Daily review 20/09/2021

Written By: - Date published: 5:30 pm, September 20th, 2021 - 79 comments
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Daily review is also your post.

This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

79 comments on “Daily review 20/09/2021 ”

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  1. Gezza 1
    20 September 2021 at 5:40 pm

    Just saw this on TV1:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fhsay1plEfg

    Cute & clever

  2. Muttonbird 2
    20 September 2021 at 5:49 pm

    PM: 'If everyone continues to play their part we can stamp it out'

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/451909/live-the-pm-on-cabinet-s-alert-level-decision

  3. Bill 3
    20 September 2021 at 5:55 pm

    So, a level 3+, but not quite 4, that gives just enough wriggle room for Mr and Mrs Ladidah Fuckwit to bolt to a holiday home before level 4 resumes? But with the possibility that Mr and/or Mrs Ladidah Fuckwit have packed the virus along with their carry bag or suitcase?

    Easy enough to see how this might end somewhat "less than well".

    • Patricia Bremner 3.1
      20 September 2021 at 6:02 pm

      Mr. and Mrs. LF are only allowed take-aways. No holidays Bill. Good to see you backsmiley.

      • Bill 3.1.1
        20 September 2021 at 6:18 pm

        Aye well, 'the rules' are one thing, but then there are the likes of students flying out of Auckland to the South Island on level 4 (still beyond me why there were any fcken domestic passenger flights out of Auckland). Peeps in private chartered planes and sons of judges running here and there at level 4.

        And now …?

        But still. As long as huge numbers of 'not very vulnerable' people get vaccinated with these leaky vaccines and drive the evolution of the virus such that erstwhile somewhat protected people are that much less protected. And as long as society is successfully encouraged to slate the cause for any rise in seriously ill peeps back to the dirty unvaccinated and vilify them accordingly…

    • Ad 3.2
      20 September 2021 at 6:33 pm

      Long time no see and haere mai.

      The LaDiDahs ain't moving a muscle until we can change our freaking flights.

      Soon as we can we will be straight to Dunedin to sort out mother-in-law's transition to rest home hospital care at Yvette Williams. Terrifying separation.

      • Gezza 3.2.1
        20 September 2021 at 6:53 pm

        Sympathies.

        My ma passed away from cancer last April, after I had to help move her in to a nearby Rest Home & Hospital when she became too frail & unable to look after herself at home, & needed specialist trained end-of-life nursing care I couldn’t provide.

        Moved her in Feb 2020, then L4 lockdown arrived for the whole motu. I was unable to visit her. We spoke on the phone for as long as she could manage it, but she passed away while still in L4.

        I was fortunately phoned by a male nurse one Friday to say in his estimation she would go any day, & I could come up, masked, & visit with her for 10 minutes. She was by then unable to speak. Died two days later. The same nurse rang me the minute she passed away, & I was allowed to go up to her room & say good-bye, for which I was very grateful.

        Her funeral (cremation) was completely no frills, with no attendees. Still in L4.

        I was fortunate that even at 94 she’d been sharp as a knife & all her affairs were completely in order. It made executing her will & finalising all other matters very easy, & gave me the satisfaction of knowing that I’d carried out all her wishes & instructions to the letter. She would be proud of me, I know, and that’s what counted the most!

        Hope when you do get to Dunners that all goes well for your wife’s mum, Ad.

        • Ad 3.2.1.1
          20 September 2021 at 7:13 pm

          OMG that is freaking terrible Gezza.

          Well done for staying organised to the end.

          Cheers for the best wishes. Will report back.

          • Gezza 3.2.1.1.1
            20 September 2021 at 7:22 pm

            Ma was my mother-in-law, Ad.

            When I married my late wife, an only child, I had the good fortune to pick up an extra set of parents. They treated me like their son. It was easy to reciprocate their care & affection.

            I promised my wife that if anything happened to her, I’d stay in Tawa & look after them. My mum & dad approved. I had other siblings who could look to their welfare.

            • Gezza 3.2.1.1.1.1
              20 September 2021 at 7:29 pm

              And it was some consolation, when ma passed away, that I wasn’t the only one in that situation.

              There were many of us who shared that stressful time. For some reason, knowing that helped, somehow.

      • Bill 3.2.2
        20 September 2021 at 7:04 pm

        Aye. The nation's sleeves probably fair bulge with self-justifying laudable exceptions that would profess to be all about the humanity (and the ability to afford same).

