You think there's a single definitive trigger point, or a single "lockdown" state?
There's not.
There are a range of circumstances where a range of greater restrictions might apply in a range of areas, from a small locality to nationwide. We are already facing many restrictions.
As the circumstances change we might face more restrictions, and as time progresses we might face fewer restrictions (e.g. good drug treatment becomes evident, or a vaccine, or maybe the disease profile changes because less debilitating strains become dominant).
All most of us can do is hold onto the seatbelt and watch the world roll past the windscreen, and hope the car safety specialists know what they're doing.
All most of us can do is hold onto the seatbelt and watch the world roll past the windscreen, and hope the car safety specialists know what they're doing.
we are pretty much fucked then.
The trigger will be when we double our cases of ill every four days as it happens pretty much elsewhere and our hospitals are overwhelmed and without safety equipment as they are int he States, England, France, Italy and when we have people dying.
So i would venture a guess pretty soon, a week maybe?
California just shut down. NY is gonna be a basket case, Africa is gearing up to be very interesting. And we took way to long to even acknowledge that this thing could come here and wreck havoc and now are simply in mitigation mode. Containment is not possible anymore.
Several people today telling me about their family members in lock down. Those that have sleep outs are somewhat ok, those that are locked up with potentially ill people now have a great chance of falling ill themselves.
So I don't know. It's not a time-elapsed thing, it's a milestone that can happen at any time.
What I do know is that anyone who wants to survive 2020 might think of moderating their stress levels, because a popped subdural artery will kill you deader than a virus you have a good chance of not catching, even under the most pessimistic projections.
I'm not religious, but the Serenity Prayer has the right vibe. I just look for it in myself, rather than asking God for it.
mate, i am gonna go to hell in all the religions and i don't mind.
The reason we don't have '4000 odd cases' is that we don't test enough, and as per people those that call to get tested get an answer machine.
So that is a bit like the US today, this morning 9000 cases, this arvo 16.000 and California under shutdown.
As for moderating stress levels, well the government could help with that but so far they have done fuck all.
They could legalise weed by emergency degree, now that would help people to 'de-stress', (and yeah, no gummi bears, that would be too naughty and we can't have naughty), but thats not gonna happen.
They could ask the IRD to send money to people to stay at home,
but ….air planes or people….decision decisions…….
and we only have so much money, so planes it is.
But the booze lobby is wetting themselves, as are the banks, the supermarkets, and the gangs that sell the unregulated and untaxed drugs, and so on and so forth.
So don't worry McFlock, a few deserving people will survive and even get much richer, and no, never would i blame the government for not regulating and such, i shall blame capitalism as advised earlier.
If we have 4,000 cases, why don't we have all our ICU beds full of people with pneumonia etc that nobody has thought to check as being covid-19?
Or do we actually have 4,000 cases, but the strain with community release is more mild that what the rest of the world seems to be experiencing? In which case… actually, would that make us immune to the more lethal strains, too? Cowpx/smallpox style?
Well because as they say, not everyone will show symptoms, not everyone will get ill. That is my guess, and i would also assume that people stay home when they get ill initially and many will get better within a few days and not think twice about the funny bug they cought.
But a wee story from today. My partner usually always has a security guard with him when he goes to fix broken bank machines. That security guard has a girl live in the house who has a dry cough and high fever. So when he told this he was advised to call the Hotline number and see if she could get tested. Now she was not overseas etc etc and was told to do nothing. Stay home, isolate, oh, and her GP then told her to go and get a blood tests at the local labto make sure her blood issues don't act up. She takes a blood thinner. Now think of that. Isolate, but please go to the local clinic for a blood test. Stupidity and idiocy are us it seems.
I have a few friends in the states, many of whom had really weird 'flu' this winter. They are now wondering if they had the virus, and chances are they did, but it did not get tested, they got better blahblahblah.
So essentially we could already have many people carrying the virus, spreading it unwittingly by going to work, to shop, to live life.
And this is why i am so pissed at the government, they should know that, and they should give all of us that would like to go home and stay home the option and the financial security to do so. If you need to raise a 'solidarity tax" (done in Germany after the fall of the wall to pay for it all) then so be it. After all China did show us how it needs to be done.
But the best way to stop this thing in its tracks is shut down, for up to 8 -12 weeks – and again the earlier the better – and tell people to stay home.
Hence why i wanted a rent/mortgage/lease freeze, because at the end of the day, the thing that we don't want is sick people wandering the streets because they have been evicted, and half of our economy in the tank because all of our small businesses have to exhaust all other means before they apply to the on the dole – a potential 375.000 new beneficiaries.
they should have told us to go home, set up an ap, or web page to apply for your IRD payment and stay the fuck at home.
Shutting the country down for three months over a disease that apparently has a hospitalisation rate of less than 1 in 4,000 (because we have this hoard of hidden cases that aren't going to hospital) seems excessive.
If we left it to cover 60% of the population over a few months, we could probably manage it relatively reasily, something like 500 patients in that timeframe?
BUT:
If it's got a 20% serious complication rate and the government has actually done very well at keeping the wolf from the door, good on the government.
Besides, if we just shut down, citizens might still come back from overseas after the shutdown. Or it jumps ship. Or gets in some other way. And we're back to where we are now.
so unless we prove otherwise the most dire scenario is 3 month, the best case 4 weeks. Our saving grace is that we are at the bottom of the world, a small population and other then a few centres are not densly populated. . Disclaimer: I am german and thus always inclined to operate from the worst scenario cause if it is better then its a bonus.
