Friday morning update:
One new Auckland community case of Covid-19 has been confirmed overnight.
Here's more from RNZ:
North Shore Hospital is taking action after it was confirmed a patient, who has now tested positive, was treated there.
Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verall told Morning Report there are now 22 confirmed community cases in Auckland.
Yesterday, 11 community cases were added to the list, and the number of locations of interest continued to swell.
Last night it was confirmed a student at Northcote College on Auckland's North Shore has tested positive for Covid-19 and staff and students have been were directed to isolate at home.
Meanwhile, the country will learn the government's plans for the lockdown outside Auckland and Coromandel this afternoon.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will announce the decision at 3pm after a Cabinet meeting to discuss the current settings.
And here's a statement from the Ministry of Health.
Patients diverted from North Shore Hospital ED as a precaution
People needing emergency care are being diverted from Auckland’s North Shore hospital and Short Stay Surgical Unit from this morning following a positive case being confirmed as being treated prior to their being diagnosed with COVID-19.
The Ministry of Health’s usual statement at 1pm will have more detail of this case and any other new cases.
Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said both the hospital’s Emergency Department and the Short Stay Surgical Unit have been closed today after hospital staff diagnosed a confirmed COVID-positive patient had been earlier admitted to North Shore Hospital for an unrelated condition prior to the current lockdown.
Given the incubation period of the virus, the DHB has assumed that the person could have been infectious during the admission to North Shore Hospital.
The DHB has taken immediate action to close the North Shore Hospital Emergency Department and Short Stay Surgical Unit to new admissions. Diversions to other hospital EDs are in place as the DHB this morning contacts staff and patients who may have been exposed to COVID.
Affected staff will be stood down and advised to follow public health advice and potentially exposed current patients will be notified and isolated as well as tested in the hospital. Patients already discharged will be followed-up by public health officials.
The affected parts of the hospital will be deep cleaned today and then reopened as soon as it is safe to do so.
The DHB will be working today to confirm the number of staff and patients affected.
Thursday:
The Ministry of Health is reporting a further 11 confirmed community Covid cases in Auckland in the past 24 hours, bringing the current Auckland cluster to 21. Two of the new cases are in hospital in a stable condition.
However, there appears to have been a major breakthrough in identifying just where the outbreak came from.
Another development is that the Government has given approval for 12-to-15 year-olds to receive the Pfizer vaccine. They will be eligible from September 1, although any parents already eligible to book an appointment for themselves will also be able to book in their 12-to-15 year-old children.
And, additionally, Cabinet is meeting on Friday to make decisions on the lockdown and whether the three-day period for the rest of New Zealand other than Auckland and Coromandel would be extended.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday afternoon that genome sequencing had linked the outbreak to the arrival of a passenger from Sydney on August 7.
That person, who was put into the Crowne Plaza managed isolation facility in Auckland, tested positive after their day one test, and was moved to the Jet Park facility on August 9. Subsequently their health deteriorated to a point where they were transferred to Middlemore Hospital on August 16.
"We believe we have uncovered the piece of the puzzle we were looking for," Arden said.
In terms of how other people could have contracted the virus from this person, inquiries are mostly focusing on the Crowne Plaza.
Arden said the timings suggested that there were therefore just "one or maybe two missing links" in the transmission chain given the short time the virus has been in the community.
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said a family of three that were in the room next door to the arrival from Sydney had just all tested positive to Covid in the Day 12 tests. A hold has been put on departures from the Crowne Plaza as is the custom when there is a Day 12 positive result.
Ardern said while it was likely new community cases would continue to be found there was encouragement from the fact that the virus had "not been here for long".
There were 16,000 tests carried out in Auckland on Wednesday - the most since August of last year.
The online booking vaccination website had a record day on Wednesday, with 195,000 new bookings.
Ardern said a "phased re-opening" of vaccination had now begun.
This is the Ministry of Health's daily update:
There are 11 new cases of COVID-19 in the community to confirm. This brings the total number of community cases at this stage to 21. All cases are being transferred safely to an Auckland isolation facility, under strict infection prevention and control procedures, including the use of full PPE.
Twelve cases are confirmed as part of the Auckland cluster, a further eight are currently being investigated and are as yet unlinked. One of the cases is an international airline crew member already in the public arena and is unlikely to be linked to the current community outbreak.
Public health officials are conducting interviews to establish how these new cases were infected and to determine further details of their movements. We will release this information as it becomes available.
Two of the community cases were taken to North Shore Hospital overnight on Wednesday, both are in a stable condition.
