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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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
By RNZ News An independent panel says Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully in January to curb the initial covid-19 outbreak, and criticised the World Health Organisation (WHO) for not declaring an international emergency until 30 January. The experts reviewing the global handling of the pandemic, ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk Fiji’s NGO Coalition on Human Rights has called for stronger accountability and commitment to human rights at home in response to the country taking the world stage as the head of a UN body. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) elected Fiji’s ambassador Nazhat Shameem as ...
Danyl McLauchlan reviews Stuart Ritchie’s Science Fictions, which outlines the staggering systemic flaws in the funding and publication of scientific papers. Back in August of 2006 a number of New Zealand scientists were caught up in a media controversy about whether Māori had a genetic predisposition towards violent crime. It kicked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago America is currently experiencing its worst political and constitutional crisis since the civil war when the very survival of Abraham Lincoln’s government “of, by and for the people” was at stake. On ...
Manaaki Rangatahi report that young people experiencing homelessness are being further traumatized within the emergency accommodation where they have sought safety. Often these environments are unsafe, and unsuitable for young people to live in, and rangatahi ...
Can you figure out which of the above is the real Jacinda Ardern? Probably! But one day, that might not be true.There are many reasons to believe the internet shouldn’t exist. Social media empires exerting, intentionally or not, their control over sovereign governments. Baby Shark. Your aunt on Facebook.It pains ...
The Point of Order Ministers on a Mission Monitor has flickered only fleetingly for much of the month. More than once, the minister to trigger it has been David Parker, who set it off again yesterday with an announcement that shows how he has been spending our money. He welcomed ...
Ban Bomb Day event at the New Brighton Pier, 9am, on January 22nd, 2021 January 22nd, 2021, marks the first day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Enters into Force and becomes international law. Aotearoa NZ is one of the ...
Why are New Zealand’s 2 Minute Noodles called 3 Minute Noodles in the UK? It’s a puzzle that has taken hold of Dylan Reeve and refuses to let go.I’m a child of the 80s and 90s. I watched a lot of TV and was a big fan of aggressively marketed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonatan A Lassa, Senior Lecturer, Humanitarian Emergency and Disaster Management, College of Indigenous Futures, Arts and Society, Charles Darwin University News of storms battering parts of Queensland and the threat posed by Cyclone Kimi reminded me of a recent experience I’d had. ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that the use of force to effect the arrest of a wanted offender in Auckland was justified and proportionate to the risk he posed. A man, who was well known to Police, was wanted by Police for an aggravated ...
A distinctly colonial institution, banking has long ignored te ao Māori. Teaho Pihama believes investment in tikanga Māori at Kiwibank can have significant, positive outcomes for Māori.In early 90s Tāmaki Makaurau, when Teahooterangi (Teaho) Pihama was growing up riding his bike around the streets of Kingsland until the streetlights came ...
Donald Trump’s awful presidency expires at midday on Wednesday [US time] when Air Force One will have deposited him in Florida. He retreats to his Mar-a-Lago resort and Joseph R Biden Junior takes command of the White House. Trump’s has been an unpleasant presidency, brought about largely by his own ...
The New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) has elected its National President for 2021. The election took place last Friday at an NZUSA Special General Meeting (SGM) in Wellington. Andrew Lessells, 22, was elected to serve as the National ...
Think twice before you accept that surprise school reunion invite, writes Chris Schulz.It started with a Facebook notification. A school reunion was being organised. It sounded fun, with a fancy dress party set to be held in the city where I grew up, Whanganui. I hadn’t seen some of my ...
Unlike the US, there is very little NZ precedent for politicians to issue discretionary pardons – creating a challenge for those like Prof Sean Davison who might have a humanitarian claim to mercy. ...
Schools have told the Education Review Office that some children lost 10 weeks of learning in last year's lockdowns, but the overall impact of the pandemic is still unclear. In a report based on surveys of thousand of students, teachers and principals during and after last year's national and Auckland ...
The government seems to still be in holiday mode when in the past two weeks alone we have had six homicides, countless firearms incidents, and police needing to arm themselves against gangs almost every second day," says Sensible Sentencing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Crawford, Associate Professor in Construction and Environmental Assessment, University of Melbourne Over the past few years, Australians have embraced online food delivery services such as UberEats, Deliveroo and Menulog. But home-delivered food comes with a climate cost, and single-use packaging is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland When the coronavirus pandemic hit Australia in March 2020, the Morrison government took bold and imaginative action. The most notable examples were its income support programs – JobKeeper, paying a A$750 weekly ...
Ocean Ute, which arrived at Port Taranaki yesterday, is the second live export ship to arrive in New Zealand this year. Taranaki Animal Rights Group has two demonstrations planned for today. A protest at midday and a vigil at 6.30pm tonight . The number ...