I also would expect the virus to 'come ' back every now and then until we find a vaccine that works, or medication that works.
I personally would just like to know what about this virus it is that has our selected overlords of the planet so shit scared that they happily lock up people into their homes and crash the worlds economy while at it. (mind some republican had fun dumping stocks and making money…..so what do i kno 🙂 )
Ideally, we keep anyone out of the hospital that does not really need it, home care.
Japan basically told its people to go home, if you have a cough and fever stay home, only go to the hospital if you have a fever over 39.5 degree (101 f) for two days.
Even pull a Bojo, and let it run its course – controlled if we could. But i am not the one shutting down countries, closing borders, crashing the economy. I am just someone who is pissed that easter ain't gonna happen ( and as a chocolatier easter is the best! so much fun) i am pissed that my friends are scared of loosing the businesses that they have spend years building up, and i am pissed at this government not doing anything other tehn bailing our an airline who should have been left to die many years ago.
so my CT is simple as , they underfunded the health care sector so much that they actually can't deal with a really bad flu. They don't have the equipment, the masks, the gloves, the suits, etc etc etc and they are worried that if we all get ill at once and need health care we are gonna bankrupt what little health services we have.
What scares them isn't that it's a really bad flu.
What scares them is that it's worse than that.
You want to crash an economy? Constantly maintain 15,000 negative-pressure rooms that will be obsolete by the time they are used once in a hundred years. And do that for every possible, conceivable disaster. People complained enough about EQC levy, let alone volcano/pandemic/asteroid/hurricane levies on top of that.
@ McFlok : What scares them is that it's worse than that.
this is my guess, and then they should come clean.
people may complain, they do that all the time 🙂 , but at the end of the day we need to finally understand and accept that we have the infrastructure that we pay for. So if we don't want to pay for hospitals, and equipment such as standard hazmat suits, masks etc, then we should not expect care to be given by nurses and doctors.
And maybe just maybe our government will grow some guts – no guts no glory as they say – and implement that wealth tax, that capital gains tax, because at the end of it, that is what they should do. And fuck it that maybe people don't like them. As it is now, they are alienating anyone who is not a beneficiaries (and even there i wold not hold my breath) or a CEO of a bankrupt air company.
The govt has been upfront about the threat, and so has damned near everyone else. We all know the basic math if left unchecked: 60-odd% infection, ~1% case fatality rate, in the first wave. 25,000 NZers dead.
We also know the problem if the country is under heavy restriction, nobody in the streets, nobody at work, for three months. Millions of NZers without food or power over winter.
So we need to find a balance between the two, preferably staving off one while avoiding the other. That changes according to the situation, and that's why they have daily briefings.
So cgt and ubi debates, frankly, can hie themselves to a nunnery for the duration.
The problem is people making the extensive economic damage (which will kill people as badly as a pandemic) even worse by crapping their daks over the worst case scenario when there's no evidence we're any more likely to go there than get the best case scenario.
That means people inducing shortages for other people by panic-buying, when there would be enough for everyone if we all shopped normally.
US, UK, and most of Europe are well in the shit. Some of that is because they were hit early, before it was sequenced or we had tests. Some of it was because they had advisors tell them what they wanted to here, that the best thing was to do nothing. But we're an island. We have a non-porous border, and we had good notice and tests before we had our first case. We export food, and we have a sudden drop in tourists to feed. We're not going to starve. Other places might. But we will have a lot of businesses go under, especially if everyone's too terrified to go anywhere.
i am gonna survive, due to me being tinny as and loath to take up loans i am good. The biggest worry is my lease – i spend quite a bit of money on getting my premises that i leased up to standard and licensed- but if i have too i can dip into my retirement savings. My lease also expires in December so i could just simply let it expire and see if i can turn my garage into a kitchen and get it lisenced. At least then the lease i pay goes towards my mortgage.
I am pissed for the others on my block, the hair dresser, the garage, the bakery, the dairy, the take away, i am pissed for the little businesses in my town. I am pissed for the young dudes that slaved for years working for others, doing the night market to get enough money up to open their own little joint – you know just enough money for teh bills and for them so they too can have a live and a family and a place to live.
there is no ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, there is a pack of paracetamol and when it hurts to much you apply at winz for a one pill to kill some of the pain. And frankly i rather hang myself then ever give myself over to Winz.
So i would venture a guess pretty soon, a week maybe?
Could you outline the logic behind your assessment that we're going to go from a few cases known to have come in from overseas and reasonably well isolated, to our hospitals being overwhelmed, in the next week?
From what i have seen is that once the testing goes underway the number of infected people jumps high very quickly very fast.
See the US. From 1 on Jan 23, to 15 on March 3rd, to 16000 on March 20th.
At that stage you have a choice, let it run, or shut down. Shut down is needed if you don't want to kill your health system, and by killing i mean that. Doctors, Nurses etc in the US and in England and France and elsewhere do not have the equipment to keep themselves save and a few doctors in all these countries and nurses are having the virus and in NY it appears that some of them work.
So we had 28 yesterday, 39 today, 50+ tomorrow, 80+ two days, 120 odd in three days, by the time we reach Wednesday next week it could be quite a few people.
And believe me i don't want a shut down. I can't afford it.
We're seeing a big spike in people who've been infected overseas because lots of people have come back here from infected countries. Exponential growth in that would require exponential growth in numbers returning from overseas. For your growth estimates to apply, we'd first need evidence of community transmission within NZ, which is currently non-existent. That community transmission will turn up, and that's when it will get serious, but it hasn't turned up yet.
If the virus gets into the population with no links to recent overseas travel.