These new community cases are not unexpected and these numbers are expected to grow because of the large number of locations of interest, and the large numbers of people who were at these exposure events.
New cases identified at the border
Arrival date From Via Positive test day/reason Managed isolation/quarantine location *5 August Australia Direct Day 12/routine Auckland 5 August Belgium UAE Day 12/routine Auckland *5 August Australia Direct Day 12/routine Auckland *5 August Australia Direct Day 12/routine Auckland 11 August UAE Direct Day 6/routine Auckland 17 August Tanzania UAE Day 0/routine Auckland *These cases are in a travel bubble together.
There are two historical cases to report today. One person who arrived on 13 August from Serbia and Montenegro via United Arab Emirates was confirmed during a routine day zero test. The second arrived on 12 August from South Africa via United Arab Emirates was confirmed during a day three routine test. Both are currently in a quarantine facility in Christchurch.
Whole Genome Sequencing
Whole genome sequencing of the community cases that have been sequenced are a close match to a recent returnee from Sydney who arrived on a managed red zone flight on August 7, was tested and returned a positive result on the 9 August. They were transferred from the Crowne Plaza to the Jet Park that same day.
This person subsequently became unwell and was moved to Middlemore Hospital on the 16 August.
This information provides a strong lead in identifying how this outbreak may have started.
We still expect case numbers to increase before they taper. So we need to be prepared for that. But today we have uncovered a likely source, and that means our ability to circle the virus, lock it down and stamp it out has greatly improved.
Contact tracing
Public health staff across New Zealand are now engaged in contact tracing work in Auckland and the Coromandel.
Auckland Regional Public Health Service, alongside the Ministry’s National Investigation and Tracing Centre and all of the country’s public health units, are working hard to investigate community cases, identify their contacts, tracing those contacts, and ensuring they’re in isolation and tested.
Isolation, when in alert level 4, means isolating themselves from other household members.
As of this morning, more than 360 individual contacts have been identified. This number excludes contacts from large settings, such as Avondale College and the Central Auckland Church of Christ, which are still being assessed. The total number is expected to increase significantly this afternoon as more contacts are identified, tests taken, and test results received.
Details of additional locations of interest identified have been added to the Ministry’s website this morning. This will be update progressively as further locations of interest are identified.
The Ministry’s website will also include advice on what to do if you were at any of these locations at the time when you could potentially have been exposed. Text message alerts are being sent to people who scanned in using the COVID-19 Tracer App at locations during the relevant times.
If you were at a location of interest, please self-isolate and call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 for advice on testing.
Crowne Plaza
A bubble of three people in the Crowne Plaza MIQ facility tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday. It was day 12 of their stay in MIQ. These returnees were in a room adjacent to the positive case from NSW under investigation as the index case in the current Auckland community cluster for period that he was at the Crowne Plaza.
As a precautionary measure, a hold on some departures at the MIQ Crown Plaza hotel in Auckland was put in place last night.
Returnees on the same floor who were scheduled to leave, are required to stay while Auckland public health officials investigate this matter, including reviewing CCTV footage and running whole genome sequencing on samples from the three new cases.
We appreciate this will be disruptive for those asked to stay and we will support them as much as possible.
Wastewater
We have now received the results of wastewater collected on Monday and Tuesday.
Sampling collected on 16 August returned positive results for wastewater from three Auckland sites: Rosedale WWTP (Auckland North Shore), Western and Eastern Interceptors. Sampling from 17 August at the St George site in Auckland, which is a subcatchment of the Western Interceptor which collects wastewater from the Waitakere area was also positive.
This follows negative results from the Auckland sites from a sample taken on 11 August.
We are expecting further results late today from some samples taken around the Auckland region with additional results expected tomorrow from other Auckland sites, as well as the results of samples taken from several locations in the Coromandel and Thames district.
Wastewater testing at the new sites announced on Monday (Whangarei, Gisborne, Tauranga, Mt Maunganui, Taupo, New Plymouth, Napier, Palmerston North, Nelson, Dunedin and Invercargill) will increase from once a week to twice a week.
Sampling undertaken on Monday and Tuesday at Mt Maunganui, Tauranga, Hamilton, Rotorua, Gisborne, Taupo, New Plymouth, Napier, Porirua, Hutt Valley, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch, Queenstown and Invercargill have all come back negative.
Testing
Our advice remains the same - please get tested if you have visited a location of interest or have cold and flu symptoms.