The Department of Corrections is well within its rights to refuse Jared Savage’s “Gangland” book from being read by inmates and it is outrageous that resources and time are now potentially going to be wasted in court about it, says Sensible ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Cowling, Associate Professor – Information & Communication Technology (ICT), CQUniversity Australia We’ve probably all been there. We buy some new smart gadget and when we plug it in for the first time it requires an update to work. So we end ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University The new trade minister, Dan Tehan, has been handed one of the Morrison government’s most demanding roles. Despite a lot of chest-thumping in government circles about the need to stand up to “Chinese bullying”, Tehan’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Weinstein, Professorial Research Fellow, University of Adelaide There’s no question the rising rate of unemployment is one of the worst consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of Australians seeking work is heading towards 10%, almost double the pre-pandemic Australian average ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Munro, Professor, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University Research during the first phase of remote teaching in Victoria reported some students found the workload “too high”, missed interactions with peers, felt their thinking ability was impaired, and reported a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Keating, Visiting Fellow, College of Business & Economics, Australian National University It is tempting to think the Australian government’s decision to spend big – bigger than ever before, an unprecedented 33% of GDP this financial year according to the budget update ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Maguire-Rosier, Honorary Associate, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Literature, Art, and Media, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney Review: Humans 2.0, directed by Yaron Lifschitz, Circa at Sydney Festival The black circular stage is lit ...
Summer reissue: Greens MP Chlöe Swarbrick joins Annabelle Lee-Mather, Ben Thomas and Toby Manhire to pick over the remains of election night in a special Sunday edition of Gone By Lunchtime.First published October 18, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded ...
Summer reissue: Our feminist webseries On the Rag returns to dissect representation in the media and who is still being left behind when you turn on the telly. First published July 22, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members ...
Applaud the social media silencing of Donald Trump if you must, but be careful what you wish for, writes Matt Bartlett of the University of Auckland. The sighs of relief from all around the world were almost palpable when Donald Trump’s Twitter account was permanently banned this month. Twitter, Facebook, ...
Matteo Di Maio investigates what MPs have been filling their heads with over the summer holidays What have our lords and masters been reading on the beach during the summer holidays? What books have filled their heads, given them ideas, expanded their horizons? Eight prominent politicians have revealed their choice ...
From white-collar crims to famous rappers, President Trump is to issue about 100 pardons on his final full day in office, buying protection from incriminating revelations. ...
Are the continent’s coronavirus statistics as good as they appear? Felix Geiringer looks at the numbers, and why whether they reflect the reality matters. Living in Africa during Covid times, one of the questions I am asked most often is this: how has Africa done so well?At the start of September, ...
With new strains of Covid-19 bearing down on our shores, Pattrick Smellie of BusinessDesk looks at the challenges 2021 has in store, and what can be done to prepare.In the three weeks that New Zealanders have been at the beach and ignoring Covid tracer app sign-ins, the threat of Covid-19 ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticised the Indonesian government of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo for its weak health response to covid-19 which has brought Indonesia to its knees since March 2020, reports CNN Indonesia. The assessment is based on Indonesia’s poor rates of testing and tracing ...
By The National in Port Moresby An expatriate who tested positive for the covid-19 coronavirus last week has been admitted to a private hospital in the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby, an official has confirmed. Pacific International Hospital (PIH) chief executive officer Colonel Sandeep Shaligram toldThe National the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Bartlett, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy, University of Newcastle Reports of about 30 deaths among elderly nursing home residents who received the Pfizer vaccine have made international headlines. With Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) expected to approve the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Culum Brown, Professor, Macquarie University How do gills work? Tully, aged 7 Great question, Tully! Animals on land breathe air, which is made up of different gasses. Oxygen is one of these gases, and is made by plants (hug ...
Dairy prices increased by 3.9% across the board at the latest Fonterra global auction. The lift followed rises of 1.3% and 4.3% in the December auctions which took dairy prices to their highest level in 11 months, defying those analysts who believed Covid-19 had disrupted dairy markets. In the latest ...
America's Cup team American Magic has spoken publicly after their boat Patriot capsized when on its way to their first win of the Challenger Selection Series yesterday. Patriot dramatically capsized yesterday, becoming temporarily airborne before crashing back into the water and tipping. The boat, helmed by New Zealander Dean Barker, could not be ...
It’s a seemingly age old question: why do Auckland’s beaches become unswimmable after every single downpour? Stewart Sowman-Lund investigates.Ah, the beach. A staple of the New Zealand summer. Unless, of course, you’re based in Auckland and it’s raining. The start of 2021 has been a lot like every other New ...
