By David Welch, Jemma Geoghegan, and Nigel French*
We knew the Delta variant would eventually arrive in Aotearoa, but real-time sequencing, which produces full genomes from positive cases in less than 12 hours, will ensure the lockdown is as short and effective as possible.
There are now a growing number of cases and we can expect more to be reported over the coming days. Genome sequencing of the first case, identified on Tuesday, did not show any direct matches to cases found in managed isolation facilities, but it is linked with the current Delta outbreak in New South Wales.
But the newer cases in the cluster are a close match to a returnee from Sydney who arrived on a managed flight on August 7, tested positive two days after arrival and was transferred to hospital on August 16.
The genomes and cases we have found so far cannot tell us how many cases there are, but modelling by Te Pūnaha Matatini, which takes into account the number of people with COVID-like symptoms getting tested, suggests the outbreak was already between 30 and 75 active cases by the time we discovered it. Whatever the number is, it is almost certainly still growing.
Because of its higher transmissibility, Delta has become the dominant strain in many parts of the world, including in Aotearoa. All cases found at our border over the past three months have been the Delta variant 170 full genomes found so far.
While this is the first community transmission of the Delta variant we’ve seen in Aotearoa, that is mainly because our border detection and management has been successful in keeping it at the border until now.
Lockdown measures along with tracking, tracing and isolation will dramatically reduce the opportunity for the virus to spread and hopefully bring the R number below 1 so that the number of new cases will eventually start dropping.
Updated: "If contact tracing and genome sequencing can identify when the virus first leaked into NZ... we’ll be in a better position to estimate how far down the chain of transmission these new cases are and how many additional community cases might be out there." -@RachelleBinny https://t.co/FUDb4XlTDa
— Science Media Centre NZ (@smcnz) August 18, 2021
As we find more cases that are not directly linked to each other, their genomes will give us some information about how large the outbreak might be. Essentially, the greater the diversity in the genomes we see, the older and larger the outbreak is likely to be.
If all the cases have identical genomes, it would mean the outbreak has not been around long enough to pick up mutations. But if there are several mutations that separate cases, it would mean there is probably a longer chain of transmission between the cases and a potentially large number of as yet undiscovered cases.
What makes Delta different
The Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) was first seen in India in late 2020 and is the most recent “variant of concern” to have been identified. Variants of concern are lineages that are either more transmissible, cause more serious disease or show greater ability to evade vaccines.
Delta is a variant of concern first and foremost because it transmits at a much higher rate than previous variants. Its basic reproduction number, R0, is estimated to be around 5 or 6. In an unvaccinated population with no other prevention measures, this means an infected person would likely infect five or six others, compared to about two or three for the variants that were dominant in 2020.
Like other variants of concern, Delta has a large number of mutations that distinguish it from other SARS-CoV-2 lineages. It is characterised by over 20 mutations, including nine on the spike protein which enables the virus to stick to and infect cells. Essentially, these changes make the virus more sticky and more successful at infecting cells and replicating.
This results in much higher “viral loads” (the overall number of viral copies an infected person has) and people becoming infectious and symptomatic more quickly. Combined, this results in faster transmission and larger outbreaks.
Superspreading events
We know that SARS-CoV-2 transmission depends on superspreading events — when a small number of cases (perhaps 10-20%) are responsible for most (80%) of the transmission.
We saw this in Aotearoa’s first wave in 2020, which was dominated by a few large clusters. It was also evident in various lucky breaks we have had since then, when cases in the community have not transmitted the virus to household contacts.
Delta is different in that fewer Delta cases have no onward transmission but it seems likely this is just a function of the overall higher transmissibility, rather than a change in super-spreading behaviour.
Breakthrough infections
The other reason Delta is of concern is because it is more able to infect vaccinated people. Such breakthrough infections remain rare, and vaccines are still very effective at preventing serious disease.
But people with breakthrough infections can pass the virus on to others, albeit at a lower rate.
Vaccines therefore give us multiple lines of protection. They make us less likely to get infected, and even if we do, much less likely to get seriously sick and less likely to transmit the virus.
