks. The fatality rate is several orders of magnitude higher than influenza.
Lets look into that. The IFR of seasonal flu seems to be around 0.002% according to this link, but other sources claim 20x larger at 0.04% but lets go with the low estimate.. According to the American CDC planning scenarios the COVID19 IFR for under 50 year old's (ie most people) is 0.0002 (see this link) which expressed as a percentage is 0.02%. That's a pretty low number but it still appears to be one order of magnitude larger that the flu. So how the CDC get that number? IFR is just the number of people who died from XX divided by the total number who contracted XX. How did they figure out who contracted it? Well they did serology studies, but we know the covid antibodies don't last long therefore they underestimated the denominator, and because anyone who dies with covid is classified as dying from covid they overestimated the numerator. What happens when you make the numerator larger and the denominator smaller....
Another way of looking at it is from the empirical data - the excess deaths from the euromomo website. If you eyeball this seasons excess deaths and compare to the last few years - yeah it's worse but not by orders of magnitude. Look to the data. Therein lies the truth.
How about YOU do some reading??
https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/antiviral-therapy/iverme…
After reading that, if you want to inject or drink Ivermectin - go for your life. Just don't recommend it for others.
Personally I'll wait for the vaccine, but don't let me hold YOU back
I looked at the huge trial case numbers of 14,000 odd, the 65 or so published trials (28 peer reviewed) and the very small number (comparatively) of supporting scientists (350 or so). I'll go with required trial case numbers in the 100s of 1000s to get approval for the current vaccines.
As I said - if you want to believe drinking a cattle drench & taking Vit.D3 is an effective cure .. knock yourself out. Just don't promote it for others.
Looking at your post above regarding the IFR of Covid it appears you believe this virus is no worse than a bad dose of the 'flu - need I say more??
Not really. When the manufacturer says "don't use it, it was never designed to be an antiviral agent" that's good enough for me (and obviously all the worlds public health experts and certifiers)
If Ivermectin was a viable cure and conferred immunity against reinfection it would already be in worldwide regular use. That it's not speaks volumes about it's efficacy, regardless of the studies you've referenced.
Also note that in the studies you referenced, the dose rate that affected the virus was up to 100x the safe human exposure level - not much point in being free of Covid but dying of Ivermectin poisoning imv
You're wrong - again. The ivermectin iMASK+ protocol from the FLCCC (see here) calls for 0.2 mg/kg for 5 days for early outpatients. The drug has an excellent therapeutic window and the dosage isn't too dissimilar from what you'd get for a nematode infection.
The reason Merck is taking a gigantic S&it on their own product is because they cant make money from it because it's off-patent. Merck recently acquired OncoImmune for 425 million USD and received 356 million USD from the government to develop a NOVEL treatment. Ivermectin is a thorn in their side because it's efficacy will be hard to beat. Gilead made almost 3 billion dollars from the sale of remdesivir in the first few months of it's release and remdesivir is essentially useless. Governments are in panic mode and will pay anything right now. Read between the lines and see what's going on.
Well buddy - it's a democracy. You read, believe and ingest what you want. If you think it's a giant "big pharma" conspiracy to make billions.. good on you.
"Read between the lines and see what's going on"? - Yeah, I know.. another big brother conspiracy from the illuminati to control the downtrodden masses, this time with a fake virus and expensive vaccines... sigh
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018767843/near-…
You could take some comfort from this
This is just not a practical solution. lockdown to make one covid case disappear until the next case shows up.
As seen from many nations, even those people tend to follow the government regulations like Japan or Korea, Covid infection numbers fluctuate.
What makes NZ so special about Covid, we will eventually follow the same footstep, unless we decide to lock our country forever.
JL the underlying reason for lockdowns are actually to reduce or eliminate the chance of our hospitals being overcome should the virus escape to become country wide. So far they have been effective. Once the vaccine is administered to 70-80% (at least) of the population there should be less requirement for locking down parts of the country. It would be good if the lockdown areas were more targeted but I guess in Auckland that's pretty impractical
Bullshit. That chestnut was roasted a long time ago. It's because we have decided we will do anything at societal level to stop even a single death from covid.
Think of what all the money spent in terms of lockdown payments could have bought in terms of hospital capacity etc.
It's fairies and unicorns that have given us our response, not rational analysis of the health system.
Bullshit. That chestnut was roasted a long time ago.