It would probably be introduced step by step as the need arises. Hopefully there will be no full blown lockdown as has occurred in Italy.
We can do no more than cross our fingers and follow instructions – washing hands, keeping physical distance of 2 metres (so hard to remember) and generally being sensible.
Edit: oops McFlock beat me to it and rather more colourfully. 🙂
Yes, we're all as clueless as the next person, this is a fairly unprecedented thing, if 6 months ago someone suggested we get ready and prepare for such a thing would anyone here taken it seriously? I just saw a G W Bush speech from when he was president saying such a pandemic could happen. Just calm down, our experts and leaders are just human like the rest of, trying their best, in a very strange and ever changing situation. Are we fucked? Quite possibly, or maybe like always, we will adapt, and cope. I'm a working wage earning solo father with school age kids living in South Dunedin, I just cant think of anything else to do but look after my kids and I, keep an eye on my elderly neighbours, and hope for the best.
I think the supermarkets have acted superbly actually! They could be price gouging, they could not bother with the rationing, because money, but there are still specials, the staff are excellent. My kids schools are calm and communicating with us parents, my work place has appropriate safety gear and hand sanitizer at every entry way, as do most business places.
Chatting to an Australian nurse, their leave has all been cancelled and they can't travel interstate. They're very calm, the situation changes every 4 hours, there are new guidelines for hospital staff that if they catch it once, they go on leave, as they have found overseas the more often you catch it the higher the chance of mortality. She said "info on infection control measures in health care seem to be implementing faster over there, that's def in NZs favour". Though they are getting ready for numbers to dramatically increase in the next few weeks.
yes, well if it attacks the lungs every single time at one stage the lung is done for.
so that might be what they are so scared of. It will kill us eventually.
As for the nurses? Increase their pay. If they ask where the money should come from they can tax Mike Hoskins, Gareth Morgan, and all the other tax avoiders a wealth tax. You know, to show solidarity to those that move the boat forward.
We're the same here, had loo paper on special for a week, then canned tomatoes got bought out, now they are on special. The computerised stock control must be causing the supermarkets huge grief. At least all the runs are on non-perishables, apart from bread.
Our frozen veges were sold out today, be some good deals going there in a week or so.
Something not well noted is how much of the pandemic in China was in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei. And how effective this was quarantined from the rest of China.
And exactly why did WHO's Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spend weeks telling there was no need to stop international travel, all the while praising China's response that primarily involved shutting tens of millions into their appartments and stopping all travel within China?
When he knew that virus's don't know the difference between the borders of a city and a country?
When he knew millions had evaded the initial Hubei lockdown?
When he knew the silent transmission characteristic that made it certain the virus would get out of China?
If the rest of the world had stopped all international travel out of China at the start of Feb, instead of now, we would not be facing this crisis. Instead China insisted that any such travel ban would be 'racist', while at the same time imposing the same draconian travel bans domestically.
These are not actions in good faith. Some hard questions need answers.
The Ministry of Health has set up an email address directed to health immigration and police for those with confirmed cases and also breaches of self-isolation and mass gatherings.
Yeah, our BCP boldly states people can work from home because we have Office365, SharePoint and mostly web-based specialist apps. This week have been talking with managers living in rural idylls with "broadband" that's more like dial-up, staff who can't remember how old their home computer is but it's more than 10 years, and one guy who doesn't even own a mobile phone, let alone a computer. Most I wouldn't trust to find an application on their computer that didn't have a desktop icon, let alone download and set up Skype for Business. My official assessment is that we meet the requirements of the BCP to a significant extent, my unofficial one is that we are so, so screwed.
Air NZ will be significantly downsizing, they've asked staff to take redundancy, reduced hours, or take unpaid leave. I guesstimate 50%+ headcount reductions (from 10,000 staff to around 5K)
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Max Harris and Max Rashbrooke discuss how we turn around the right wing slogans like nanny state, woke identity politics, and the inefficiency of the public sector – and how we build a progressive agenda. From Donald Trump to David Seymour, from Peter Dutton to Christopher Luxon, we are subject to a ...
The Government dominated the political agenda this week with its two-day conference pitching all manner of public infrastructure projects for Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories shortest in our political economy this week: The Government ploughed ahead with offers of PPPs to pension fund managers ...
You know that it's a snake eat snake worldWe slither and serpentine throughWe all took a bite, and six thousand years laterThese apples getting harder to chewSongwriters: Shawn Mavrides.“Please be Jack Tame”, I thought when I saw it was Seymour appearing on Q&A. I’d had a guts full of the ...
So here we are at the wedding of Alexandra Vincent Martelli and David Seymour.Look at all the happy prosperous guests! How proud Nick Mowbray looks of the gift he has made of a mountain of crap plastic toys stuffed into a Cybertruck.How they drink, how they laugh, how they mug ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is waste heat from industrial activity the reason the planet is warming? Waste heat’s contribution to global warming is a small fraction of ...
Some continue to defend David Seymour on school lunches, sidestepping his errors to say:“Well the parents should pack their lunch” and/or “Kids should be grateful for free food.”One of these people is the sitting Prime Minister.So I put together a quick list of why complaint is not only appropriate - ...
“Bugger the pollsters!”WHEN EVERYBODY LIVED in villages, and every village had a graveyard, the expression “whistling past the graveyard” made more sense. Even so, it’s hard to describe the Coalition Government’s response to the latest Taxpayers’ Union/Curia Research poll any better. Regardless of whether they wanted to go there, or ...