The speed at which the Delta variant spreads means we cannot vaccinate fast enough to change the course of the current outbreak. But if we eliminate this outbreak and rapidly roll out the vaccine in the next few months, future outbreaks will be easier to control.
David Welch, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland; Jemma Geoghegan, Senior Lecturer and Associate Scientist at ESR, and Nigel French, Professor of Food Safety and Veterinary Public Health, Massey University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
146 Comments
Covid testing of the general public out in the community is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. More billions of dollars wasted in another lockdown, another specialist MIQ facility that could have been built instead with the money. Just a constant stream of bad decisions made by this government. If they cannot get on top of this outbreak, they are well and truly finished.
More billions of dollars wasted in another lockdown, another specialist MIQ facility that could have been built instead with the money.
Ok, and when do you want them to have started building this specialist MIQ facility? You're only saying they should have done it now, with 20/20 hindsight of what has happened and foresight of what is likely to happen over the next 6 months.
Were you demanding they build one at the very start of this pandemic? Did you demand they build one when swine flu spread around the world? What about ebola? What about SARS and MERS?
It is likely that in 2-3 years COVID-19 will be endemic and similar in severity to seasonal flu - it won't be as deadly any more because everyone will have been vaccinated and/or built up natural resistance through past exposure. Then the MIQ facility will sit there, unused. The government had no way to know that that endemic point wouldn't have been reached now - in 4th quarter of last year, before delta started spreading, it looked like vaccines were going to be the silver bullet that contained delta very well with herd immunity, and that has not turned out to be the case. Should the government have started building the facility then anyway? And if it turned out we didn't need the facility after all, would you then be castigating the government for wasting money on unneeded infrastructure?
Nope I saw this coming weeks before we even closed the boarder and no the MIQ facility could be used to house homeless people instead of using up all the motels. How many more lockdowns are we going to tolerate ? How long can they realistically extend the current one ? Do you seriously think people are going to take a level 4 for months ? Not going to happen.
eight weeks is probably the minimum for Auckland - if you allow a full 14 days of no community cases at the end period -- certainly 6 at L4 and probably 4 at L3 is likely -- ps i run a healthcare company and most of us in the sector are thinking this way - and this timeframe is pretty dependent on us all complying with lockdown as well as previous occasions.
If we ere vaccinated - like we should be -- no lockdown or targeted local restrictions only would have been enough - the folly was the choice to go so slowly
Lanthanide - we've already had 1 month level 4 lock down in 2020, this is month 2 of level 4 lockdown...
With the amount of close contacts out there & the consistent blunders being made by MOH & Govt - it's a given Auckland will be in level 4 lockdown for atleast 4-8weeks more...
You are funny.
NZers cannot have it both ways. Either:
1/ the boarder is open between NZ and AU, and we have COVID-19 within NZ and we have deaths from that virus, or
2/ the border is firmly shut and there is strict requirements for anyone and everyone entering NZ.
Pick one.
Carlos67,
"Nope I saw this coming weeks before we even closed the boarder". Yea right Nostradamus.
Where would this facility have been built? How long would it have taken to obtain planning permission? How big would it have been and built to precisely what specifications?
... we could've had enough Pfizer jabs to fully vaccinate the population between February & June .... but .... Ms Ardern felt that other countries had a greater need of it ... how magnanimous of her ... except , she was voted into power to care for Kiwis first & foremost ....
Derek Cheng's article says we could have placed an order with Pfizer earlier. That doesn't mean we would have received vaccines any sooner than we did.
Every other country in the world wanted vaccines. Practically every other country in the world have COVID raging, and we had 0 cases. There's no reason to believe that Pfizer would have prioritized our orders ahead of the orders from other countries, which is what the claim "we could have had doses sooner" is implicitly saying.