Yesterday testing centres in Auckland had their busiest day since August last year. Almost 16,000 community tests were performed across Auckland yesterday, with more than 6,000 at community testing centres and around 10,000 at general practice and urgent care clinics.
There are 10 community testing centres available for testing across Auckland today including four new pop-up community testing centres yesterday at Narrow Neck, St Lukes, Wairau Valley and Albany.
All community testing centres in Auckland are continuing to operate extended hours and will remain open until 8pm today.
Another pop-up testing centre will open in Lloyd Elsmore Park in Pakuranga this afternoon, once confirmed these details will be available on the Auckland Regional Public Health website.
For up-to-date information on testing locations in Auckland, visit www.arphs.health.nz/
covid19test . For information on testing locations in Coromandel visit https://www.waikatodhb.health.nz/your-health/covid-19-in- . For up-to-date info on all testing locations, visit www.healthpoint.co.nz/covid-waikato/cbac/ 19/ The total number of COVID-19 tests processed by laboratories to date is 2,584,336.
Yesterday, 12,885 tests were processed across New Zealand.
The seven-day rolling average is 5,966.
Section 70
A Section 70 has been issued for household contacts of a person who has been at a NZ location of interest. This is for the purpose of preventing further outbreak or spread of COVID-19, which is considered to be a significant risk to the public.
The direction applies to any person who is a household contact of a person who has attended the locations of interest at the times and dates as set out in Schedule 1 or who has been classified as a contact.
These people are required to isolate or quarantine at their usual place of residence (which for visitors, includes accommodation), except as required to report and submit for testing, until the person who has been at a location of interest has received a negative day five test or until after an earlier negative test if contact between the two people has ceased.
There is a separate Section 70 notice that applies to household contacts of those who have been at locations of interest. They are required to isolate until the household member has returned a negative day-five test result.
It is very important that essential workers regularly check the locations of interest so they can isolate immediately if they have been at any of these locations at the relevant time(s).
Failure or refusal to comply with this direction is an offence under s 72 of the Health Act 1956.
Vaccination update
More than 2.61 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to date (to 11.59pm on 18 August). Of these, 1.65 million are first doses and 954,000 are second doses.
Nearly 144,000 Mâori have received their first vaccination. Of these, nearly 88,000 have also had their second vaccinations.
More than 96,000 doses have been administered to Pacific peoples. Of these, around 60,000 have also received their second doses.
NZ COVID Tracer
NZ COVID Tracer now has 2,948,521 registered users.
Poster scans have reached 325,835,903 and users have created 13,242,050 manual diary entries.
There have been 758,658 scans in the 24 hours to midday yesterday.
162 Comments
That's probably not a meaningful statistic, given the prevalence of vaccination and also previous infections imparting resistance to delta, as well as generally improved treatments and understanding of the disease now - I don't think intubation is the standard treatment, but that's what they started with when it all kicked off in Feb-March last year.
We know that delta develops into a serious illness much more quickly than OG COVID and other strains did, and since it spreads more widely in a population that can put more stress on hospitals, resulting in more deaths from rationing treatment.
So yes, if delta is kept under control, the IFR is likely to be lower simply because of all the other factors. But if it gets out of control, it's likely to be worse.
Interesting, anything that you already agree with is considered. Why would you trust Lanthanides opinion? He may well be correct, but he doesn't actually offer any data right. It's just what he thinks.
I actually do think about those less fortunate then myself.
Like the poor who aren't sitting behind their keyboards virtue signalling like you.
Or the children who we force to stay home, although they are at almost no risk from covid, they have been shown not to be good vectors for spread (repeatedly) and even their teachers are at slightly less risk than other professions.
But why worry about actual science mate? You clearly have "the science".
Don't get wound up by that guy. He popped up early 2020 to furiously defend the establishment narrative. He specialises in Ad hominem, logical fallacies, and virtue signaling. He's also immune to logic, and wont read or consider anything you post if it's misaligned with the government story. I think he might be paid.
Actually my account on interest.co.nz is 4 years and 2 days old.
He's also immune to logic
Precisely the opposite actually.
and wont read or consider anything you post if it's misaligned with the government story
I read plenty of things which upon consideration I disagree with. I also often disagree with the present government.
I think he might be paid.
Ahh yes, the typical "must be a paid shill because no one could possibly have a logical basis to believe something other than what I believe". I've said it before, but probably at least 999 out of 1000 times this accusation is made, it's desperate bullshit.