Prof Jane Kelsey examines what the ACT party and the NZ Initiative are up to as they seek to impose on the country their hardline, right wing, neoliberal ideology. A progressive government elected in 2026 would have a huge job putting Humpty Dumpty together again and rebuilding a state that ...
See I try to make a differenceBut the heads of the high keep turning awayThere ain't no useWhen the world that you love has goneOoh, gotta make a changeSongwriters: Arapekanga Adams-Tamatea / Brad Kora / Hiriini Kora / Joel Shadbolt.Aotearoa for Sale.This week saw the much-heralded and somewhat alarming sight ...
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, The Economist-$ ...
By international standards the New Zealand healthcare system appears satisfactory – certainly no worse generally than average. Yet it is undergoing another redisorganisation.While doing some unrelated work, I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my – and the conventional wisdom’s – view of ...
When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he knew that he was upending Europe’s security order. But this was more of a tactical gambit than a calculated strategy ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Over the last year, I’ve been warning about Luxon’s pitch to privatise our public assets.He had told reporters in October that nothing was off the cards:Schools, hospitals, prisons, and ...
When ASPI’s Cyclone Tracy: 50 Years On was published last year, it wasn’t just a historical reflection; it was a warning. Just months later, we are already watching history repeat itself. We need to bake ...
1. Why was school lunch provider The Libelle Group in the news this week?a. Grand Winner in Pie of The Yearb. Scored a record 108% on YELP c. Bought by Oravida d. Went into liquidation2. What did our Prime Minister offer prospective investors at his infrastructure investment jamboree?a. The Libelle ...
National is looking to cut hundreds of jobs at New Zealand’s Defence Force, while at the same time it talks up plans to increase focus and spending in Defence. ...
It’s been revealed that the Government is secretly trying to bring back a ‘one-size fits all’ standardised test – a decision that has shocked school principals. ...
The Green Party is calling for the compassionate release of Dean Wickliffe, a 77-year-old kaumātua on hunger strike at the Spring Hill Corrections Facility, after visiting him at the prison. ...
The Green Party is calling on Government MPs to support Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence and illegal actions in Palestine, following another day of appalling violence against civilians in Gaza. ...
The Green Party stands in support of volunteer firefighters petitioning the Government to step up and change legislation to provide volunteers the same ACC coverage and benefits as their paid counterparts. ...
At 2.30am local time, Israel launched a treacherous attack on Gaza killing more than 300 defenceless civilians while they slept. Many of them were children. This followed a more than 2 week-long blockade by Israel on the entry of all goods and aid into Gaza. Israel deliberately targeted densely populated ...
Living Strong, Aging Well There is much discussion around the health of our older New Zealanders and how we can age well. In reality, the delivery of health services accounts for only a relatively small percentage of health outcomes as we age. Significantly, dry warm housing, nutrition, exercise, social connection, ...
Shane Jones’ display on Q&A showed how out of touch he and this Government are with our communities and how in sync they are with companies with little concern for people and planet. ...
Labour does not support the private ownership of core infrastructure like schools, hospitals and prisons, which will only see worse outcomes for Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is disappointed the Government voted down Hūhana Lyndon’s member’s Bill, which would have prevented further alienation of Māori land through the Public Works Act. ...
The Labour Party will support Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill which would allow sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. ...
The Government’s new procurement rules are a blatant attack on workers and the environment, showing once again that National’s priorities are completely out of touch with everyday Kiwis. ...
With Labour and Te Pāti Māori’s official support, Opposition parties are officially aligned to progress Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in Palestine. ...
Te Pāti Māori extends our deepest aroha to the 500 plus Whānau Ora workers who have been advised today that the govt will be dismantling their contracts. For twenty years , Whānau Ora has been helping families, delivering life-changing support through a kaupapa Māori approach. It has built trust where ...
Labour welcomes Simeon Brown’s move to reinstate a board at Health New Zealand, bringing the destructive and secretive tenure of commissioner Lester Levy to an end. ...
This morning’s announcement by the Health Minister regarding a major overhaul of the public health sector levels yet another blow to the country’s essential services. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that will ensure employment decisions in the public service are based on merit and not on forced woke ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ targets. “This Bill would put an end to the woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. ...
Police have referred 20 offenders to Destiny Church-affiliated programmes Man Up and Legacy as ‘wellness providers’ in the last year, raising concerns that those seeking help are being recruited into a harmful organisation. ...
Te Pāti Māori welcomes the resignation of Richard Prebble from the Waitangi Tribunal. His appointment in October 2024 was a disgrace- another example of this government undermining Te Tiriti o Waitangi by appointing a former ACT leader who has spent his career attacking Māori rights. “Regardless of the reason for ...
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is avoiding accountability by refusing to answer key questions in the House as his Government faces criticism over their dangerous citizen’s arrest policy, firearm reform, and broken promises to recruit more police. ...
The number of building consents issued under this Government continues to spiral, taking a toll on the infrastructure sector, tradies, and future generations of Kiwi homeowners. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to rule out joining the AUKUS military pact in any capacity following the scenes in the White House over the weekend. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Kilah, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, University of Tasmania Karynf/Shutterstock There is something special about sharing baked goods with family, friends and colleagues. But I’ll never forget the disappointment of serving my colleagues rhubarb muffins that had failed to rise. They ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Kaiser, PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania The South African National Antarctic Expedition research base, SANAE IV, at Vesleskarvet, Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. Dr Ross Hofmeyr/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA Earlier this week, reports emerged that a scientist at ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Intifar Chowdhury, Lecturer in Government, Flinders University Every generation thinks they had it tough, but evidence suggests young Australians today might have a case for saying they’ve drawn the short straw. Compared with young adults two or three decades ago, today’s 18–35-year-olds ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Visitor, School of History, Australian National University Fifty years ago, Liberal MPs chose Malcolm Fraser as their leader. Eight months later, he led them into power in extraordinary – some might say reprehensible – circumstances. He governed for seven and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy G Howe, Research Fellow (Entomology), University of the Sunshine Coast Andy Howe, CC BY Playgrounds can host a variety of natural wonders – and, of course, kids! Now some students are not just learning about insects and spiders at school ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Willis, PhD Candidate, Classics and Ancient History, University of Newcastle djkett/Shutterstock You wake up at night sensing a weight on your legs that you thought was your pet dog – only to remember they died years ago. Or perhaps you ...