Those are hard questions that should be asked in parliament and the timetable and interaction of the order process revealed. It did not help that the Minister Hipkins specifically assured the public early on that NZ was in front of the queue. That promoted expectations and offered security that failed to be delivered. It didn’t enhance credibility much either when Minister Parker subsequently tossed that off as being the other one. Yes NZ was sitting on zero but this government on election night assured all of us that they were there for all of us, the electorate having entrusted them with an unprecedented mandate. The policy was to continue with border control certainly but that security was overturned firstly by Scott Morrison forcing the government’s hand to commence travel and then the arrival of delta. That simply proves that control of matters beyond you control are invariably short lived. But the bottom line is this, and this is the responsibility of this government fair and square, a whole lot of New Zealanders would be living and sleeping a whole lot easier, now that Delta is amongst us, if they had had the opportunity to be vaccinated by way of having some protection from it.Therefore this government has a duty to inform us exactly why delivery of a vaccine in sufficient quantities took so long. That should be easy, just let Pfizer release the relative data and why they couldn’t ship any earlier.
The Medsafe approval for the Pfizer vaccine took 4 months from when Pfizer made first approach in September to provisional approval in Early Feb. Who knows if that could have been done any faster. Considering that a huge number of countries were already vaccinating while we were deciding whether to approve or not. Seems a bit strange. But bureaucracy is strange. Until that Medsafe approval was imminent we could not order the vaccines because we could not legally import them without Medsafe approval. Possibly we then made Pfizer the exclusive use vaccine to increase the order size and advance our place in the queue. Maybe we should have also offered to pay more per dose like some other countries did. But if we were not actually ready to deliver the vaccinations at scale into peoples arms. Then early delivery would have been pointless anyway.At least we got the ultra cool freezers delivered in December.
. . in a nutshell , the citizens & businesses of New Aotea Zealand have to absorb the pain of this lockdown because Ardern & Hipkins were snoozing at the wheel ... blissfully in cruise control ... failing to see the urgency of rolling out the vaccination programme much quicker ...
There seems to be a single-minded obsession with vaccination lockdown and national quarantine. They’re bad tools that don’t work well and aren’t cost effective. There are other better tools in the toolbox
1. Zinc, Vitamin D, proper sleep, promotion of health through exercise and diet. Promotion of low BMI
2. Pharmaceutical interventions, ivermectin, fluvoxamine, proxalutamide (c19study.com)
3. Infection control protect the vulnerable at rest homes.
4. Herd immunity through natural infection. Young healthy people are not vulnerable to c19. So some students got C19 – who cares? They’ll be immune after they recover.
re. 4. A fairly balanced article, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58270098.
Here's the latest from the primary literature showing that natural infection gives you "ultrapotent antibodies" https://science.sciencemag.org/content/373/6556/eabh1766
Stanley Perlman is an expert in coronavirus immunology. He wrote in 2014 about the importance and longevity of T-cell immunity to SARS_Cov. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs12026-014-8534-z.pdf
The problem with the vaccine is that it only trains your immune system to recognize one thing, whereas natural immunity trains to recognize a more diverse set of viral proteins. This paper is really interesting. It shows that people living with covid patients are themselves developing T-cell immunity to proteins other than the spike protein on which the vaccine is based https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674%2820%2931008-4
Someone else really needs to take Pat to task on his anti vax covid denial rubbish. He's been promoting these alternative ways since day 1, with absolutely no evidence that these methods will ever work. No country has gone down this route, no one apart from the libertarian right is even remotely talking about ivermectin, which has thoroughly been discredited.
Pat would have all borders thrown open from day one.
And now that Pat has blown my deep cover as a government shill paid bot clearly I'm compromised. Not. But my algorithm prevents me from clicking on rabbit hole links and really continuing to waste a huge amount of time arguing with people who refuse to believe science, medicine, fact and instead follow conspiracy theories generally emanating from the right side of the spectrum that suit their individual lifestyles.
It's a pity this stuff propagates here so much.