  4. Incognito 4
    20 September 2021 at 6:57 pm

    Good that Auckland region will go down to L3, but the rest of the nation remains in L2 with the exception of the Mangatangi community, which will be in a quasi-L4 environment for 5 days.

    Steady as she goes, with the effective but crude tools; staying the same course and not even moving the deckchairs.

    Let's keep on jabbing!

    • Gezza 4.1
      20 September 2021 at 7:15 pm

      “Let’s keep on jabbing”

      Speaking of which – a bit late coming to the party, but good to see nevertheless. Let’s hope it helps:

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/451905/maori-king-and-other-leaders-endorse-pfizer-vaccine

    • Bill 4.2
      20 September 2021 at 7:17 pm

      Let's keep on jabbing!

      Why jab? Serious question that. Unless you are vulnerable, all you will be doing is 'forcing' the evolution of the virus in a direction that evades vaccination.

      There's a medical term for the phenomenon, but it escapes me at the moment.

      Anyway. The vaccines are leaky. And given that fact, the best way to endanger vulnerable people is to insist that only mutations capable of sidestepping vaccinations thrive. I believe it's one reason why flu jabs (also leaky) are administered before the flu season and not rolled out to all and sundry during flu's seasonal outbreaks.

      • cricklewood 4.2.1
        20 September 2021 at 7:35 pm

        That's very true… some here are very intolerante to that message.

      • Incognito 4.2.2
        20 September 2021 at 8:13 pm

        We must mandate vaccination. \sarc

        The term you’re looking for is selection pressure.

        The older you are, the more ‘vulnerable’ you are; you don’t become ‘vulnerable’ overnight the day you turn 65 or whatever age you pick from the Excel stats tables that suits the narrative.

        No vaccine is 100% effective and immune responses tend to drop over time, some slower than others. This is normal.

        There will be newer (generations of) vaccines for Covid-19, quite possibly targeting more than one (dominant) strain each year.

        Indeed, better to vaccine before the infectious season is upon us, which is what we’re doing now thanks to the artificial ‘pre-season’ conditions stemming from the elimination strategy. Problem is that evolution takes place virtually unabated in the rest of the world.

        The mutation rate of Covid-19 is relatively (s)low.

        As long as NZ sticks to the proven elimination strategy very few will catch Covid-19, even fewer will become seriously ill, and only rarely will a patient succumb to it – 27 in over 18 months.

        Meanwhile, get as many preventative measures in place, including building as much population immunity as possible against current variants, which in reality is Delta. It is the best we can do under these shitty circumstances, unless you have a better suggestion.

        Vaccination is, however, not a silver bullet.

        PS despite annual multi-strain flu vaccinations, each year quite a few die of the disease. However, measures aimed at Covid-19 seem to have influenced those numbers. Gives you food for thought, doesn’t it?

        • Bill 4.2.2.1
          20 September 2021 at 11:18 pm

          No vaccine is 100% effective …

          That's true. The bit you're missing is "leaky". It is not generally the case that being vaccinated leaves you with around a 50/50 chance of being infected by a virus that will still replicate within you even though you're vaccinated and result in you being a spreader of infection.

          There will be newer (generations of) vaccines for Covid-19, quite possibly targeting more than one (dominant) strain each year.

          Maybe. And the development of a vaccine would generally take ten years or so. The fact we have a clutch of vaccines that we don't know the medium or long term risks of, should maybe be reason enough to pause for thought.

          Indeed, better to vaccine before the infectious season is upon us, which is what we’re doing now thanks to the artificial ‘pre-season’ conditions stemming from the elimination strategy. Problem is that evolution takes place virtually unabated in the rest of the world.

          It's a global pandemic. NZ's very low rates of infection doesn't mean that NZ is in some kind of "pre-flu season" situation. As you wrote, the virus is mutating all around us. That means we are slap bang in the high season.

          The mutation rate of Covid-19 is relatively (s)low.

          I'm not sure what you're basing that on. Regardless. There's an ever emerging list of VOIs VOCs (variations of interest and variations of concern). And since viruses replicate in 'silly numbers' and (to my point about mass vaccination exposing vulnerable sections of society) we are skewing the environment such that only mutations capable of avoiding the current leaky vaccinations spread and multiply…

          A better move would be, as with flu, vaccinate the vulnerable, or those who consider themselves vulnerable. Do not create an environment, by vaccinating all and sundry, that decreases the already imperfect protection for the vulnerable amongst us.

