Oh Canada! – let us not follow you.

23 comments on “Oh Canada! – let us not follow you. ”

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1. Reality 1

   17 April 2021 at 5:12 pm

   Hosking and his ilk seem to have gone a bit quiet about opening the borders as they have surely seen the further outbreaks in Europe and now Canada. But I well remember them and dear Judith last year demanding the borders be opened. Thank goodness Jacinda was cautious and did not give way to their noise.
2. Treetop 2

   17 April 2021 at 5:40 pm

   The trans – Tasman bubble has not yet opened and already I am anticipating community spread in NZ which will require a level 3 or 4 lockdown. The best chance for NZ would have been vaccinating as many people in NZ as could be vaccinated with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine and then opening the trans – Tasman bubble. I estimated about October after the flu season.

   The P.1 B.1.167 strain with its double mutation in India is not under control. As bad as it is, how effective the vaccines are and how long they give protection for is still unknown?

   Any freedom gained living in a Covid world is dependent on vaccination, an effective treatment and a health system which can deliver health care.
   • Treetop 2.1

     17 April 2021 at 5:57 pm

     Could you remove P.1 as an error start of second paragraph.
   • In Vino 2.2

     17 April 2021 at 6:00 pm

     I fear we are overrating the effectiveness of vaccination. It seems that our Pfizer jab is now not very effective against the new variants – more infectious, and therefore more likely to be the one that breaks into our country via the bubble.

     In the famous words of George Dubya, we may have misunderestimated this tricky virus. (Tricky in the dictionary sense of 'difficult to solve.')

     Those who look forward to 'business as usual' Utopia need to be told that they are dreaming.

     I think Covid is going to keep us closed down for several years yet.
     • Rosemary McDonald 2.2.1

       18 April 2021 at 1:38 pm

       I fear we are overrating the effectiveness of vaccination.

       Me too. I also fear we have erred in placing all our hopes for 'normal' on the vaccines.

       Survivors will look back and wonder why it was that just about all options other than a Vaccine have been effectively dismissed , and any discussion of treatments or immune supportive programmes have been deemed "misinformation". "disinformation" and proponents labelled "anti-vaxxers" ….whether they are actually are or not.
       • Drowsy M. Kram 2.2.1.1

         18 April 2021 at 2:46 pm

         I also consider that any hope of returning to 'normal' is unrealistic, but an on-going global vaccination programme, similar to that used to reduce influenza-related symptoms and deaths, is already decreasing the number of excess COVID-19 deaths in some countries.

         According to the large study by Piroth et al. (second link below), COVID-19 is nearly three times more lethal than influenza, and some ‘long-COVID’ symptoms are nasty.

         Medical treatments for COVID-19 infections will improve (who knows, maybe vitamin D supplements, ivermectin and whatever pops up next are ‘te answer‘), and it's possible that at some time in the future COVID-19 in all its mutated forms will be no more lethal than influenza. Regardless, COVID-19 vaccination programmes to train human immune systems will be crucial to controlling this pandemic sooner rather than later.

         COVID-19 is not influenza
         A surprising finding of the study by Piroth and colleagues was that, among patients younger than 18 years, the rates of ICU admission were significantly higher for COVID-19 than influenza. The need for intensive care was highest in patients with COVID-19 who were younger than 5 years (14 [2·3%] of 613 for COVID-19 vs 65 [0·9%] of 6973 for influenza), but mortality in the COVID-19 group was not higher than for influenza. Mortality was ten-times higher in children aged 11–17 years with COVID-19 than in patients in the same age group with influenza (5 [1·1%] of 458 vs 1 [0·1%] of 804). These findings are supported by a study of 4784 children and adolescents with COVID-19 from Brazil and a study of children and adolescents from Spain. Clearly, COVID-19 is not an innocent infection in children and adolescents.

         Comparison of the characteristics, morbidity, and mortality of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza: a nationwide, population-based retrospective cohort study
         The presentation of patients with COVID-19 and seasonal influenza requiring hospitalisation differs considerably. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 is likely to have a higher potential for respiratory pathogenicity, leading to more respiratory complications and to higher mortality. In children, although the rate of hospitalisation for COVID-19 appears to be lower than for influenza, in-hospital mortality is higher; however, low patient numbers limit this finding. These findings highlight the importance of appropriate preventive measures for COVID-19, as well as the need for a specific vaccine and treatment.
       • Andre 2.2.1.2

         18 April 2021 at 3:31 pm

         There's been no shortage of people trialling other treatments for covid. The common pattern is a blaze of media publicity stoked by those that want to believe they have "the answer", applying motivated reasoning to over-hype weak results from poorly designed and conducted studies. Then more careful studies are conducted, and no benefits are found.

         Think hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, vitamin D, remdesivir – the list is long. Here's a piece that looks in more detail at the case of ivermectin:

         https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ivermectin-is-the-new-hydroxychloroquine/

         There have been a few successes in repurposing older cheap medicines to help covid patients. Dexamethasone is the standout, but there are others. Here's a summary of where things stand with some of the treatments (hardly a comprehensive list):

         https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/91680

         Bottom line is, there's been plenty of effort go into trying to find treatments, but there's not much publicity about those efforts, because by and large they don't fkn work. Dexamethasone excepted, but that's more about treating the immune system's over-reaction to the infection rather than treating the actual viral infection.