You’re partially right. I’ve strenuously argued for open borders since day one. I’m a signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration. I think the guys at covid plan B should be nominated for New Zealander of the year. I’m a 100% vaccine advocate for people who possess covid risk factors, but not for healthy people who have little to no covid risk. As you can see from above I provide evidence to support my views. In contrast you’re making a lot of wrong, and unsubstantiated claims. On Ivermectin for example. India, Russia, China, and a bunch of third world countries have all rolled out Ivermectin to rapidly bring their covid outbreaks under control. India’s an interesting story (see here). In Japan there’s a lot of pressure from high up in the medical profession to adopt ivermectin immediately (see here).
Pat is a genius. The Pfizer vaccine is creating variants as it forces the virus to mutate. The good news is that like the flu, Covid is weakening; Delta has a lower IFR and has literally become a cold as it creates runny noses which secrete the virus. As Pat suggests the only way out is to use ivermectyn and rely on natural immunity.
It would be incredibly silly to make a statement "The Pfizer vaccine is creating variants as it forces the virus to mutate." Kind of like walking into a room with underwear on the head and pencils up the nose. Much like the statement that "Mars ascending forces the virus to mutate" or "5G forces the virus to mutate". Do you see where the problem lies or do you need the base education at school level about vaccines before a light goes on. It is really sad how this pandemic really shows how poorly the public was educated at school. At late stage secondary school STEM subjects are often dropped or not included at all, (especially at alternate education pathways) so a basic understanding of health subjects is usually taught much earlier. By any chance did you miss the health classes on viruses, diseases and vaccines? Some may have included bananas...
You are aware of the fact that young and healthy people are getting COVID-19 and dying right? Delta is far worse than what we saw last year. Have you heard of long Covid? There are long lasting effects for many even if they don’t die. Vaccination is the best available option right now. I’m sick of lockdowns as much as the next person (possibly more). There is one thing for sure. There are going to be less people anti vaccination after this. The vaccine rollout could have been faster here. We were slow off mark. We were not ‘front of the queue’. The other thing we could do is have a more isolated MIQ facility with less workers coming and going. Maybe staff staying on site and doing 1 month on, 1-2 weeks isolation and then a few weeks off. All paid and well paid. This could have prevented the recent outbreak. A dedicated facility could have been built if the government wanted to by now. China built new hospitals in 2 weeks. Surely we could have built something in a year.
... hey Dave : I'm not aware that the Delta variant has worse effects on victims than the other strains of Covid-19 .... but .... it is far far more easily spread ... a 5-6 transmissability factor has been ascribed to it ( 5-6 people infected from each carrier ) .... compared to 2-3 for the other strains ... and therein lies the problem : for an underprepared under vaccinated population as ours ( stone cold last in the OECD ) it will run rampantly , damned hard to stamp out ...
1. Provably does not stop infection, does not stop severity of infection, does not cure death or disablement.
2. Provably does not stop infection, does not stop severity of infection at outset does not cure death.
3. Provably does not stop infection, does not stop severity of infection, does not cure death or disablement. Seems you forget older people have high levels of contact with outside infection points, staff, family, etc. Even if they were in a prison unable to leave themselves there would be a significantly high risk of infection still. Staff are even more necessary, hospital visits as well and they often mix in different health roles around a community so a hospital infection can quickly spread to to residential facilities and the same staff are often used in viral cases in the DHBs as there are for residential care. Hence we cannot even stop noroviruses spreading to residential facilities from hospitals and back again.
4. Provably does not stop infection, does not stop severity of infection, does not cure death or disablement. Seems you do not even have the basic stats on disablement and death for young people, (already far worse than measles).
This process is but part of the challenge NZ now faces. Important as it is, what is more important is that the government provides the public with all the facts , and as they develop, in a timely and straightforward manner. We neither need nor want palaver and there must not be any political expediency brought into play to “soften the delivery” of “unfortunate” news if/when there is some. A government that runs policy counter to that, in times like these, is simply indulging in propaganda
Rapid genome sequencing is the key. That is why up until now all of the positive results from MIQ are batched and sequenced on a weekly basis. Because when we finally had that one case of Delta that we were told would put is in level 4 straight away. It was very important that we only had to wait 7 days from when the Crowne Plaza case tested positive to find out is was the likely index case.