          For those who would not think themselves vulnerable, I guess attaining or maintaining a broadly healthy state wouldn't be a bad idea.

  5. McFlock 5
    20 September 2021 at 7:15 pm

    So a couple of things come up about this lockdown vs the first one, using ourworldindata stringency index and daily new case rolling 7 day average.

    So Auckland spent about the same amount in level 4 this time as NZ did the first time around, but started this time with a lower number of cases.

    This seems to have saved a few more people from being infected at the peak of the current outbreak (speed saves lives and illnesses!), but this outbreak is slightly wider at the ~20 per day mark. Which we probably all kinda knew.

    So, factors that can affect the curve (off the top of my head):

    • Contagiousness: yes, but wouldn't we expect a wider pattern for the full height of the current curve, rather than this little step at the bottom? The delta of doom should have been more difficult to confront at the peak as well as near the base if projected R0 was the main factor affecting our ability to control it.
    • Specific communities affected: A community with less exposure to, access to, or trust in government organisations and providers being impacted this time around could be the bulk of the "long tail", true. This could be our longstanding and oft-lamented (or denied by the privileged) inequities in access to healthcare could be biting us in the covid response.
    • Lockdown fatigue: No idea of the stats on this, but maybe people have let their definitions of "essential" and "bubble" slip. Not just the high-profile cases, but the daily grind of distancing on store runs, not chatting with friends or neighbours face to face, that sort of thing. The top gets knocked off the outbreak, but folks fall into silly habits and keep covid ticking over.

    I think the curve indicates that the middle and last possibilities are the main drivers for the shape of the curve, rather than delta being significantly more difficult to stamp out than covd mk1.

    Anyone have any other ideas?

    • cricklewood 5.1
      20 September 2021 at 7:43 pm

      Based on what I've seen, people are less inclined to follow the 'rules' to the letter this time around… partly because there are less unknowns this time… ie we know outdoor transmission is rare so chatting in the garden, park, beach etc is very low risk. .. you can also add to that vaccination, once you've had a jab or two it's very clear the risks you face are very small so rather than have the mental health struggle, cabin fever etc you expand your bubble… you add those cohorts to non belivers it makes a significant number of people.

      • weka 5.1.1
        20 September 2021 at 8:02 pm

        the vaxxed thinking they're all good is a concern. I saw this play out with people I knew in the US who once they were vaccinated started travelling. Seemed mad even then, but now it's clear that vaccinated people can still transmit, we need more emphasis on hand washing, masks, appropriate distancing.

        • Cricklewood 5.1.1.1
          20 September 2021 at 8:27 pm

          Statistically unless you have significant comorbidities once you are double vaxxed an even single vaxxed you are 'all good' very hard to tell someone who has done their bit in getting vaxxed that actually you still have to maintain distance etc… as the vaxxed percentage grows lockdowns are going to become less and less politically feasible.

          Basically from todays decision onwards I suspect things get alot harder for the govt… in that acceptance of returning to a level 4 lockdown isnt going to be there but at the same time our health system will not cope with an outbreak even amongst the 25 percent or so people who haven’t been vaxxed

          • weka 5.1.1.1.1
            20 September 2021 at 9:02 pm

            Preprint from August,

            The study shows that vaccinated people who become infected with the Delta variant carry high peak levels of virus. When the Alpha variant was dominant in the United Kingdom, vaccinated people who became infected had much lower peak viral loads.

            The implications of this aren’t clear, Walker says. “Most of our tests are monthly; we can’t really say very much at all about how long people are infectious for and particularly whether that’s different with Delta,” she says. “Anyone who thinks that if they get infected having been vaccinated, they can’t transmit — that isn’t likely to be true.”

            https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02261-8

            Part of the problem here is that much of the discussion about vaccines last year didn't make it clear that the covid vaccine gives partial not full immunity.

            What I'm hearing from the government is that going forward we will need all the tools. Vaccination, hygiene practices, periodic probably localised lockdowns. The vaccine on its own won't be enough even if we get to very high rates.

