Daily review 19/04/2021

2 comments on “Daily review 19/04/2021 ”

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1. greywarshark 1

   19 April 2021 at 8:49 pm

   Apartment owners tearing their hair out? Leaky buildings are bad, but the problem can be seen and taken further on that basis. Don't have a house – sit can be miserable. Have an apartment; you're not 'out of the woods', not even near them.

   …But with ‘earthquake-prone’ buildings, the‘proneness’ to collapse in an earthquake is identified through a theoretical, pre-emptive process. There is no damage to the buildings caused by an earthquake. If the buildings were damaged in earthquakes, insurers would pay. Instead, owners are forced to comply with changing legislative requirements that are retrospectively applied to compliant buildings.

   The financial assistance scheme available to a restricted group of owners is a loan, where the interest rate includes a margin as the borrowers are considered by the government, which imposed the cost, as high risk. The buildings are identified in a desk-based process run by a territorial authority that deems the building to be ‘potentially earthquake prone’. The owners have to engage and pay engineers to assess their buildings using a methodology the engineers had a major role in developing to determine if the building is, in their view, earthquake-prone. Then, if deemed to be ‘earthquake-prone’, the owners fund further engineering advice to develop strengthening solutions to strengthen the building. Along with funding a raft of other costs from a variety of professionals incurred during the course of such a project….

   http://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=135588 Living hell: the continuing nightmare of "earthquake-prone" apartments Apr.19/21

   Lindsay Shelton (not Mitchell)
2. KSaysHi 2

   20 April 2021 at 4:02 am

   So, the bubble so far…

   When I told them I was returning to New Zealand in a matter of hours they insisted I was a transit passenger and ushered me into a sectioned off area with other flight NZ101 passengers who were proper transit travellers, heading to places like San Francisco.

   As we were being escorted through the door with the "you are now entering a red zone" sign I tried to turn back, telling a Border Force staff member I was a green zone passenger and did not want to enter a red zone.

   I wasn’t prepared to run the risk of a) having to get a Covid test b) having to quarantine for two weeks on my return to New Zealand or c) catching Covid.

   The Border Force worker insisted I follow the other transitters and made it clear I didn’t have a choice in the matter.

   In what felt like a dodgy backdoor operation, we were whisked around a dimly lit corner, into a grimy lift and down to aviation security before being spat out into the international departures area, sans boarding pass for my return flight.

   I made the 10 minute walk through the departures terminal to the Air New Zealand lounge, co-mingling with other outbound travellers, including those en route to New Zealand.

   In the Koru lounge I overheard a guest telling someone over the phone they were concerned that arriving United Airlines flight crew were walking in a green zone area with outbound passengers.

   Here’s what Border Force said in response to all this:

   • No transit passengers who arrived from New Zealand on a quarantine-free flight on Monday entered a red zone at Sydney Airport
   • The setup of green and red zones vary at airports around Australia. In this instance, the red zone is a substantial distance along the transfer corridor from the lift in which passengers are escorted to the green departure area
   • International airline crew are escorted directly to their flight
   • The transit processes at each airport are established, reviewed and agreed to by clinical infection control and prevention staff.

   It is understood officials will review the transit area, and signage, to see whether any changes need to be made.

   How reassuring [sarc]. I had hoped that at a minimum the processes at the airports would have been rehearsed through as a courtesy, much like would be done with a new sex partner. Clearly the standards over there are quite different to our own and perhaps we would do well to shut it down now before we have community spread.

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