New Zealand is officially out of recession, but the chaos of Trump’s tariff policy remains a threat to medium-term growth, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.We’re officially out of recession You might not have known it ...
The ship is thought to be carrying "furnace oil", described as dark thick, and when spilled, pernicious - but the government has rejected advice to carry out a survey. ...
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith reports from a public meeting held in Upper Hutt on the state of healthcare in a city where residents worry they could die before seeing a GP.An eight-week wait time to see a GP, closed books, no local hospital, primary birthing unit or after-hours care facility and ...
Tomorrow night, the unmistakable scent of petrol and mud will hang in the air at Western Springs Speedway for the last time. The floodlights will beam, the engines will roar and fans will gather for one final night of high-speed spectacle. For 96 years, Western Springs has been the ...
A high country station’s battle to retain a block of land reserved for national park purposes more than a century ago has hit the Court of Appeal.In 2021, the Commissioner of Crown Lands decided to renew Mt White Station’s 40,000ha pastoral lease, but excluded a 1000ha block, known as Riversdale ...
Good things keep on happening out in Penrose in the crater of the Rarotonga volcano.Mt Smart – or Go Media Stadium – a place with deep physical, cultural and sporting heritage in Auckland, is in a sweet spot for fans, professional teams and its owners.It’s now the country’s busiest stadium, ...
NONFICTION1 Hastings: A Boy’s Own Adventure by Dick Frizzell (Massey University Press, $37)Probably the most illustrious and attractive pairing at the Auckland Writers Festival in May is the event where I chair Dick Frizzell for an hour at the Aotea Centre. I’ll attempt to interrogate his childhood memories – the ...
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have captured the world’s attention for their drawn-out drama on the International Space Station.Back on earth after nine months, their bodies and minds will continue to be under scrutiny by scientists including New Zealand space medicine researchers looking for ways to fight cancer and ...
The fishing arm of South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu has blown the whistle on the state of the Bluff oyster fishery and cancelled its harvest – but some in the industry claim it’s shaping up to be the best season in years.The Bluff oyster/tio season traditionally runs from March 1 to August ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp');Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions.The post Newsroom daily quiz, Friday 21 March appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bonny Parkinson, Associate Professor, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University The United States pharmaceutical lobby has complained to US President Donald Trump that Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is damaging their profits and has urged Trump to put tariffs ...
By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist The parties involved in talks aimed at resolving an impasse over Bougainville’s push for independence are planning to meet several more times before a deadline in June. The leaders of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville have been meeting all week in Port Moresby, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Scott, Professor of Health Economics and Director, Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock Talks of a trade dispute between the United States and Australia over the cost of medicines have no doubt left many Australians scratching ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the Trump age, how the next government, whether Labor or Coalition, will handle foreign affairs, defence and trade is shaping as crucially important. It’s a weird time when your friends become almost as ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Brannigan, Associate Professor Theatre and Performance, UNSW Sydney Mass Movement.Morgan Sette/Adelaide Festival I arrived at Stephanie Lake’s premiere of Mass Movement a little late on my first day at Adelaide Festival. Walking down the hill from King William road ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rossana Ruggeri, Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow, Queensland University of Technology KPNO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURAB / Tafreshi The universe has been expanding ever since the Big Bang almost 14 billion years ago, and astronomers believe a kind of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natalie Elms, Senior Lecturer, School of Accountancy, Queensland University of Technology Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock Steering a large company successfully is no mean feat. As companies grow more complex in an increasingly turbulent business environment – so, too, do the responsibilities of their board ...
A little dark humour for this evening…
sapiens my arse
That like wise shit?
thats like we are mis-named
How long till lockdown?
What’s the trigger point
You think there's a single definitive trigger point, or a single "lockdown" state?
There's not.
There are a range of circumstances where a range of greater restrictions might apply in a range of areas, from a small locality to nationwide. We are already facing many restrictions.
As the circumstances change we might face more restrictions, and as time progresses we might face fewer restrictions (e.g. good drug treatment becomes evident, or a vaccine, or maybe the disease profile changes because less debilitating strains become dominant).
All most of us can do is hold onto the seatbelt and watch the world roll past the windscreen, and hope the car safety specialists know what they're doing.
we are pretty much fucked then.
The trigger will be when we double our cases of ill every four days as it happens pretty much elsewhere and our hospitals are overwhelmed and without safety equipment as they are int he States, England, France, Italy and when we have people dying.
So i would venture a guess pretty soon, a week maybe?
California just shut down. NY is gonna be a basket case, Africa is gearing up to be very interesting. And we took way to long to even acknowledge that this thing could come here and wreck havoc and now are simply in mitigation mode. Containment is not possible anymore.
Several people today telling me about their family members in lock down. Those that have sleep outs are somewhat ok, those that are locked up with potentially ill people now have a great chance of falling ill themselves.