I am only paid by my private employer and work in the IT industry. I am not, nor ever have been, a member of any political party. I did donate $400 to a political party once over a decade ago, but that's as far as my formal involvement extends.
Definitely not you Lathanide.
I have sparred with you before. Although, certainly as far as covid goes, I strongly disagree with you I have seen you provide plenty of links to actual data to support what you are saying and suspect you are not just offering your opinion dressed as fact. At least no more or less than me.
Definitely the other guy.
The health minister in Norway said the pandemic is over (In Norway) because they have so few hospitalisations. Their estimate of the IFR was 0.05% from May to July which is half that of the seasonal flu. (of course that will change in winter)
https://www.europereloaded.com/covid-is-over-in-norway-declares-nationa…
None of this is surprising when you look at the very low excess death rate across the whole of Europe https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps
In a recent paper in the science journal researchers determined that people who get over covid naturally develop "Ultrapotent antibodies" that defeat all variants of concern. You dont get that from vaccination. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6556/eabh1766
A lot of people have natural immunity to covid anyway, and that's been know for some time now.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z
food for thought huh
I disagree.
I think it's very meaningful.
I take IFR for OG covid as 0.15%
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33768536/
I expect your position would be that is too low so lets take the WHO figure (also given by Ioannidis) of 0.26%
https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf
Delta is estimated to have a mortality rate of around 0.1%
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uplo…
So if we take the 0.26% mortality rate, then Delta is some 2.6 times less virulent. This is unsurprising as viruses overwhelmingly tend towards less virulence. Dead and very sick people are not good viral vectors.
The delta variant is supposedly around 60% more infectious. But even with that the lowered virulence means it will be considerably less harmful.
In the end, the mortality figure is the figure. What makes it relatively lower or not does not make the figure itself meaningful.
The virus has been reduced to seasonal flu, on current evidence not that it was much above it anyway. 10 year average IFR for flu in the US is 0.13%. 0.26% is certainly higher but it seems that we should at least debate things like lockdowns given that the virus has clearly never been particularly dangerous outside a very clearly defined risk group.
And of course given the fact that the efficacy of lockdowns has always been debatable:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33400268/
https://www.nber.org/papers/w28930
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.28.20248936v1
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)3020…
The reason it's more infectious AND more likely to quickly cause disease is the higher concentration of virus per droplet of spittle. A greater workload for the immune system to have to react to compared to previous strains. You are right that current treatments and vaccination rates have greatly mediated the fatality rate.
May I ask for a source source for this data?
And surely spittle is not really important as the virus is airborne? I mean when the fear mongerers tell their freaky stories about it jumping across hallways when doors are open a few seconds.....if it's true, it's not spittle doing that.
As far as I am aware it is more infectious due to alterations in it's phenotype which is mediated by changes in it's genotype. That's how they sequence the strains, differences in genetic material.
I don't know how they would know there is more virus per saliva drop. You would need to measure a lot of saliva drops across a wide range of test subjects, and compare them between the two strains. And probably at the same time to eliminate other possibilities. This would be difficult as there does not seem to be much OG virus left.
Perhaps this sort of experiment has been done, if so I would love to read about it if you have a link?
As far as I am aware, infectivity measures seem to come largely from Public Health England technical reports, which effectively measure the change in the relative levels of the dominant virus over time and imply infectivity from that. At least initially they did this by a very questionable technique of looking at failed subsets of PCR tests and implying all those failed subsets were Delta. Or Kent, whatever they call Kent now.
They were never actually testing for those strains. That has probably been addressed now.
It's why I have less faith in the infectivity data. It is very difficult to measure infectivity as it is a more relative measure. Either you are dead, or hospitalised, or you are not. Those are effectively binary.
Are you post, pre or asymptomatic? Even with testing this is harder to ascertain.
It also seems reasonable that the vaccine, because it is non sterilising, and reduces symptoms will actually vastly increase the amount of asymptomatic carriers. That is not necessarily a bad thing as asymptomatic transmission seems very low and the vaccines certainly are useful for reducing death and hospitalisation.
Viral loads look to be the similar in vaccinated and non vaccinated:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/jabbed-adults-infected-wi…
And we can see in Israel and the UK that the virus still flairs up even with large levels of vaccination and large levels of immunity from previous infection.
So it appears we may be more hiding the virus (or at least the symptoms) rather than eliminating it.
Which brings us back to our pointless elimination plan.
