Covid does not give a fuck about your plans

Written By: - Date published: 11:20 am, September 30th, 2021 - 31 comments
Categories: act, brand key, covid-19, david seymour, health, john key, Judith Collins, national, same old national, uncategorized - Tags:

This week has been a week of Covid plans.

On Sunday John Key (the Irish Catholic in me refuses to call anyone sir) came out with his reckons written on the back of an envelope possibly while he he was in a cafe thinking about ponytails.

His concern was clear.  He and his ilk could not travel overseas and return without hindrance and for him this was a really big deal

His proposals were basically splash some money around poor people to improve vaccination rates, stop young people from accessing places they want to go to until they are vaccinated, stop using fear unless they are young, and build up our health infrastructure, the same infrastructure that his Government ran into the ground.

Then on Tuesday Act jumped into the void and announced their own policy to guide Aotearoa to post Covid nirvana.  Instead of refusing to accept Covid deaths they thought we should have a few, that we should only isolate the old and the frail and those recently returning, that we should be ready to welcome everyone back by Christmas infected or not, that we should “[m]ove from chronic fear and uncertainty and get on a clear path to restoring freedom” one that will clearly involve multiple deaths and a compromised health system.

And yesterday National released its Covid opus.  Clearly the policy had been developed over an extended period of time.  How they must have hated it when John Key released his list of cafe reckons on Sunday.

There are two takeaway messages from the policy.  Firstly National concedes that the health system could not handle the resulting surge of new cases caused if its policies were enacted.

https://twitter.com/nealejones/status/1442996932197040138

Secondly National is happy to follow Scotty Morrison’s approach to the virus.

From National’s report:

The Doherty Institute in Australia has modelled a situation where Australia gets to 70% of the eligible population being vaccinated.

Doherty noted:

In an average year of influenza, we would roughly have 600 deaths and 200,000 cases in Australia. Any death is a tragedy, but our health system can cope with this. In the COVID-19 modelling, opening up at 70% vaccine coverage of the adult population with partial public health measures, we predict 385,983 symptomatic cases and 1,457 deaths over six months. With optimal public health measures (and no lockdowns), this can be significantly reduced to 2,737 infections and 13 deaths.

Note that Doherty predicts 13 deaths over six months for Australia under such a strategy.

New Zealand has already had 27 COVID-19 deaths while pursuing an elimination strategy, and Australia has five times New Zealand’s population.
In other words, we can expect fewer deaths once we have vaccinated 70% of our population and we can avoid nationwide lockdowns.

The use of Doherty Institute analysis is interesting as it has been the subject of criticism in the past as I noted in this earlier post.

From Paul Karp at the Guardian:

Ending lockdowns and other public health restrictions once 80% of the adult population is vaccinated could result in 25,000 deaths in total and 270,000 cases of long Covid, new modelling warns.

The work by researchers at three leading Australian universities predicts more than 10 times as many deaths as the Doherty Institute modelling that underpins the national four-phase roadmap. That plan was adopted by national cabinet in July but is subject to different interpretations by state and territory leaders.

The Doherty modelling looked at the number of deaths in the first 180 days of reopening at the 70% and 80% thresholds that lead to phase B and C – when lockdowns would be “less likely” and then “highly targeted”.

The latest research models total cumulative deaths over a longer time frame during phase D of the national plan – when no restrictions remain.

Dr Zoë Hyde, an epidemiologist and co-author from the University of Western Australia, warned the new modelling – which is yet to be peer-reviewed – showed it was “simply too dangerous to treat Covid-19 like the flu” and that Australia should reach higher vaccination rates before opening up.

Hyde and co-authors Prof Quentin Grafton of the Australian National University and Prof Tom Kompas of the University of Melbourne, both economists, called for a 90% vaccination rate among all Australians, including children, and a 95% rate for vulnerable populations, including elderly people and Indigenous Australians.

To back up all of the policy releases there has been this crescendo of voices from people stuck overseas and from business people distraught that their ability to conduct business had been affected by the Government’s desire to stop many of us from dying.  The fact that the economy is functioning really well does not matter.  Their individual frustrations are understandable but this is a tricky virus that cannot be taken lightly.

And in a big fuck you to all of the plans and reckons the daily infection rate yesterday surged to 45 new cases.  It may have been a blip, it may be as a result of loosening up of things under level three.  The next few days results are going to be eagerly received.

This is why all the planning and pontificating and demanding of dates when we will open up is so meaningless.  Handling this virus is a day to day exercise where you cannot delay or contemplate and you have to continuously adjust.  It is like playing whack a mole but with dire consequences if you lose.

Excuse the use of the F word in this post.  But some of the reckons and commentary are totally misguided and rather dangerous for large sections of the community.