Westie - did you not see the first paragraph of the article where the writers mentioned we are rapid genome sequencing - with results within 12 hours? Perhaps your info was accurate pre the delta outbreak. Sadly, there is lots of inaccurate / misleading information being propagated out there. While NZs approach is far from perfect, I’m so thankful to all our hardworking and tenacious health workers who have rapidly and massively scaled up contact tracing, testing and genome sequencing. I’m confident we will get on top of this outbreak as quickly as possible so we can enjoy the spring and summer with minimal disruption and loss of life.
I find it amusing that testing centres are so under staffed and ill prepared that the country leaders have to advise its citizenry to only show up when they have symptoms.
Countries or states pursuing the elimination strategy cannot do partial testing- it will fail.
I won't be surprise if the threshold will be crossed before January and there's no way to eliminate the virus spread like NSW.
I guess Tony Heller was right all along https://youtu.be/a4DQ12216l8
He was only stating what was completely obvious over a year ago.
Ad Hominem / guilt by association. http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl1311/fallacies.htm
Incidently, Heller is a scientist who designed microprocessor architecture. I have an open enough mind to listen to what he has to say. Doesnt mean I aggree with it all.
Some do their job, take their responsibilities seriously. Others don’t. For instance the lucky escape recently at the Port of Tauranga. The Maritime Service gave notice diligently that the vessel had been boarded in Queensland by a pilot that had subsequently tested positive. The MoH blithely ignored that information and let the stevedores go on board. Majority of them being unvaccinated. Small wonder then, on that sort of form of thinking, essential workers are considered non-essential for vaccination.
... during the course of this Covid pandemic , would you consider the prime minister of our land , and our director general of health to be "essential workers " ?
To date : neither has been vaccinated ... ... why not ? ... why wouldn't they lead by example and get jabbed at 1 p.m. on the Pulpit of Truth before the adoring eyes of the nation & its media.
Jacinda has had both -- Ashely was due his first this weekedn - stayed in line -- but i agree the DG of Health should have been at the head of the queue - i run a healthcare company - and although i am not client facing these days ( although with the number of my staff linked to colleges i may soon be again) i signed up lined up adn fronted to show my staff the way!
. . as far as I can tell , saliva testing is very accurate at showing who has the covid virus before they're symptomatic .... its exceedingly fast to process .... and best of all , not painful at all ... unlike the stinging pain from an invasive nasal swab ... imagine the essential frontline people who are repeatedly nasal swabbed ... theres a massive disincentive to be tested nasally ....
C'mon Jacinda .... let's be kind to them !
Yes, that would have been preferable. Both my kids have had a test. One of them had it twice. Both are reasonably anti having another one. The youngest was wearing a mask around the house and telling everyone to stay 2 metres away so he didn’t have to get another test. Anything that can be done to make testing less traumatic would be welcome. I have had that test a couple of times prior to Covid and it wasn’t something I’d do for fun
So one anecdotal your ok jack against the thousands waiting hours and hundreds being turned away from test sites without the chance of being tested while symptomatic or an essential worker or in close proximity to site of concern with symptoms. Your ok jack and that is all that matters while most of those with tens of concerning site interactions have yet to be able to get a single test and those with disabilities are denied access to tests at all.
Against the thousands waiting hours and hundreds being turned away from test sites without the chance of being tested while symptomatic or an essential worker or in close proximity to site of concern with symptoms. If they are denying people with disabilities access to tests at all and people are being turned away after 10hrs without a test they are significantly understaffed because a moron could tell them people need access to testing within an hour and denying them access is a real risk and problem. Most people would not be able to get time off work to be tested or indeed have 10+ hours free and the will to wait that long. If you make testing inaccessible most people will not bother to be tested so indeed we are relying on isolation & hope of people staying home 24/7 more than accurate testing and infection control measures. If they do not even have a moron to tell them that people need access to testing to be tested then yes they are completely understaffed. My family does not even have access to testing at all even while symptomatic and in sites of concern so why bother. Even if we fight to be allowed access to testing that fight would take months of legal wrangling through HDC and anti-discrimination laws. By that time the 30+ people we have to interact with on a weekly basis will have passed it to their families, 100s of other high risk clients, gone to the supermarket etc. This was brought up at the start of the Covid 19 as an issue. Is repeatedly raised to DHBs and MPs to no effect so why bother. Come what may either we die and an infection spreads across the 30+ people we interact with (many of which have not been able to get vaccinated even while in Group 2) or we don't. The only people who will care will be the families and the govt could not give a toss about them.