Maybe we are, maybe it's acrash we walk away from without a scratch, or with minor injuries.
Ed was worried that by now we'd have 4,000-odd cases, like Italy had after the same period.
We're just entering swordfish's estimated period for the first death (3-4 weeks from first confirmed case). Maybe as prognosticators the swordfish is mightier than the ed.
So I don't know. It's not a time-elapsed thing, it's a milestone that can happen at any time.
What I do know is that anyone who wants to survive 2020 might think of moderating their stress levels, because a popped subdural artery will kill you deader than a virus you have a good chance of not catching, even under the most pessimistic projections.
I'm not religious, but the Serenity Prayer has the right vibe. I just look for it in myself, rather than asking God for it.
mate, i am gonna go to hell in all the religions and i don't mind.
The reason we don't have '4000 odd cases' is that we don't test enough, and as per people those that call to get tested get an answer machine.
So that is a bit like the US today, this morning 9000 cases, this arvo 16.000 and California under shutdown.
As for moderating stress levels, well the government could help with that but so far they have done fuck all.
They could legalise weed by emergency degree, now that would help people to 'de-stress', (and yeah, no gummi bears, that would be too naughty and we can't have naughty), but thats not gonna happen.
They could ask the IRD to send money to people to stay at home,
but ….air planes or people….decision decisions…….
and we only have so much money, so planes it is.
But the booze lobby is wetting themselves, as are the banks, the supermarkets, and the gangs that sell the unregulated and untaxed drugs, and so on and so forth.
So don't worry McFlock, a few deserving people will survive and even get much richer, and no, never would i blame the government for not regulating and such, i shall blame capitalism as advised earlier.
If we have 4,000 cases, why don't we have all our ICU beds full of people with pneumonia etc that nobody has thought to check as being covid-19?
Or do we actually have 4,000 cases, but the strain with community release is more mild that what the rest of the world seems to be experiencing? In which case… actually, would that make us immune to the more lethal strains, too? Cowpx/smallpox style?
Well because as they say, not everyone will show symptoms, not everyone will get ill. That is my guess, and i would also assume that people stay home when they get ill initially and many will get better within a few days and not think twice about the funny bug they cought.
But a wee story from today. My partner usually always has a security guard with him when he goes to fix broken bank machines. That security guard has a girl live in the house who has a dry cough and high fever. So when he told this he was advised to call the Hotline number and see if she could get tested. Now she was not overseas etc etc and was told to do nothing. Stay home, isolate, oh, and her GP then told her to go and get a blood tests at the local labto make sure her blood issues don't act up. She takes a blood thinner. Now think of that. Isolate, but please go to the local clinic for a blood test. Stupidity and idiocy are us it seems.
I have a few friends in the states, many of whom had really weird 'flu' this winter. They are now wondering if they had the virus, and chances are they did, but it did not get tested, they got better blahblahblah.
So essentially we could already have many people carrying the virus, spreading it unwittingly by going to work, to shop, to live life.
And this is why i am so pissed at the government, they should know that, and they should give all of us that would like to go home and stay home the option and the financial security to do so. If you need to raise a 'solidarity tax" (done in Germany after the fall of the wall to pay for it all) then so be it. After all China did show us how it needs to be done.
But the best way to stop this thing in its tracks is shut down, for up to 8 -12 weeks – and again the earlier the better – and tell people to stay home.
Hence why i wanted a rent/mortgage/lease freeze, because at the end of the day, the thing that we don't want is sick people wandering the streets because they have been evicted, and half of our economy in the tank because all of our small businesses have to exhaust all other means before they apply to the on the dole – a potential 375.000 new beneficiaries.
they should have told us to go home, set up an ap, or web page to apply for your IRD payment and stay the fuck at home.
They did nothing.
Shutting the country down for three months over a disease that apparently has a hospitalisation rate of less than 1 in 4,000 (because we have this hoard of hidden cases that aren't going to hospital) seems excessive.
If we left it to cover 60% of the population over a few months, we could probably manage it relatively reasily, something like 500 patients in that timeframe?
BUT:
If it's got a 20% serious complication rate and the government has actually done very well at keeping the wolf from the door, good on the government.
Besides, if we just shut down, citizens might still come back from overseas after the shutdown. Or it jumps ship. Or gets in some other way. And we're back to where we are now.
i base my assumption on what i see overseas.
so unless we prove otherwise the most dire scenario is 3 month, the best case 4 weeks. Our saving grace is that we are at the bottom of the world, a small population and other then a few centres are not densly populated. . Disclaimer: I am german and thus always inclined to operate from the worst scenario cause if it is better then its a bonus.
I also would expect the virus to 'come ' back every now and then until we find a vaccine that works, or medication that works.
I personally would just like to know what about this virus it is that has our selected overlords of the planet so shit scared that they happily lock up people into their homes and crash the worlds economy while at it. (mind some republican had fun dumping stocks and making money…..so what do i kno 🙂 )
Ideally, we keep anyone out of the hospital that does not really need it, home care.
Japan basically told its people to go home, if you have a cough and fever stay home, only go to the hospital if you have a fever over 39.5 degree (101 f) for two days.
Even pull a Bojo, and let it run its course – controlled if we could. But i am not the one shutting down countries, closing borders, crashing the economy. I am just someone who is pissed that easter ain't gonna happen ( and as a chocolatier easter is the best! so much fun) i am pissed that my friends are scared of loosing the businesses that they have spend years building up, and i am pissed at this government not doing anything other tehn bailing our an airline who should have been left to die many years ago.
so my CT is simple as , they underfunded the health care sector so much that they actually can't deal with a really bad flu. They don't have the equipment, the masks, the gloves, the suits, etc etc etc and they are worried that if we all get ill at once and need health care we are gonna bankrupt what little health services we have.