         Vaccines are getting the publicity now, because they actually do work. Astonishingly effectively, and astonishingly cheaply and astonishingly safely. Even at the extraordinarily high price of USD 20ish per dose for the Pfizer, that’s still a tiny fraction of the cost incurred by one covid infection.
   • Incognito 2.3

     17 April 2021 at 6:05 pm

     Incorrect. The P1 strain is the so-called Brazilian variant and is not the double mutant, which is B.1.167.
     • Treetop 2.3.1

       17 April 2021 at 7:02 pm

       Yes, that is why I wanted it removed.
       • Incognito 2.3.1.1

         17 April 2021 at 7:07 pm

         Didn’t see that in time, sorry.
3. RedBaronCV 3

   17 April 2021 at 6:34 pm

   Yeah for the sake of a few tourist operators and an industry that doesn't really add anything to GDP we are going to risk a decent out break. I'd be happy to pen the tourist's and the operators up in a few areas only
   • Graeme 3.1

     17 April 2021 at 8:41 pm

     The TT bubble isn't going to do very much for tourism, people don't want to travel unless it's for a real reason, like visiting family. Accomodation bookings into Queenstown haven't shown any increase due to the bubble, and airfares next week are the same as mid August. Aussies don't want to travel.

     The big winner out of the bubble is MIQ. Their workload has halved so they can deal with what's coming from outside the Australia / New Zealand bubble. Reality is that there is just as much chance of an outbreak originating in New Zealand as Australia.
4. DukeEll 4

   18 April 2021 at 8:39 am

   Plenty of countries are managing to vaccinate their people rapidly and effectively.

   israel and Great Britain are two examples.

   Or is this article pre apologising for the failure of the ministry of health by laying out some convenient excuses?
   • lprent 4.1

     18 April 2021 at 10:39 am

     Or is this article pre apologising for the failure of the ministry of health by laying out some convenient excuses?

     Are you an illiterate who can't read news? Or just a simpleton who writes whatever pops from your primary thinking organ? Or just stupid (I suspect the last based o n your attempted rewrite of the facts)

     Israel and the UK had a completely different imperative to NZ. Both had widespread outbreaks when they started their vaccination campaigns. The entire point about my post was that the worst time to run a vaccination campaign when there were high numbers of new cases.

     The Israelis started their vaccination campaign at the end of December. At the same time a outbreak was going exponential, mostly within their ultra orthodox community who seemed to have the perfect transmission vectors. The number of new cases peaked on Jan 17, and they didn’t quell the outbreak until March

     The UK started their vaccination campaign on December 8th. With the recognition of the emergence of the B1.1.7 variant in late November, they realised that they were already in the midst of an very serious outbreak. That outbreak peaked in January 10.

     In Jan, Oh UK! or Oh Israel! would have been appropriate.

     The point about my post was that doing a vaccination campaign during an outbreak was the worst time to do it, it disrupts planning to do good coverage and requires desperation measures to do it. In all probability there will be downstream consequences to doing it in a desperate fashion. I’d prefer that to not happen here.

     Perhaps you could read what I write and think about it before responding rather than inventing stupid false stories. You sound pretty damn desperate yourself.
5. Andre 5

   18 April 2021 at 3:09 pm

   So far in the US, the vaccines used appear to have an astonishingly high efficacy out in the field. By the numbers, over 75 million people have been fully vaccinated. Of those, there have been 5800 reported infections, ie instances where the vaccine was not fully effective in preventing illness. That's 0.007% of those that have been vaccinated have become ill in the weeks or months that have passed since getting their vaccine.

   By comparison, the daily new infection rate in the US is around 72,000 new cases per day (down from a peak of 251,000 per day in late January). That works out to 0.02% of the population getting infected every day.

   https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04/99-992-of-fully-vaccinated-people-have-dodged-covid-cdc-data-shows/

   Note that most vaccinations in the US are either the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines, like we're getting here in NZ. Just a smallish proportion in the US have received the J&J/Janssen modified adenovirus vaccine.
   • lprent 5.1

     18 April 2021 at 9:55 pm

     What I'd going to be interesting is to see the efficacy of vaccines against new variants, and eventually at diminishing the creation of new variants due to infected populations diminishing the frequency of recombination.
     • Treetop 5.1.1

       19 April 2021 at 9:12 am

       Go and look at the daily mail UK, nearly 10 million Britons… about the Indian variant which is going to test what you say. The variant is named B.1.617

       The vaccination programme appears to be fragmented due to a second dose slowing up the first dose, the availability of vaccines and the unknown efficacy with the number of strains in the UK.
       • Incognito 5.1.1.1

         19 April 2021 at 9:23 pm

         B.1.167
         • Treetop 5.1.1.1.1

           20 April 2021 at 9:00 am

           I have seen both codes in print and find it to be inconsistent.
           • Incognito 5.1.1.1.1.1

             20 April 2021 at 9:05 pm

             I stand corrected; my apologies.

             https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/124893670/covid19-variant-in-india-has-two-escape-mutations
             • Treetop …

               21 April 2021 at 9:22 am

               I tried to post a link but it did not work.

               The Standard NZ has standards and factual information is the standard. Thank you for initially correcting my P.1 error @2. Keep up the moderation when an error is made regardless of who makes it.
               • Incognito …

                 21 April 2021 at 10:16 pm

                 Ta

                 I prefer and respect it when people self-correct but it’s ok to correct others; we all make mistakes.
6. Bryan 6

   18 April 2021 at 5:38 pm

   The lurking potential catastrophe with COVID, as we see vividly in Canada is the swamping of the capacity of healthcare to cope with both COVID and the all of the other healthcare events. Elimination has given us a real opportunity to vaccinate and hugely decrease potential transmission and severe illness without having to manage ongoing and potentially exponential viral spread.

   I was thrilled to get my first dose of vaccine 11 days ago as our DHB vaccinates staff. With reportedly 90% of border staff moving through the course of vaccination and then the systematic and progressive rollout with group 4 due to get vaccinated from July we remain in a uniquely favourable position despite a diverse coterie of doom and gloom merchants..

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