Honestly, I didn't need an analysis to tell me this was from Sydney. Let's be real, the NZ government allowed certain people to travel to and from Australia. You set different rules for different sets of people - allowing the rich NZ citizens/residents to have the LUXURY to travel to Australia for holidays when Delta was rampant and that the risks of COVID was still high globally. But those who are not citizens/residents are forced to stay inside NZ. They were left fighting for the economy, trying to make ends meet, with their families separated across different countries.
Because of this poor decision for setting different rules for different sets of people, you now caused those who were less fortunate to suffer even more because the rich NZ folks just couldn't sit idle in their homes and just NEEDED to go have "a bit of fun" across the ditch.
NZ Government, Jacinda, you caused this. Every death that happens from now on will be on your conscience. Every business every unfortunate person who goes bankrupt will be on your conscience. All this just because you gave preferential treatment to your friends. The wealth gap just got wider even though you say you are fighting to keep it narrow. Total BS.
Thanks. Job well done. Sleep well.
"All this just because you gave preferential treatment to your friends." Steady on they were dammed if they do, dammed if they don't. You can not please every Kiwi every day. Saying that the lock down from OZi should was to slow - those went there new the risks...why the delay?
There are plenty of rich NZ citizens/residents who didn't go to Australia. Plenty of poor citizens/residents who didn't go, also. And some poor citizens/residents who went over as well, I'm sure.
Also most trips were to see family, not for pure tourism as you're implying.
Great, so why not offer it to the rest of the folks living in NZ? Why only apply these sets of rules for certain people?
I'm sure many of us would love to see our families again as well. Oh wait, most of us can't even leave otherwise we can't come back in.
Always nice to be on the cozy side of the room. Feels a bit different when you are in other people's shoes.
The thing is, if border controls were managed effectively & vaccination rates were higher through efficient roll out - we wouldn't have a self imposed lockdown. You know, that would be world leading. We're just like everyone else now, we're losing our advantage in the dumbest way possible.
May have missed it but does anybody know if the now identified first up case from Sydney was vaccinated? Also ditto for the two now hospitalised? If they were then it has a bit of serious bearing on both transmission and infection aggression? Predict level 4 remains right thru this weekend at the least.
So all those impatient selfish from team of 5 million want to go to Australia as soon as borders open a bit and they catch covid and then want to come back quickly. I pray to give sense to these people.
If any more die to this outbreak, their death is on the hands of all those who just want to travel for no good reason. There is no good reason to travel unless it's to save a life.
Brock
You come onto this site each day ad nauseam commenting about issues for FHB and seeking sympathy. Yet your comment indicates that you can't give a sh*t about others . . . . clearly extremely self-centred.
If you think that this is just limited to older people then front up to your parents and grand parents that you can't give a sh*t and that you don't care about them.
You have commented a number of times that this country is toxic and for considerable time that you are leaving. That leaving can't come soon enough . . . . unfortunately you seem to be one to can't get yourself together either buying a house like the 60,000 others each year or getting around to buy that one way ticket.
Maybe we should be taking the line that housing affordability isn't that bad for the vast majority of people . . only those who are self-centred and self-entitled.
I can't comment about his housing comments but his covid comments appear much closer to the truth than what is potrayed in the media.
This virus overwhelmingly kills the elderly and already sick.
The average age of death for covid in the UK is older then the average all age death. That is even though a covid death in UK is a death of anything within 28 days of getting a positive covid test and the recent finding that over half of "covid hospitalisations" only tested positive for covid after entry (a little reporting trick that the NHS has maintained throughout the pandemic).
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/26/exclusive-half-covid-hospit…
Deaths and hospitalisations have likely all been heavily over reported.
Panicked people, using pseudo science to make the pandemic fit their "end of days" narrative.
And then everyone lining up to virtue signal they care, while young adults, children and the poor are completely hammered in terms of job losses and educational disadvantage.
All so middle class people can flap around with their pointless masks and have a little work from home holiday, while their house prices explode in value and interest rates are kept low.
Explain to me how any of that helps a struggling family in South Auckland?
Then why isn't this rule applied to all people? Why is it that only NZ citizens and residents are allowed to see their families after 12 months? How about those who work their butts off to keep this economy going and dont even have a house that they own? How about their families.
Childish comment. Now I understand why people say NZ education is going down the drain.
Christ calm down.
It's great how all the virtue signallers want to come on here judging a bunch of people they don't know, for making decisions they have no knowledge about and then say they have "deaths on their hands".
What an utterly stupid thing to say.
If anyone has blood on their hands it's the Chinese and their dodgy gain of function lab. Or Fauci and his mates who funded the research through the back door after it was banned in the US.