What scares them isn't that it's a really bad flu.
What scares them is that it's worse than that.
You want to crash an economy? Constantly maintain 15,000 negative-pressure rooms that will be obsolete by the time they are used once in a hundred years. And do that for every possible, conceivable disaster. People complained enough about EQC levy, let alone volcano/pandemic/asteroid/hurricane levies on top of that.
this is my guess, and then they should come clean.
people may complain, they do that all the time 🙂 , but at the end of the day we need to finally understand and accept that we have the infrastructure that we pay for. So if we don't want to pay for hospitals, and equipment such as standard hazmat suits, masks etc, then we should not expect care to be given by nurses and doctors.
And maybe just maybe our government will grow some guts – no guts no glory as they say – and implement that wealth tax, that capital gains tax, because at the end of it, that is what they should do. And fuck it that maybe people don't like them. As it is now, they are alienating anyone who is not a beneficiaries (and even there i wold not hold my breath) or a CEO of a bankrupt air company.
Oh, fie on tax policy right now.
The govt has been upfront about the threat, and so has damned near everyone else. We all know the basic math if left unchecked: 60-odd% infection, ~1% case fatality rate, in the first wave. 25,000 NZers dead.
We also know the problem if the country is under heavy restriction, nobody in the streets, nobody at work, for three months. Millions of NZers without food or power over winter.
So we need to find a balance between the two, preferably staving off one while avoiding the other. That changes according to the situation, and that's why they have daily briefings.
So cgt and ubi debates, frankly, can hie themselves to a nunnery for the duration.
McFlock, we can discuss this endlessly, but we have a 50/50 chance of getting out of there lightly. Best case scenario.
and we have a 50% chance of a shit show and how are you going to keep people fed and warm and inside.
Its not conspiracy theory either as it is unfolding live in front of our eyes affecting directly our world. So roll the dice. Up its you, down its me.
Feeding NZ isn't the problem.
The problem is people making the extensive economic damage (which will kill people as badly as a pandemic) even worse by crapping their daks over the worst case scenario when there's no evidence we're any more likely to go there than get the best case scenario.
That means people inducing shortages for other people by panic-buying, when there would be enough for everyone if we all shopped normally.
US, UK, and most of Europe are well in the shit. Some of that is because they were hit early, before it was sequenced or we had tests. Some of it was because they had advisors tell them what they wanted to here, that the best thing was to do nothing. But we're an island. We have a non-porous border, and we had good notice and tests before we had our first case. We export food, and we have a sudden drop in tourists to feed. We're not going to starve. Other places might. But we will have a lot of businesses go under, especially if everyone's too terrified to go anywhere.
I went through what you're going through back in 2008.
It's tough. you pay all this tax, yet you won't get help until you basically crash and burn.
That's unfortunately just the way it works n NZ it's the proverbial ambulance of the cliff
i am gonna survive, due to me being tinny as and loath to take up loans i am good. The biggest worry is my lease – i spend quite a bit of money on getting my premises that i leased up to standard and licensed- but if i have too i can dip into my retirement savings. My lease also expires in December so i could just simply let it expire and see if i can turn my garage into a kitchen and get it lisenced. At least then the lease i pay goes towards my mortgage.
I am pissed for the others on my block, the hair dresser, the garage, the bakery, the dairy, the take away, i am pissed for the little businesses in my town. I am pissed for the young dudes that slaved for years working for others, doing the night market to get enough money up to open their own little joint – you know just enough money for teh bills and for them so they too can have a live and a family and a place to live.
there is no ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, there is a pack of paracetamol and when it hurts to much you apply at winz for a one pill to kill some of the pain. And frankly i rather hang myself then ever give myself over to Winz.
Well tax ain't insurance is it.
So i would venture a guess pretty soon, a week maybe?
Could you outline the logic behind your assessment that we're going to go from a few cases known to have come in from overseas and reasonably well isolated, to our hospitals being overwhelmed, in the next week?
From what i have seen is that once the testing goes underway the number of infected people jumps high very quickly very fast.
See the US. From 1 on Jan 23, to 15 on March 3rd, to 16000 on March 20th.
At that stage you have a choice, let it run, or shut down. Shut down is needed if you don't want to kill your health system, and by killing i mean that. Doctors, Nurses etc in the US and in England and France and elsewhere do not have the equipment to keep themselves save and a few doctors in all these countries and nurses are having the virus and in NY it appears that some of them work.
So we had 28 yesterday, 39 today, 50+ tomorrow, 80+ two days, 120 odd in three days, by the time we reach Wednesday next week it could be quite a few people.
And believe me i don't want a shut down. I can't afford it.
We're seeing a big spike in people who've been infected overseas because lots of people have come back here from infected countries. Exponential growth in that would require exponential growth in numbers returning from overseas. For your growth estimates to apply, we'd first need evidence of community transmission within NZ, which is currently non-existent. That community transmission will turn up, and that's when it will get serious, but it hasn't turned up yet.
It is not 'my' growth scenario
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-03-17/government-coronavirus-measures-based-on-infection-doubling-rate-of-4-days-not-the-5-it-said-writes-robert-peston/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51970815
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-incubation-period/
https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/australia-coronavirus-cases-appear-to-be-doubling-every-three-days–c-747116
its been in the news for a few weeks.
You think there's a single definitive trigger point, or a single "lockdown" state?