So you're saying no country in the world has run out of hospital space due to COVID? Doing some very quick googling will tell you that many countries, cities and localities have indeed run out of hospital space due to COVID, and the majority of those places have better levels of hospital care than what NZ can manage.
Think of what all the money spent in terms of lockdown payments could have bought in terms of hospital capacity etc.
In the same timespan in which the money was spent? Hardly any at all. You can't just magic up hospital capacity overnight.
Brutus there wasn't much analysis needed - the White Island event showed up the deficiencies pretty clearly - staffing and capacity. The Hospital system here is already on a shoe string budget - getting rid of half the DHBs (at least) whilst maintaining the overall budget would help immensely. Even if all the Covid response money had been funnelled into the Health system nothing would have changed - we'd still be understaffed, underpaid and under capacity. Even well resourced systems in far richer countries than us have been pushed to breaking point. The response strategy was the only viable option we had.
Correct Jay, 10 years from now assuming we don't lock down forever or they create a "super vaccine" per capita deaths from COVID19 will about the same in NZ as in the rest of the world. NZ's COVID19 strategy will be considered a popular delusion worthy of its own chapter in McKay extraordinary popular delusions & the madness of crowds. Managing a contagious virus by managing how people socially interact is an absurd proposition.
This is just not a practical solution. lockdown to make one covid case disappear
That's not the point of it at all.
We may, right now, have a dozen cases in the community that we don't know about, because of the actions of case M. If we don't do anything and let those people carry on with their normal lives, we could have 100 cases by Friday and 1000 by the Friday after that.
Her press conference last night was a masterclass of deflection, exhorting people not to blame others who aren't following the rules, and also saying that it's because people don't follow the rules that this has happened. Ie, her and her government are blameless for this case.
Well, I very much blame them. It was easily foreseeable that people wouldn't follow the rules and obvious that the government didn't do contact tracing well enough to begin with. We got unlucky that the people not following the rules actually seem to have been people who are sick, this time.
Lanthanide. Even worse, the princess of hugs thinks we oughtn't to have a punitive attitude towards this POS who knew his mother had contracted C19, had been to the doctor about their own symptoms yet arrogantly and with knowing disregard for the carnage they knew could easily result, exposed multiple others to suffering and death. Because, apparently, 'treating them as a criminal could discourage others from being tested'. And due to their 'youth'...... at age 21!! Her royal kindness rightly gets sniffy when the Baluch woman refuses to be tested in MIQ but a south Aucklander blatantly giving the rest of us the middle finger not only escapes her frowny faced wrath for reckless endangerment on a scale monumentally greater than that of the recalcitrant Aussie but in addition gets the mother of the nation protective cloak treatment by way of a virtue signalling lecture on the correct way we should all be viewing this incident. I'd like to think it is just her feeble naivety because she doesn't understand the need for publicly visible deterrence at at a time of national emergency but suspect she is instead knowingly playing to her political gallery.
middleman....500 hours of community service to this POS under some law relating to the security of NZ? A deterrent as well as a tiny repayment to society for the damage he has caused. The gym should also cancel his membership (without giving a refund) for being a danger to other members.
Ho hum Ho hum. Well meaning. JA is concerned people aren't taking this seriously. Aren't we all. Testing voluntary even if you close+. School requesting test certificate is fine but after the horse has bolted. Can't contact people. Sorry a miserable performance.
Time to bring in a small stick. The carrots, if any, weren't tempting enough.
I only know that we have a very small population by global standards, and we are isolated by thousands of miles of ocean. Our air border should be manageable as we have a small number of international airports. Our land mass is further divided into two islands seperated by water. We have a lot of natural advantages working in our favour.
At best it is nominal protection. Virus particles AKA virions are incredibly small and transmission for influenza is mainly by self inoculation ie putting fingers contaminated with virus in your nose, eyes or mouth. Transmission via coughed droplets is secondary. Happy to be corrected, preferably by a virologist or ID Physician
Virus particles AKA virions are incredibly small
Correct, however they need a medium to travel between people, ie large 'droplets' of saliva or other mucous that generally falls to the ground over a distance of 2M, hence the 2M social distancing rules. These droplets are created from speech and singing, not just coughing and sneezing. Masks block the majority of these droplets and also cause other fine aerosol particles to project upward (eg, around your eyes and up over your head) rather than forwards into other people's faces, and in commercial buildings the ventilation systems will tend to suck up and remove the infectious particles once they're flowing in an upwards direction.