            The results, published in a preprint on 19 August1, suggest that both vaccines are effective against Delta after two doses, but that the protection they offer wanes with time. The vaccine made by Pfizer in New York City and BioNTech in Mainz, Germany, was 92% effective at keeping people from developing a high viral load — a high concentration of the virus in their test samples — 14 days after the second dose. But the vaccine’s effectiveness fell to 90%, 85% and 78% after 30, 60 and 90 days, respectively.

            We're not going back to normal once everyone is vaccinated, we will have to create a new society. I don't think having to use multiple tools is a bad thing eg it's dropped the flu and cold rates too. I'd like to see us address poverty as a driver of respiratory illness, and also look at wellbeing more broadly. Lots of people I know (South Island) feel that there are benefits to lockdown beyond elimination of covid eg slowing down, time to reflect on what matters, better work/life balance. Obviously that's not been possible for everyone, and it's a perspective probably more outside of Auckland that's done the heavy lifting in the past year. But we don't need to be afraid of the uncertainty given we still have a very good public health response across the tools.

            • Cricklewood 5.1.1.1.1.1
              20 September 2021 at 9:20 pm

              Thing is that hasnt really been the messaging… and its very clear from the stats and backed up but what we're told by govt that if double vaxxed your chances of getting seriously ill are extremely small so restrictions are going to be a hard sell. It seems at this point the best immunity comes from catching covid then having a single shot afterwards… and as Bill mentions above, leaky vaccines (as these are) come with their own potential issues.

              Its going to be a long and difficult road and personally I feel that we haven't actually advanced our preparedness that much even though we bought ourselves alot of time with the first lockdown.

              That belief is based on a few things, such as rushing builders into hospitals once we were in level 4 to commision more negative pressure rooms, running out of quarantine capacity very quickly, having to train more contact tracers mid out outbreak, nurses not fitted to N95 mask… all things we should have had ready to roll in the time we had… it's almost like there was great confidence that our border strategy would keep delta, imagine the fallout if it had arrived 8 weeks earlier before we had sufficient vaccine in the country…

              • Incognito …
                20 September 2021 at 10:21 pm

                It seems at this point the best immunity comes from catching covid then having a single shot afterwards…

                Please, do tell us more. This is a major issue debated by experts and far from settled, AFAIK. However, nobody is actually arguing that one should deliberately catch Covid-19 first and then take a “single shot” (of which vaccine?) to build the “best immunity”. I look forward to being educated on this topic further.

              • weka …
                20 September 2021 at 11:32 pm

                but what we're told by govt that if double vaxxed your chances of getting seriously ill are extremely small so restrictions are going to be a hard sell.

                The issue isn't only who gets ill, it's who passes covid on to others. Delta won't be the last variant, the current vaccines don't last that long. We are acting as if the vaccine is a silver bullet.

                The government is between a rock and a hard place in terms of messaging. They have to balance hope with reality and uncertainty. No-one knows how this is going to play out, we're still in the novel part of the novel virus.

                There are definitely holes in our covid response, some avoidable, some not. Each wave of pressure brings new learning and new adaptation. This is the world we live in, and even if covid passes, there will be future challenges and climate change means that everyone now lives an uncertain life. The more resiliency and adaptability we build now as a society, the better off we will be.

            • Incognito 5.1.1.1.1.2
              20 September 2021 at 10:15 pm

              I like your thinking wink

              The idea that’s slowly growing, in Government and then the seed is planted in the public, is that lockdowns will hopefully be a thing of the past, but this doesn’t necessarily rule out Level 3 measures.

              Time will tell.

    • weka 5.2
      20 September 2021 at 7:55 pm

      what's the current thinking on object transmission. Drinks at 2m on the drive might be fine until someone has to handle the wine glasses. Or is it all air and direct contact risk now?

      • Gezza 5.2.1
        20 September 2021 at 8:15 pm

        Pretty sure I heard at least one of the TV station “Go To” virology experts say recently that surface transmission wasn’t really all that much of a concern these days. It’s airborne transmission that’s the primary vector.

        Doesn’t mean the other usual experts agree with him. (Can’t remember who it was – a male though.)

        • McFlock 5.2.1.1
          20 September 2021 at 8:23 pm

          We tend to be able to detect the more rare "elevator button" exposures simply because there are so few other connections and our contact tracing and genome sequencing are so on ball.

          Try that in Texas, who the heck knows precisely who gave someone the covid.