Everyday people, doing what every day people do are not the enemy here.
Maybe you should ease up on all the governments fear messaging.
You may remember our government was most reluctant to create the bubble. But Scott Morrison gave our PM a bit of an elbow jolt, “we are not the ones stopping it” or something like that and in truth that was somewhat unfair because Australia had been pretty damn flaky with their own controls & outcomes. Anyway the PM said things like they will get stranded and then what but the government buckled and here it is now, all the fears on the brink of having come to roost.
not defending the govt here at all. just expressing a set of recorded circumstances. in my view the reluctance emanated from a lack of confidence, justified by ongoing misadventures, in the Moh at both MIQ and hospital level to cope and the undeniable knowledge, well except the goverment certainly denied it, that the percentage of NZrs sufficiently vaccinated was woefully short in numbers to slow both transmissions and infections in the wider community. Probably inviting a human rights infringement notice here but it may have worked quite a bit better if NZrs travelling were put on the basis of no jab no flight.
So who are you following dago? What are you basing your knowledge and opinions on? Because everyone has to at some point, unless they are the most amazing genius the universe has never seen, or god is real. Which makes you a follower too. And I'm picking it's not in the realm of science, medicine or fact.
I just don't understand why would we keep the trans tasman bubble open when we haven't got even get half of the population vaccinated. I wouldn't be surprised at all. Dumbest idea ever! Now you delayed OCR hike, job well done. But good luck with what's coming in future.
Government have what they need now to keep this lockdown going for weeks and to use it to boost vaccine uptake. I'm sure it will happen too as the only word you see thrown around is..Delta..Delta..
Only time will tell if they'll follow NSW and keep reporting the most meaningless stats.
Yes, they announced that last week as well. The default period is now 6 weeks, but you can go down to 3 if you have a reason for it (critical worker or co-morbidities being the main ones).
Gaps of 8-12 weeks seem to be no less effective than 3 weeks, and there's some inconclusive data that the longer gap may be more effective, particularly for the elderly.
The question will be on how the government manage eventual boosters and if they let the existing vaccines lapse before rolling them out. It's already been proven the original vaccine effectiveness is basically 0 after approx 6 months so expect more to get sick if the government keeps on their steady track
The question will be on how the government manage eventual boosters and if they let the existing vaccines lapse before rolling them out. It's already been proven the original vaccine effectiveness is basically 0 after approx 6 months so expect more to get sick if the government keeps on their steady track
i was never happy with a bubble with NSW or VIC, those two places have inept leadership and let it get out of control time after time. the rest QLD WA SA TAS are all on the same page as NZ so they were fine.
so when our government said we were going to run a state by state system i thought they might put more protocols around those two states. and as for rushing people home when NSW let it go that should never have happened they should have had to go to another state for 14 day first and a clear test same as we do for high risk countries.
hopefully this time they will learn that IF we do bubble again, do not allow those two states for now
What a surprise. Some partisan commenters rushing in to blame the government for what they did and didn’t do, without any real evidence or sound argument. Perhaps they were responding to pressure from business interests to “open up”, and this could be the result. Now we have some businesses clearly flouting lockdown rules by trying to open their businesses and/or illegally pressuring staff to come in to work. Some people need to take a good hard look at themselves about pursuing their own selfish interests at the expense of community interests. Time to grow up.
Decisions to lock down are not costless (they are in fact very costly) and if all the vulnerable people have had a chance to be vaccinated, which I understand they have, then this approach is starting to lose its rationale. We're not going to be able to eliminate a coronavirus and we're all going to get it, probably numerous times. All that matters now is avoiding hospitalisations, which is what the vaccination of the elderly and those with co-morbitities (as group 3) was supposed to achieve.
interestingly, if i read this correctly it looks like at least 2 weeks off work(lockdown) is already built in -
Payment rates
The Wage Subsidy August 2021 will cover a two week period at the rate of:
$600 a week for each full-time employee retained (20 hours a week or more)
$359 a week for each part-time employee retained (less than 20 hours a week).
https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/covid-19/wage-subsidy/index.html
It seems the only thing we could have done better was a faster genome sequencing of the apparent source case from Crowne Plaza. Tested positive on 9th. But sequencing result was not available until today. Apparently positive tests are batched and processed weekly. Why cant they be done daily? Just in case there is another leak from MIQ. We can track down the origin faster. Even then we should have had the result by 16th. Same day as the first positive community case announced. Information is power. If you like power you should like information.