31 comments on “Covid does not give a fuck about your plans ”

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  1. Reality 1
    30 September 2021 at 11:45 am

    Thanks Micky for some common sense. National demanding a definite date for loosening restrictions is idiotic with such a tricky virus, given how the situation can change overnight.

    And Judith Collins' bizarre comment comparing people still getting into cars and driving, with thousands getting sick and hundreds dying and the health system being overwhelmed, so what's the difference, is another of her desperate ideas.

  2. That_guy 2
    30 September 2021 at 11:54 am

    As with Covid, so with climate change. The laws of physics don't give a fuck about our proclamations and targets either. Mother nature marks for achievement, not effort.

  3. Ad 3
    30 September 2021 at 12:05 pm

    Onya Mickey.

    Needs to be a special MIQ just for haircuts.

  4. Patricia Bremner 4
    30 September 2021 at 12:14 pm

    Micky, you are correct. So many political idiots asking "Are we there yet?"

    Delayed gratification begins about age four. This is often a test leaving a lolly on the table with the promise of two if they wait 'till you return……… failure rate is quite high lol but they are four years old.

    What is it that Judith and the Nats don't get about the transmission of the delta virus and delaying opening to preserve those at risk lives? Are they truly four years old?

    I think we would rather wait…"one visit now or lots of visits later?".. Lots of visits later thanks!!!

  5. Tiger Mountain 5
    30 September 2021 at 12:17 pm

    Well put Micky. Jeez, that photo shows Bishflap and Shane Reti looking a bit on the ropes…

  6. Pataua4life 6
    30 September 2021 at 12:33 pm

    At least they have a plan.

    The current lot have been asleep at the wheel this whole covid outbreak and there only fallback is fear aka Doctor 7000 deaths.

  7. Andre 7
    30 September 2021 at 12:36 pm

    Conspicuously absent in all the various government and opposition pronouncements is anything even vaguely resembling a credible plan with actual details for how to get our vaccination rate up over the 90% being tossed around as what is needed to relax some restrictions. Vague mutterings about maybe a vaccine passport sometime in November or later doesn't count as a plan.

    The government actually has teeth. It has used those teeth to seriously curtail several of our Bill of Rights rights. It's time for the government to show it will use those teeth to give us our actual rights back.

  8. KJT 8
    30 September 2021 at 12:48 pm

    National and ACT, and their business supporters, remind me of children on a long trip. A chorus of "are we there yet" before we have even seen what the traffic is like on the Southern motorway.

    About time they fucking grow up!

  9. Tricledrown 9
    30 September 2021 at 1:09 pm

    National and ACT'S plan is to undermine compliance from the population. To make the govt's actions look like a waste of time.

    That's treasonous given our health system can't cope with Nationals policies.Which are purely motivated because of Nationals poor polling.

    • tc 9.1
      1 October 2021 at 8:54 am

      Yup aren't our media doing a bang up job for them.

      Look across the ditch and be thankful Collins and co are in opposition.

  10. roblogic 10
    30 September 2021 at 1:24 pm

    Nat/ACT policies will affect Maori and Pasifika the worst, as usual. All so FJK can go on holiday to Hawaii.

    Great piece by Chris Trotter about how this has become a disease of poverty, so that's why Nactoids DGAF:

    Bowalley Road: Blame Games.

  11. McFlock 11
    30 September 2021 at 2:32 pm

    It's funny.

    When folks bring up the flu as an excuse to go easy on covid, I start to think about what we actually accept simply because it was better than it was before, rather than what we should be doing to get it even better.

    So the tourism industry brings in billions each year. How many people are killed by it? Flu, rsv, environmental degradation…

    Maybe we should be limiting tourist numbers.

    • Tricledrown 11.1
      30 September 2021 at 2:53 pm

      McFlock the economy did just fine without tourism. Considering that NZers spend nearly as much travelling overseas as the income from tourism it wasn't surprising to see low unemployment and high GDP rates amongst the top in the world.

      Not many tourist's will want to travel internationally the risks will be to high.

  12. Adrian 12
    30 September 2021 at 3:02 pm

    Listening to Arden and Bloomfield today was an eye-opener on the complexities of testing, checking and containment. Every question was answered with a detailed description of exactly what was happening at any hint of the virus showing itself from numbers of people affected and checked to sewerage in Tauranga and teams arriving in Kaitaia for a “ just in case “ . But really impressive was Jacinda replying with dates from memory of when places were tested and the methodology. And I bet she knows that the new variant is not called Boo as Collins thought but Mu. BTW, it’s not a worry, apparently it is not fit enough to compete with Delta. Boo is the Greek first letter of “ boofhead “ , Judiths middle name.