Pacifica - testing centres on north shore were being overwhelmed by large numbers of people requiring tests turning up, plus others turning up who were not required to be tested. Apparently north shore testing centres very quiet today, but over the bridge very busy.
CWBW - this is also inaccurate information. Where did you get this from? People have been advised to show up if they have visited a place of interest at the times indicated or if they have symptoms. People showing up who are outside the relevant categories are overloading the testing centres and making it more difficult to quickly test the people who really need to be tested. This was the message I got from the COVID press conference.
Something I've found interesting with Covid-19 is zoonotic events (i.e. jumping species.) I'd always read that these where very rare events but we've now confirmed that various domestic and farm species of animal are susceptible to infection. This is perhaps a better engineered virus than we initially gave the Chinese credit for because it likely facilitates transmission because in has both intra- and inter-species transmission paths allowing virus reservoirs.
No the Key thing is to vaccinate everyone to reduce the risks and poor outcomes from catching Covid - then it stops being a major issue as our health system will cope and very few people will die -- probably similar to normal flu deaths.
We did 56,000 vaccinations yesterday - as suddenly its important to the Government -- just think if we had done 50,000 a day for the last 100 days starting May for example -- Guess what - every single NZ over the age of 12 could have been fully vaccinated - This is the real failure and its has been obvious since last April when teh worldwide scramble to develop a vaccine began!
... yup .... suddenly it's important to the government ... that pesky little virus has upstaged Jacinda ... shown up her naivity and arrogance ... suddenly its " lets do this " ... which is what we ought to have been doing 6 months ago .... vaccinating , not "eliminating" ...
as suddenly its important to the Government
It's always been important to the government.
just think if we had done 50,000 a day for the last 100 days starting May for example
We didn't have enough doses to give 50,000 a day for the last 100 days starting May, which is why it didn't happen.
All claims that we could have had enough doses are simply unsubstantied claims without evidence.
In order to receive doses, two things have to happen:
1. We place an order with pfizer to receive vaccine
2. Pfizer supply it to us
#2 does not automatically follow from #1. Pfizer had demand from every country on the planet - with practically every other country having raging COVID and NZ having none. Therefore there's no evidence that placing orders any sooner than we did would have resulted in doses being delivered to us any sooner than they were. Merely claims without evidence that this is the case. Claims aren't evidence.
And also have in place ability to administer. No use vaccines arriving here if that can’t happen. Which raises another question when did that sort of planning actually get underway seriously. ie, locations, trained personnel, scheduling, recording. Extra management for that was not thought about at an early stage judging by those that know that were eventually recruited for the purpose.
... I was thinking about your comment regarding saliva testing : it doesn't require medically trained staff to take the samples .... leaving more qualified people to be at the vaccination booths ... saliva testing is an absolute no-brainer , isn't it ...
Which explains this government's 6 month delay in introducing it : No brains !
Keep in mind that the general populace goes from complete complacency in our long Covid free periods to complete panic when we get Covid cases. Thus there is a lot more motivation right now among people to go and get vaccinated. Hopefully we will thus see good numbers continuing over the next few weeks.
.. keep in mind that until a short few days ago the majority of the population were not eligible to enrol for vaccinations ... and even many priority people ( such as the 93 y.o. Gummy mummy ) hadn't been called up ! ... .... not the peoples fault that their elected leaders are asleep at the controls ...