Rapid antigen testing on landing, before heading to MIQ. Results in 15 minutes. This IN ADDITION to the day 1/3/12 testing. Will likely catch 90% of cases getting through, costing 10K each to move to Jet Park with the additional work required to re-house from MIQ. Oh and give them all N95 masks, not those BS blue surgical masks, may as well wear nothing.
so we are going to blanket jab the young now (liability exempt) ?...
for whose benefit?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demograph…
UK has got adjusted to approx 100 deaths/day at their high vaccine rate
Which would be about 10/day in NZ at the same vacc rate and distribution of vaccine by age and vulnerability
However our vacc rate of both the vulnerable and in general is way lower, and our hospital system has no resilience to speak of.
So we could easily have at least 10, maybe 100 deaths/day due to Covid, and indirectly more due to collapse of the hospital system.
Not to mention the consequences of long covid in the survivors.
We wrongly tolerate a road toll of 1/day(a high rate compared to comparable countries).
I think I can help clarify here. The UK reports figure based on the population aged 18+ whereas many other sources, Google analytics included, are using a measure based on total population.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Good statistics though, you can see that deaths are very low. More people have probably died of smoking or obesity related diseases than Covid-19 in the UK.
Maybe we're looking at the wrong diseases as the most pressing concerns to public health. Time to ban cigarettes and unhealthy fast food?
More people have died from the flu this year than Covid. Perspective is everything.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/22/flu-pneumonia-deaths-now-te…
I really want to know if wastewater testing is being conducted in Northland. We all know the aucklanders jumped in their cars to come up here after the lockdown was announced. Ashley Bloomfield didn't mention doing any testing in Whangarei or otherwise. Surely that would be a key decision making tool to deciding if we get to go down a level. Can someone please ask if WW testing is to be conducted in Northland if they are attending a daily news conference? I hope we haven't been forgotten again, or inadvertantly lumped with whatever Auckland's level is going to be, because that wouldn't necessarily be fair.
Surely there will be people travelling back north https://www.reddit.com/r/auckland/comments/p6ninm/recheck_the_covid_loc…
In other news, NZ is now vaccinating faster than the UK did at its peak, and approach the peak of the US vaccination rate, on a per capita basis: https://i.redd.it/2fupu8az18i71.png
Yes, that's precisely what I mean. Unfortunately it's now a narrative that has developed, that the government could have gotten vaccines sooner but simply chose not to.
Apparently despite running the best COVID response in the world, the government and MOH are full of idiots that simply decided to go slow on COVID vaccination for no reason.
"Front of the queue" is actually a phrase that doesn't mean anything. You can tell by the way it is not actually making a promise of receiving anything, just that we're lining up to receive something, but the reception of that thing is still up to the mercy of the organization that controls the thing.
great we wont be at the bottom of the OECD and over 100th in the world for long then! With all the advantages of not having covid we set ourselves targets that left us way behind even though we exceeded them! -- this is an MOH that turned down the offers of support from the NGO sector to provide nurses and vaccinators for free to assist the roll out - and is using less than 20% of PHO capacity - the places that have been vaccinating for years!
And just consider what a Universal Pricing Signal a lockdown is for building supplies.
'Sorry, mate, the horse got Covid, the wheelwright was on lockdown so could not fix the broken spokes, the blacksmith ditto for filing the lumberjack's crosscuts, but the good news is that there pack of timber is only 25% more.....'
Cartel? What cartel?
Because last year's lockdown, I will have no job from the end of this year after working 17 years at a factory here in Christchurch. Luckily I've been saving money for a while. Oh, wait... With government induced inflation and RBNZ incompetence, the value of by savings is dwindling instead of increasing.
I'm screwed then, aren't I?
This lockdown has clearly shown the government and the MoH have been sitting on their hands.
Testing stations should be 24/7 - why don't we have enough trained staff?
Vaccinations - there should have been plan B in place for lockdowns. Why are some still not open, despite the PM saying so? It's an utter shambles
Frankly, this is the lockdown that will take the shiny shiny off Ardern and Labour. People are not thanking Ardern or Bloomfield this time round like the previous lockdowns. Instead, many are wondering if they can believe a word they say. Case in point: Ardern says if you haven't heard otherwise please turn up to get your jab. You turn up, the place is closed.
And, how does Ardern just say to take your 12-15 year olds with you without booking? How are vaccination clinics able to supply such a demand without any additional stock?
Ardern's fish and chip shop experience is definitely showing up now in the real world.
Testing stations should be 24/7 - why don't we have enough trained staff?