It does mean that in normal society we've all been getting coated in each others 'droplets' all the time - gross!
Masks provide protection not by completely stopping the virus but by changing people's movement patterns.
With masks on, people significantly reduce their movement—less activity, less chance of spreading the virus.
Also, physical contact and conversation becomes difficult, therefore less time communicating between people
When you are running a government you have to enforce the rules. Not run the show as though it were a voluntary organisation. NZ found this out a year ago when reversing the absurd initial border rules i.e. isolate at home, which was a high trust model with little or no checks. Why are we still having this conversation?
The more they hate or enforce penalties on these idiots, the less people will go get tested with symptoms for fear of the consequences. It won’t deter anyone except the reasonable members of society that don’t need to be deterred.
It’s called being pragmatic, it’s what intelligent people are capable of doing, and when Judith Collins says she wants the book thrown at this guy it shows how different things would actually be under national. This guy would have still done everything he did, the only difference is he wouldn’t have been tested, he would have hoped and assumed it was just the flu, we’d all be screwed and he still would have got away with it.
Totally correct, but see my top comment further up in this thread suggesting something the government could try to encourage people to follow the rules.
Also I think a lot of what Judith and others say, particularly around COVID, is just to get idiots in the public who agree with them, and they wouldn't necessarily actually do the things they're proposing if they were in power.
You are right. It's Case L who worked at Botany KFC. Case M does part-time work at Kerry Logistics in the Airport area.
My point is these confirmed cases could have continued to go to their respective workplace if we were still in an extended L2 (or even L3, considering both food chains and logistics are essential). So I reckon the latest lockdown is inevitable.
I just finished a week's leave and I was returning from the Mount last night when my phone went off in my ute.. Then got a covid explanation via audio. So fortune I came last night as my papers were not in order for returning. Anyways the traffic leaving Auckland was huge. I wonder whats the point as thousands leaving to possibly infect elderly populations like my parents at the Mount.
You'd think we'd have learnt by now - the road blocks should be up at the time of the announcement, not several hours later. People have repeatedly proven their selfishness/stupidity, swanning off to their holiday homes, potentially aiding the spread of the virus.
It warms the heart to see young people treating her edicts with the exact same urgency and seriousness that she has shown for the housing disaster.
Indeed Jacinda can shove her lockdowns, masks vaccines, QR codes, tracking app and compliance up her arse so long as her government refuses to take meaningful action on housing.
Aroha.
It comes down to credibility as I've said before. Increasingly the issues in our society are becoming unsolvable without extreme intervention and NZer's are simply not interested in the common good only themselves, and saddest part is that people seem to willingly accept that.
If you can't beat them join them. Outrage porn seems pointless.
Nope. It's about Jacinda's dwindling moral authority to command us to do things for the sake of the older generations who have weaponised housing against the young.
The younger generations, who have had their futures stolen and have nothing to fear from this silly wu flu, would be well within their rights to protest by telling her to get stuffed.
Brock, your comments are all about anarchy and collapse of the economic systems so house prices come down. Are you an investor waiting for house prices to collapse? Are you saying that this Flu thing is made up? You lot are why the rest of us hard working law abiding kiwis are suffering. Brock is a very american name, are you a believer in Qanon
To be honest outside of Auckland, it's not that bad. Although I'm very much in love with Auckland, there are many other beautiful cities in NZ where houses are not ridiculously priced. It's not all lost for young people.
Nope, I'm just a parent that needs to house a young family in this clown show of a country.
I have spent a fair chunk of time overseas and I've seen few things as truly disgusting or reckless as the status quo in New Zealand.
You are absolutely right, intelligent young people should vote with their feet. The grass really is greener elsewhere.
"Brock Landers" is the name of the protagonist in the film "Boogie Nights".
Why would I be a "QAnon Believer"? No I don't think the virus is made up, to the contrary I've had it. I just think the endless lockdowns are a stupid overreaction.
Ok, I loved boogie nights, great movie and well acted. We got something in common.
Apologies for my comment earlier. I agree with you, it is very difficult for young families to make it work here. You have my full sympathy. I rented for a long time myself with my young family and was lucky enough to find a house in Auckland.
Unfortunately, Auckland is very desirable to wealthy individuals, returning kiwis and migrants. I hope and wish the best to you and your family.
Brock - two things: no one held a gun to your head and forced you to breed. That you did signals either poor planning or.. poor planning. If you think the grass is actually greener then perhaps you should jump the fence to more productive pastures.