Even worse many of the vaccination sites are inaccessible to those in Group 2 (and those in Group 3). The fact they designed the sites to be inaccessible from the outset does not make their Group 2 vaccination rate any better, because near 100% of those in those two groups need to be vaccinated to prevent tragic deaths in failures across border policy. Oh that's right NZders cannot sue for severe incompetence, safety and medical failure in NZ
Genome testing or no genome testing let's just face it, wether it's now, 6 months time or 12 months time, humans (the masses) just do not have what it takes to 'beat' COVID. Sooner or later they are just going to say "stuff it"and do what they want anyway.
I don't agree with it but thats what going to happen, you can already see it around the world. We will just have to accept the consequences.
.. a 20 y.o. guy in Christchurch phoned New Stalk ZB and claimed that he & 2 flatmates rocked up to a vaccination clinic near the 5 p.m. closing time & got jabbed on the spot ... so many " no shows " throughout the day ... an invalid elderly lady neighbour of theirs' still has not received her appointment ...
... it's a fricking randomised shambles !
It was Heather Simpson and Helen Clark that split up the preceding 4 authorities into 21 DHBs, on a divide and rule basis; (the Auckland one was getting too big for it's boots so she fired the elected Board and appointed her husband instead.)
Now it's Heather Simpson (and Clark?) reversing their changes.
Berejiklian = 825 cases in NSW today. She's mates with Sco Mo who has to be the worst PM in recent Australian history, maybe THE worst. Leading from the rear. "Light" regulation in a pandemic doesn't work fellas. Let's see where we are in a couple of weeks, then we can judge whose approach works best.
"An odd feature of the current stress is that it is those who typically like 'pure capitalism' who are loudest in their protests when it affects them, and most dismissive of the need to maintain some sort of social cohesion during these changes." From David Chaston's fascinating and informative article, a mere click away.
none -- a bit like all the extra money for Mental Health has only resulted in 5 more bed spaces - individual DHB's do have plans for creating containment wards just for Covid patients -- but there is no real plan around how to staff them - as these take many additional staff to run safely -- and already we are seeing the impact on staffing levels of parents of children at these major schools having to self isolate for 14 days -- If that continues we will be suspending all non emergency healthcare services by next weekend as we simply wont be able to staff them
... I'm old enough to have seen governments of various hues come & go ... mostly average in quality ...but there's two standouts : the appalling years of Muldoon ... and the current almost as appalling as Muldoon , Ardern government ...
OMG , Ardern's crew could'nt organise a booze up in a brewery ... there'd be a long winded working group set up , and all Iwi informed , RMA consulted , MPI & the local DHB put on alert ... and the Mongrel Mob given a grant ... ... all before a single pint was pulled...
I’m old enough to vaguely remember PM Holland calling on my father to discuss recruiting ex WW2 officers to strengthen the troops being marshalled against the wharfie strike and being required on ships to keep the coastal freight going. Blimey that wouldn’t happen today, but then again, they did have to be recruited for border work once the failings of MoH became too obvious to ignore.
. . my hope is that the adoration of Jacinda by most in our media slips away , as more people wake up to the fact that she & her government are largely worse than useless .... let's begin the accountability ... let's turn the spotlights clearly upon them & their actions ... there's a very good reason she shuns Hosking / Soper / duPlessie-Allen : they're not bull sh*tted easily , they hold her feet to the fire ...
The media have to be sharper across the board. Otherwise they are letting all of us down, badly. Case in point. Minister Hipkins when asked why saliva tests were not available for border staff etc resorted instinctively to lying “they don’t want them” yet the questioner failed completely to counter that. Still Andrea Vance is strong & incisive in a column on Stuff today. I can’t link it to here. Perhaps you can?
... sadly , I'm not up with the tech : but I have read her article ... the science is clear : vaccinate the population as fast as possible , use saliva swabs for testing .... you cannot eliminate covid permanently .... re-open your economy , the borders , learn to live with covid after vaccinating everyone ...
It's so obvious to most of us ... but , not so much to our PM & her ministers ...