Agreed, or at least much longer hours. If cars are queuing at 7am, why do they only officially open at 8:30am?
there should have been plan B in place for lockdowns.
There was and is. Government initially said vaccinations would be paused on Thursday, but on Wednesday that was reversed.
Why are some still not open, despite the PM saying so?
You know the PM isn't personally in charge of running everything, right?
Frankly, this is the lockdown that will take the shiny shiny off Ardern and Labour.
Doubtful.
And, how does Ardern just say to take your 12-15 year olds with you without booking? How are vaccination clinics able to supply such a demand without any additional stock?
Because they all now have plenty of stock on hand. This might mean they end up with only 3 days in the fridge instead of 5 days. It's still enough stock.
Ok, so now you only want her to talk about things she's directly, personally in control of. So the 1pm briefings are going to be quite short, then.
Do you also only want Ashley to talk about things he's directly, personally in control of? If so, then the 1pm briefings are going to be very short indeed.
Or do you want them to parade the organiser of every single vaccination centre up onto the podium so they can all give their own update about whether they are operating or not? Going to be lots of flights to Wellington, breaking level 4 lockdown provisions in that case.
Or perhaps you should get a grip and have realistic expectations about government communications. They're not setting out to deliberately deceive anyone, and if what they're saying turns out not to be correct in a minority of cases, you seem to think it's better for them to say nothing at all? Ridiculous and counterproductive.
read this. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-national-questions-f…
It is a case study in bureaucratic ftardary. Was it ever likely that Medsafe would not approve the pfizer vaccine? Then we should have just ordered it last year at the same time as everyone else. Put the doses in the freezer until Medsafe have had their day in the spotlight. While you are waiting. Make plans on how to vaccinate 50 k plus people a day. Then start doing it in February. Not August
Yes, I have seen that before. It's not proof of anything.
Where are the documents obtained under FOI that corroborate National's story that the order could have been placed in October but wasn't? Where is the evidence that if the orders were placed in October as National said they should have been, that we would have received any large shipments any sooner than what we did end up getting?
They seem to not exist, otherwise National would have published them.
This is what the article says.
In October, the Government signed an advanced purchase agreement for 1.5 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine, the jab that would later form the backbone of the vaccine rollout. As part of the deal, no vaccine would be shipped until Medsafe had given approval of the vaccine. For a medicine or vaccine to be imported into New Zealand, it must have Medsafe approval.When approval was imminent, the Government could raise a purchase order with Pfizer who would then deliver the vaccines.On January 29, days before Pfizer's jab was given provisional Medsafe approval, the Government made a purchase order for 56 trays of the vaccine
Is anyone disputing this from the government? Other countries gave Pfizer concrete purchase orders and payment before vaccines were approved. They were front of the queue. We did not and we were not.
We probably had to give Pfizer the later exclusivity for the role out to get them as fast as we have.
Other countries gave Pfizer concrete purchase orders and payment before vaccines were approved. They were front of the queue. We did not and we were not.
There is a material difference between other countries and us, namely that they had raging COVID and we did not.
There is no evidence that we could have received the vaccine any sooner than we did. Merely claims. There are two critical steps required in the process for vaccines to arrive in NZ:
1. For us to place an order,
2. For Pfizer to agree to the shipment.
It's reasonably clear that #1 could have been done sooner, and perhaps should have been. There's no evidence that #2 automatically follows from #1.
What could the evidence be? Perhaps an email from Pfizer to the government saying "We've got a slot of 200k doses being produced in November that we could ship to you, we just need a signed purchase agreement first". National (or anyone else) has failed to produce evidence similar to this.
We probably had to give Pfizer the later exclusivity for the role out to get them as fast as we have.
Another claim without evidence.
Let's face it.
18 months into this pandemic, don't tell us you are short staffed or can't implement plan b quickly enough.
Don't parade around how hard you are working. Work smarter not harder.
You are too soft on people in authority. People are losing jobs and lives possibly over incompetence.
Policy has pretty little to do with delivery and implementation, which are well-criticized aspects of this government.
National has genius policies like borrowing for tax cuts after the worst natural disaster this country has seen and forcing Meridian to sell hydro dams to Genesis in a move that experts said was a backwards step for the industry with no redeeming benefit.
Doesn't matter who is in power. If the policy relies on a government department for delivery. Then good luck. If it requires two or more departments to work together to deliver. Then you are absolutely dreaming. You need policies where closing,restricting, not doing are the markers for success. Then you can at least seem competent.
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