    • Grafton Gully 12.1
      30 September 2021 at 6:59 pm

      That’s what preferential access to data, lifelong ambition, Seventh Day Adventist sermonising role models, tertiary level comms training, New York young socialists debating practice and a controlled media presence do for a person like Jacinda.

  13. barry 13
    30 September 2021 at 4:34 pm

    I note that Ireland has reached the top of Bloombers's resilience list (not "best place to be"). Ireland has a high vaccination rate and a relatively free economy and averaging about 30 covid deaths a week. Relative to where they were it looks and feels good, but hardly something that we should accept in NZ.

    Over the next months we are likely to see some of these free economies start to impose restrictions again. They will be reluctant, but their hospital systems will not cope if number start to increase into winter.

    NZ's plan is to be cautious because we have seen the virus throw spanners into the works everywhere else. The worst thing we can do is to throw open the borders (even to vaccinated people) and lose control.

    At the moment we have a sort of control of what is happening in Auckland. There are random subclusters popping up and spreading the outbreak at the same time that older subclusters are being shut down. Level 3 can still work to eliminate the virus, but it will drag on for a while.

    • Gezza 13.1
      30 September 2021 at 5:09 pm

      Yup. I’ve certainly come to conclusion that our government’s getting it absolutely right, when it comes to managing Covid-19.

      Not rushing to open up, & piloting home isolation, are sensible moves. Home isolation (people being what they are) is a risk, & trialling it to see what expectations can reasonably be placed on triallees, what monitoring of their compliance is practical, & what safeguards need to be built in to the system to cater for misbehavers are all worth studying first.

    • dv 13.2
      1 October 2021 at 9:07 am

      Ireland has a similar pop to NZ

      IRELAND
      Yesterday

      Total cases 388,665

      Total Deaths 5,249

      New Case 1,447

      New deaths 40

      NZ
      Yesterday

      Total cases 4,248

      Total Deaths 27

      New Case 44

      New deaths 0
      https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

      • dv 13.2.1
        1 October 2021 at 9:22 am

        AND I don't understand how ireland has gone to No1 on the bloomberg scale and NZ dropped to 37th.

      • chris T 13.2.2
        1 October 2021 at 9:29 am

        Sorry, but that is just a silly comparison.

        We don't have a ferry coming in from a country (England) of 56 million people in it all week, which the later has a tunnel connected to Europe.

  14. Drowsy M. Kram 14
    30 September 2021 at 5:39 pm

    Ardern, Bloomfield, Hipkins, Robertson, McElnay, Verrell et al. – my trust in their management of the pandemic, and in NZ health professionals, border/MIQ staff, ESR and team Kiwi in general, is based on NZ's Covid health outcomes achieved to date.

    I was and still am doubtful about the wisdom of cabinet's decision to move Auckland to Covid alert level Delta 3 on 22 Sept, but they must have been under tremendous political and public pressure to do so. Hopefully the price of KFC freedums won’t be higher than either our politicians (of all flavours) or the general public imagined.

    The childish impatience to return to 'normal' is so depressing – imho BAU represents a middle finger to all those trying to nudge civilisation onto a more sustainable path.

    WATCH: World will return to normal as Covid-19 will end in a year, says Pfizer chief [28 Sept 2021]

    As a result, Bourla suggested it is likely annual coronavirus vaccine shots will be needed, CNBC reported.

    "The most likely scenario for me is that, because the virus is spread all over the world, that it will continue seeing new variants that are coming out," Bourla said.

    "Also we will have vaccines that will last at least a year, and I think the most likely scenario is annual vaccination, but we don't know really, we need to wait and see the data," he noted.

    44.9% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
    6.2 billion doses have been administered globally, and 26.02 million are now administered each day.
    Only 2.3% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose.

    Covid-19 news: Long covid symptoms reported in over a third of cases [29 Sept 2021]
    The covid-19 pandemic has led to the biggest fall in life expectancy in western Europe since the second world war, researchers have found. The study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, included data from 29 countries, 22 of which saw a drop in life expectancy that was greater than half a year in 2020. The effects were larger for men than women in most countries. Men in the US saw the biggest fall, with 2.2 years taken off their life expectancy in 2020 compared with 2019.

  15. DukeEll 15
    30 September 2021 at 10:02 pm

    Tbf, seems like what could have been planned for wasn’t given a fuck about

  16. chris T 16
    1 October 2021 at 9:16 am

    Can't remember which poster mentioned it, but I think they were right that Key was brought back in the spotlight on behalf of businesses both big and small.

    Not the dumbest spokesman to use given the dudes popularity is obviously still there, given the media coverage of it.

    TBH Businesses are caving so you can't blame them for grasping at straws.

    Wage subsidies don't cover rent, insurance, ACC, mortgage, business loans blah de blah