Lol, good question, we can't even agree on what a lockdown would consist of at my workplace, let alone the whole fucking country.
If the virus gets into the population with no links to recent overseas travel.
It would probably be introduced step by step as the need arises. Hopefully there will be no full blown lockdown as has occurred in Italy.
We can do no more than cross our fingers and follow instructions – washing hands, keeping physical distance of 2 metres (so hard to remember) and generally being sensible.
Edit: oops McFlock beat me to it and rather more colourfully. 🙂
Yes, we're all as clueless as the next person, this is a fairly unprecedented thing, if 6 months ago someone suggested we get ready and prepare for such a thing would anyone here taken it seriously? I just saw a G W Bush speech from when he was president saying such a pandemic could happen. Just calm down, our experts and leaders are just human like the rest of, trying their best, in a very strange and ever changing situation. Are we fucked? Quite possibly, or maybe like always, we will adapt, and cope. I'm a working wage earning solo father with school age kids living in South Dunedin, I just cant think of anything else to do but look after my kids and I, keep an eye on my elderly neighbours, and hope for the best.
I dunno, I'm here right now and I still can't take seriously the fact that the first thing people hoarded globally was toilet paper.
Good luck to you and yours.
I think the supermarkets have acted superbly actually! They could be price gouging, they could not bother with the rationing, because money, but there are still specials, the staff are excellent. My kids schools are calm and communicating with us parents, my work place has appropriate safety gear and hand sanitizer at every entry way, as do most business places.
totally agree,
the supermarket staff at our locals here are epic. Polite, smiling, (even tho they are worried themselves), helpful and so patient.
They should be given huge bonuses, hopefully.
and teachers, and cleaners!
yep, and nurses and doctors and your local shops that all try to keep it together and keep a semblance of normal.
Chatting to an Australian nurse, their leave has all been cancelled and they can't travel interstate. They're very calm, the situation changes every 4 hours, there are new guidelines for hospital staff that if they catch it once, they go on leave, as they have found overseas the more often you catch it the higher the chance of mortality. She said "info on infection control measures in health care seem to be implementing faster over there, that's def in NZs favour". Though they are getting ready for numbers to dramatically increase in the next few weeks.
yes, well if it attacks the lungs every single time at one stage the lung is done for.
so that might be what they are so scared of. It will kill us eventually.
As for the nurses? Increase their pay. If they ask where the money should come from they can tax Mike Hoskins, Gareth Morgan, and all the other tax avoiders a wealth tax. You know, to show solidarity to those that move the boat forward.
Centre City New World has a big display down by the deli section tonight – full pallets of baked beans, tinned spagghetti, and canned fruit salad.
What people were overbuying over the last week lol
We're the same here, had loo paper on special for a week, then canned tomatoes got bought out, now they are on special. The computerised stock control must be causing the supermarkets huge grief. At least all the runs are on non-perishables, apart from bread.
Our frozen veges were sold out today, be some good deals going there in a week or so.
I wonder if the stock control programs base loss-leader specials on demand surges? I just thought the pricing was a little bit of snark 🙂
I did notice sundried tomatos were empty tonight. Upper middle class must be panicking lol
Something not well noted is how much of the pandemic in China was in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei. And how effective this was quarantined from the rest of China.
yep.
And exactly why did WHO's Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spend weeks telling there was no need to stop international travel, all the while praising China's response that primarily involved shutting tens of millions into their appartments and stopping all travel within China?
When he knew that virus's don't know the difference between the borders of a city and a country?
When he knew millions had evaded the initial Hubei lockdown?
When he knew the silent transmission characteristic that made it certain the virus would get out of China?
If the rest of the world had stopped all international travel out of China at the start of Feb, instead of now, we would not be facing this crisis. Instead China insisted that any such travel ban would be 'racist', while at the same time imposing the same draconian travel bans domestically.
These are not actions in good faith. Some hard questions need answers.
Here's a bit of background on the incompetent/ compromised WHO director
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/487851-china-and-the-whos-chief-hold-them-both-accountable-for-pandemic
Will leave this here
The email address is nhccselfisolation@health.govt.nz.
Contacted council today re overseas freedom campers, they are going to look into finding out which ones are recent arrivals and not self isolating.
A friend spoke with some freedom campers today and a number of them had decided it was safer in NZ than to return to home.
and all incoming emails will be answered within the SLA of 24 hours :)?
For the employed of us, the real helplessness starts on Monday.
All Auckland Council group staff are working from home, and of course the Skype will be intermittent at best.
All tourist companies will be putting their people on leave or just firing them.
Even the companies with people who are building massive infrastructure and can't work from home will get very close to being sent home.
So many of the suppliers will go down, from the caterers to the hairdressers to retail to travel.
Auckland central is a ghost town.
Yeah, our BCP boldly states people can work from home because we have Office365, SharePoint and mostly web-based specialist apps. This week have been talking with managers living in rural idylls with "broadband" that's more like dial-up, staff who can't remember how old their home computer is but it's more than 10 years, and one guy who doesn't even own a mobile phone, let alone a computer. Most I wouldn't trust to find an application on their computer that didn't have a desktop icon, let alone download and set up Skype for Business. My official assessment is that we meet the requirements of the BCP to a significant extent, my unofficial one is that we are so, so screwed.
Agreed.
And by the way may I say
Fucking Sharepoint.
Air NZ will be significantly downsizing, they've asked staff to take redundancy, reduced hours, or take unpaid leave. I guesstimate 50%+ headcount reductions (from 10,000 staff to around 5K)