We have opened a book, among members of the Point of Order team, on how long it will be before the PM offers to sort out the land dispute at Wellington’s Shelly Bay and (to win the double) how much the settlement will cost taxpayers. Just a few weeks ago ...
Breakfast TV news is back for 2021, and Tara Ward got up early to watch. “Thank god it’s almost Christmas,” John Campbell said during the opening minutes of Breakfast’s premiere episode of the year. “2021’s been rough so far. I’m buggered”. We’re all buggered, to be fair, but I’m worried that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Pearson, Professor of Journalism and Social Media, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Griffith University The blame for the recent assault on the US Capitol and President Donald Trump’s broader dismantling of democratic institutions and norms can be ...
Despite a popular and unifying leader of the governing party, divisions both in policy and culture will test the progressive movement, writes Peter McKenzie.‘I think we’re confused.” Marlon Drake is an organiser for the Living Wage Movement. His job takes him all over Wellington, trying to convince businesses to increase ...
Covid-19 Recovery Minister Chris Hipkins says vaccinations should be available to the public by the middle of the year, but other countries are prioritised. ...
It’s as true now as it ever has been: nowhere else offers an education experience like that of Dunedin. But rather than resting on their laurels, the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic have plans to make the city an even more inspiring place for students.From high in the summit ...
Haggis, neeps and tatties and whisky may not be a traditional spread for a summer gathering in NZ, but trust Auckland city councillor and Kiwi-Scot Cathy Casey on this one. Gie it laldy! Rule one: Hold it on (or near) January 25Robert Burns was born on January 25, 1759. Since the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University It could be argued artificial intelligence (AI) is already the indispensable tool of the 21st century. From helping doctors diagnose and treat patients to rapidly advancing new drug discoveries, it’s our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University Through recent natural disasters, global upheavals and a pandemic, Australia’s political centre has largely held. Australians may have disagreed at times, but they have also kept faith with governmental norms, eschewing the false ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Seale, Associate professor, UNSW Health workers are at higher risk of COVID infection and illness. They can also act as extremely efficient transmitters of viruses to others in medical and aged care facilities. That’s why health workers have been prioritised to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Orchard, Adjunct Lecturer, Monash University Last week, somewhat overshadowed by the events in Washington, the Democrats took control of the US Senate. The Democrats now hold a small majority in both the House and the Senate until 2022, giving President-elect Joe ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mittul Vahanvati, Lecturer, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University Heatwaves, floods, bushfires: disaster season is upon us again. We can’t prevent hazards or climate change-related extreme weather events but we can prepare for them — not just as individuals ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandie Shean, Lecturer, School of Education, Edith Cowan University Starting school is an important event for children and a positive experience can set the tone for the rest of their school experience. Some children are excited to attend school for the first ...
Some families in emergency housing are reporting their children are becoming emotionally distressed because of their living conditions. Demand for emergency accommodation has escalated this past year with the number of emergency housing grants increasing by half. Data showed nearly 10,000 people were given an Emergency Housing Special Needs Grant between ...
Summer reissue: Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden are back for a second season of On the Rag, and where better to start than with the mysterious, exhausting world of wellness?First published June 23, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
With few Covid-19 infections and negiligible natural immunity, New Zealand faces being a victim of its own success when it is left till last to get the vaccines, argues Dr Parmjeet Parmar. ...
Steve Braunias reports on a literary cancelling. The Corrections department has refused to allow Jared Savage's best-selling book Gangland inside prison on the grounds that it "promotes violence and drug use". An inmate at Otago Corrections Facility in Dunedin was sent a copy of the book – but it was ...
New data from the CTU’s annual work life survey shows a snapshot of working people’s experiences and outlook heading out of 2020 and into the new year. Concerningly 42% of respondents cite workplace bullying as an issue in their workplace - a number ...
An international player, selector and self-confessed cricket stats nerd, Penny Kinsella has now played a hand in recording the rich history of the women's game in New Zealand. Penny Kinsella’s cricketing career was perched on the cusp of change for the White Ferns. “My first tour to Australia, we ...
The dramatic capsize of American Magic brought out the best in the America's Cup sailing fraternity. But, Suzanne McFadden asks, what does it mean to the crippled New York Yacht Club campaign and to the Prada Cup? It was a scene as unreal as it was calamitous. Right at the moment the ...
The current number of members of parliament is starting to get too low for the job we expect them to do, argues Alex Braae. As a general rule, with the possible exception of their families, nobody likes backbench MPs. But it’s nevertheless time we accepted that parliament should have more of ...
The experience in the Brazilian city of Manaus reveals how mistaken, and dangerous, the herd-immunity-by-infection theory really is. As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop ...
As New Zealand gears up to fight climate change, experts warn that we need to actually reduce emissions, not just plant trees to offset our greenhouse gases. ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
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)