The lockdowns are the only thing NZ can do. It's a proven effective strategy that works well regardless of your opinions of it.
... it warms my heart that not everyone has swallowed " Jacinda juice " ... that , some are willing to oppose the publics slavish love for her , and call it like it is : one of the most spectacularly inept governments within living memory .... on every front , they repeatedly over promise , tell lies , and fail ... then blame someone else , usually Adrian Orr ...
Where is the enforcement action on rule-breakers!!!! What about a $5000 fine same as Australia. Why were the police not checking on these people (as they do in Aust). It will cost us a lot more now to contain this.
Sick of this being kind BS. Trust model is complete BS. Imagine all the poor law abiding citizens who have been exposed as a result of these idiots. Surely there should be some harsh punishment. He went to the gym after a covid test.
If we don't have such laws then this govt exceeds my expectations of being incompetent. Australia has these and m not sure why we don't/won't have something to enforce or punish these idiots as well.
I suppose it's "not kind". These kindness strategy has ffd the whole country.
Only under an MoH directive. The advice to "stay home and get tested if symptoms manifest" is exactly that - advice, so is not an enforceable directive or law
https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/new-zealand-new-covid-19-p…
Hook... public act 145, Criminal nuisance. When you do not want to take action on sthg a good cop out is you can't. There is no doubt that anyone who is told to stay home and does not is endangering the health and safety of others and could be prosecuted under this law. But that is not this Govt or Costers style. If I am wrong could a lawyer plz correct me. Thx.
Karl you don't need to be a lawyer. Read the act. The key words are "unlawful act", "legal duty" and "knowingly/knew". Case M did not commit an "unlawful act" nor did he fail to discharge a "legal duty". As he did not have the results back from his test he also did not "knowingly" endanger the public.
What he did was dumb, cavalier and apathetic but it was not illegal. If he'd escaped from an MIQ facility - that is illegal. Failing to self isolate is not. At the time Auckland was in Lvl 2 therefore there was no MoH Directive restricting movement so he didn't breach that law either.
Hook... I guess it is a matter of opinion whether he knowingly endangered the public. I am not a lawyer but I think one could put up a good case that someone who had covid symptoms, was living with someone with covid and had been instructed to isolate was knowingly endangering the public. The act states that you just need to be knowingly endangering the health of others. And even if you are right emergency laws can be passed if needed.
You might want to read it again yourself.
You're making a few assumptions for a start and your argument is flawed.
1: His sibling had tested negative 3 times so it could be argued he could reasonably assume his household ( and he) was negative
2: His mother (Case L) contracted the virus off him so prior to that he was living with someone with symptoms which are the same as the common cold. Her testing hadn't been released so he had no way to know they were Covid positive
3: He had been ADVISED (there is no legal compulsion) to self isolate, but under lvl 2 there is no restrictions on movement
The lvl 4 restrictions were found to be a breach of the Bill of Rights however there were extenuating circumstances but it was still technically illegal.
If the MoH want to issue a Directive around the ADVICE to self isolate then it would be illegal to ignore that. So far that hasn't happened and it's unlikely (imv) that it will.
Actually in response to journalist questions today, Ardern and Bloomfield said that section 70 health orders have legal force and if people break them they can be punished, and that everyone from the Papatoetoe school were placed under section 70 orders requiring them to isolate.
Not sure if that was just the students or the students and their family.
Interesting. Reading Section 70 of the Act I wonder if they actually did do that or were just CTA. Seems to be a few notification requirements that I'm sure the media would have picked up on. The relevant Minister has to give approval or a State of Emergency must be declared.
I think personally it's a smoke screen. If not then let's see them prosecute Case M (obviously they won't). Section 70 seems quite prescriptive
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1956/0065/latest/DLM307083.h…
I wonder how section 1A(a) applies??
Karl as I said above the laws in this country revolve around conscious decisions to breach an existing law. The law must exist in the first case. Then there must be conscious and willful action to breach it. Note that ignorance of the law's existence is not a defence. In Case M's situation the law doesn't exist - it's real simple. Banging Coster on the head is spurious. Case M ignored ADVICE.. he did not break any law or breach a Directive
We will have to agree to disagree. I think under the circumstances he knowingly endangered the health and safety of the public and could be prosecuted under this law. And when you see police regularly being called cnuts and being told to F off and criminals refusing to be handcuffed (and police having to pander to these thugs) it is hard to have any respect for Coster. I am guessing many of his staff would love to see the back of him although I am sure Jacinda approves of the way he runs things.