Might be useful to some on here: how to spot covid disinformation https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/21-08-2021/siouxsie-wiles-toby-morris-…
I arrived back in NZ last week. Walked straight past a police officer at the airport with a poorly fitted simple blue mask on, inside the terminal. This was on instruction from airport staff. This same officer would have gone home that night to his family, after being in a closed room with 100 people straight off a high risk flight. While practise like this continues, we will continue to have leaks. Rapid test everyone in the jetway as they get off the flight, then hold them at the gate for 15 minutes. A 10$ test is surely cheaper than 1bil/week. That and N95/N99 masks and proper PPE for front line staff!
Hate to repeat myself, but you guys are once again missing the elephant in the room. This "supply" issue is down to Pfizer's refusal to grant licenses for others to manufacture the vaccine internationally. Comes down to $$ and little else. In years gone by there'd have been a concerted international effort to distribute the vaccine asap to everyone regardless of economic status. One of the most sickening aspects of this whole pandemic.
Pfizer can currently produce over 5 million doses a day. They paid for the vaccine development themselves. Their shareholders will not allow for that IP to be given away. The strategy is to build or acquire more plants to increase the production in house and retain the profit for themselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciVGAPuruoQ&t=976s I hope this is the clip from the CDC ;-/ take note from the headmistress' first few words about the vaccines. They have stopped working.
Whew yes its the right clip.
Boosters ordered for all Americans.
By the time we have got 60 to 70% jabbed, we will need to start again with boosters.
of course we will need boosters --- its a flu virus when all said and done and we need a different flu jab each year - which we get prior to teh winter flu season - Its never been in doubt - well not by health professionals that the vaccination process will be ongoing and at least annually. Hence why we should really be investing in the infrastructure to produce our own vaccine and to be able to export it - after all there are 7 billion customers out there annually !
Labour will be judged at the next election.
To me, COVID was "positive" for Labour in 2020. Not so now with the slow rollout of vaccinations. Supply was an issue but had we paid 10m or 20m more it wouldn't have been an issue. It's much cheaper than paying out the wage subsidy etc.
Let's see how the people judge it all in 2023.
And, as we follow the US, there will be a need for a third shot. It isn't over yet, let's see how fast Labour learns.
Who knows mate. We just have to trust in the science i guess.
What I don't get is why we are still pursuing elimination we have already fully vaccinated most of the over 60s & a good chunk of the over 50s. 95% of hospitalizations & deaths are in the over 50s. We gain almost nothing by elimination now. We should go for supression while for the next couple of months while vaccinating the over 50s then open back up.
Here we go...we back to where we were 1.5 years ago. Covid 19 ( Wuhan virus) is gonna stay for another few ( three to five years). Instead of Covid zero policy, we should live with Covid. Instead of lockdowns, we should be operating our businesses. We still not ready if we get 1000 cases a day. We should have at least vaccinated our whole population and built few temporary hospitals in all big cities. ( Auckland 1000 bed, Hamilton 200, Christchurch 500 etc.). This government ( and we as well) been lucky fighting with Covid but luck can't help us all time. This time it is biggest mess and I don't think we will come out easily. We, the current generation and future generations have to pay lots of price for this mess.
I actually think "Vaccine" is the wrong word. It is a pre-emptive medication that alliviates some symptoms.
1 jab or 1 jab + a booster in a year or so for 95% immunity is one thing. A jab, followed by another jab 2 months later, then another one 6 months later. When does it end?
Interestingly the J&J Vaccine seems to be testing a bit better. Single jab, 8 months immunity and counting. Higher resistence to Delta.
Its not a 1 off sterialising vaccine anyway like the measles or polio. It works like the flu vaccine in that a new varient requires a new vaccine.
I won't lie I have become somewhat apathetic to the whole thing. At this point the plan seams to be to open up in a way that makes it impossible for families to travel. However those with the luxury of time & money will find it relatively easier. I think Sweden got it right. We are just being stubborn.
... once again . . Ivermectin has no viral suppressant effect whatsoever .... it'll clear up your head lice & your stomach worms ... please see your doctor first ... its toxic in large doses ... best wishes ridding yourself of your skin bugs , scalp lice & gut worms ...
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.