Case M did not knowingly endanger anyone. He hadn't had a positive test so knowledge can't be proven. And what's your beef with Coster?? He's only been in the job for a short while. All the things you describe have been happening for decades.
BTW anyone trying to evade cuffing will be charged with "resisting arrest", probably pepper sprayed and I can assure you they'll still get to wear the "bangles"
No it's not Karl. The law around criminal nuisance clearly states the requirement of knowledge. Disorderly conduct doesn't apply as he was not acting in a disorderly manner.
Every person is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 months or a fine not exceeding $2,000 who, in or within view of any public place, behaves, or incites or encourages any person to behave, in a riotous, offensive, threatening, insulting, or disorderly manner that is likely in the circumstances to cause ...etc etc
That is a direct copy from the Crimes Act 1981 and it doesn't mention "endangering public safety" anywhere
Hardly relevant in this case
Your Google search threw up the US definition, so it's not wrong.. just not relevant. NZs laws are different - as I've shown you. We do have Section 70 of the Health Act as Lanthanide referred to, but as I pointed out it's a bit murky whether it is applicable in Case M's situation
FFS Edward. Case M is a 21yr old student. Maybe you (and others baying for his head) should just back the wagon up and take a chillpill. Mistakes happen. What do you reckon a 21yr old students capacity for paying a fine would be?? My guess is zero. It has nothing to do with the Govt's attitude and everything to do with encouraging people to get tested when they are symptomatic - fining someone doesn't achieve anything. At least the kid DID get tested (albeit a bit late), had there been a threat of a fine he may well have not been tested, with the ensuing chaos that would eventually have caused.
Hook
FFS. It was no mistake he was told what was required of him and in tertiary education he is not thick.
And don’t play the “ . . but, but he is to young . . and doesn’t know any better and he can’t be responsible . . .” : he’s old enough to have voted at the last election, old enough to drive, old enough to drink - all requiring an awareness and a high level of responsibility . . . and mistakes regarding drinking and driving have serious consequence.
Not after his blood . . . but other 21 year old need to know it’s not ok.
He and some other 21 year olds have responsibilities and need to be compliant but choose to ignore that . . .it’s not ok and has tremendous risk to others, and tremendous widespread disruptive and economic consequences.
P8 I'm not excusing his behaviour. I am saying that beating him up will have no great advantage. As for being old enough to vote etc etc there's 54.17 % of the population that fall into that category and they voted for the idiots we currently have to endure. Age is no measure of maturity
Hook
OK . . . but how does one go about convincing others (of all ages) it’s not ok.
The reality is that he and others need to appreciate the responsibility and the consequences for the inconvenience and economic cost for each and every Aucklander and Kiwi. That is serious and needs to be strongly reinforced.
Hook... crashing your car is a mistake. Going to the gym on the way home from a covid test is not a mistake. It is a reckless and selfish conscious decision. No fine but as I said maybe a bit of a public shaming (a quiet word that a public apology is in order) and maybe even some voluntary community service worked out between him and some kind of mediator who could explain that in order to restore his mana (or whatever the word for mana is in Samoan) he needs to voluntarily do some community service. He should be a man (and not a fa'afafine) and own his mistake and make it right.
I know this does not get stated much, but it is important:
the crucial metric is what % of tests taken , are positive, NOT how many infected.
Because, plainly, no test = no infection recorded.
This % is v rarely given by any government or DH spokesperson in NZ or elsewhere.
In UK last April , it was 50%
It is now 6.5%
The latest super peak in January was because UK was testing 900k a day. In April it was only 50k a day
Good info is critical and sometimes you have to go looking for it
Just you wait, how many thumbs up from people that think this could quickly escalate to a Level 4 and we start to get the daily Cindy show on the TV ? Everything else goes out the window with Covid when in fact the government is actively doing nothing about it to further reduce the chances of a major outbreak which begs the question, what the hell are they doing all day ?
I think the lockdowns have served us well so far and have largely agreed with all the governments decisions to date, but I am not so sure about this one. They said at the end of the three day lockdown they only did that because there was a risk of lots of undetected community transmission. It doesn't seem like this one has the same risk. The cluster has only affected four households so far - is that any worse than the November defence force cluster? That one didn't require a lockdown.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.