          But most hospo workers I've encountered are masked up and gloved/sanitisered up pretty well, so the contamination is minimal as long as you use sanitiser when using any eftpos keypads (if your cards aren't yet contactless).

          • Gezza 5.2.1.1.1
            20 September 2021 at 8:36 pm

            When we were briefly in L4 in Welly this year, I noticed that the local supermarket staff didn’t seem to be assiduously wiping down all the trolley handles & wire cage tops after each use, as they were during L4 last year.

            They were running a very clear system in 2020. You were only permitted to select a trolley from the disinfected trolley racks. Used trolleys went into a separate rack, further away from the doorkeepers, until they’d been sprayed & handles wiped down.

            This last time, they were more into encouraging shoppers to use the gels & handsprays before selecting a trolley

          • weka 5.2.1.1.2
            20 September 2021 at 9:11 pm

            Presumably then so long as you take the wine glasses inside and wash them, both your hands and the glasses are then free of the virus.

            We could probably do with some reminders about not rubbing our eyes or touching our faces.

            • McFlock 5.2.1.1.2.1
              20 September 2021 at 9:37 pm

              Well, a lot of that is covered by basic food hygiene in most places. Controls against rotovirus or what have you also work against coronavirus.

              I suspect covid means a lot more small places are now actually wearing gloves as often as they should have been all along (years ago friend of mine overheard her new deli counter boss saying so many more disposable gloves were being used since friend started – she was using the gloves to spec, nobody else was lol).

              • weka …
                20 September 2021 at 11:39 pm

                I commented elsewhere that it seems like people down south are taking precautions more seriously since the Auckland/Wanaka couple thing. Good.

                Re wine glasses, I was thinking about the flux of the fuzzy boundaries in different levels. Does socialising on the driveway with a 2m distance increase the spread of the virus or decrease it because it enables people to do the other, more important measures better and for longer (someone might have already said this).

      • Cricklewood 5.2.2
        20 September 2021 at 8:21 pm

        Seems to be that biggest risks sit with indok3r areas with poor ventilation

    • AB 5.3
      20 September 2021 at 10:38 pm

      "Anyone have any other ideas?"

      No, I think you are right. A more infectious virus just means that some types of interpersonal contact that would be relatively harmless with a less infectious pathogen, become more risky. Your lockdown therefore needs to limit contact somewhat more strictly to be as successful. But in the real world, this strictness has natural limits – it hits boundaries beyond which people will not or cannot comply. And those limits are not uniform across a population but are influenced by people's circumstances, knowledge, expectations, habits, etc.

  6. Muttonbird 6
    20 September 2021 at 7:27 pm

    Good to see some heat being put on at last. There has to be a deterrent. Their own community, now under L4 will be the judge. Hopefully the support, too.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-infected-prisoner-made-four-stops-before-arriving-at-bail-address/HSJ7MZBHHFZOHQ6YYYYIABSVJM/

    • Cricklewood 6.1
      20 September 2021 at 8:01 pm

      That article is interesting raises a few questions though, ie if he caught it from the driver who was a family member do the live in the town he was bailed to or did they drive him from Auckland and they returned once he was dropped off… has the driver been tested? and where did they catch it from?

      Then the accomodation was no longer available which reads like the family kicked him back out… you have to ask why… were unwelcome 'vistors' coming to the house? If thats the case there's going to be a sting in the tail… worrying really…

  7. Jester 7
    20 September 2021 at 7:37 pm

    Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! I picked it right! KFC from Wednesday morning in Auckland.

    • Muttonbird 7.1
      20 September 2021 at 7:42 pm

      I get confused by the KFC reference. Takeaways is merely a means to largely deliver profit to corporate food barons.

      Level 3 means nothing different to me and my family. We might be able to walk in a different place, but that is it.

      • weka 7.1.1
        20 September 2021 at 7:56 pm

        some of us rely on takeaways for nutrition and meals.

        • Gezza 7.1.1.1
          20 September 2021 at 8:08 pm

          Living alone, I’d probably soon expire without a good stock of frozen Tomorrow’s Meals. One soon gets sick of cooking & doing pots, pans & other dishes for one most of the time.

      • bwaghorn 7.1.2
        21 September 2021 at 11:34 am

        "Level 4 but with KFC " was the meme that was the sum total of national parties contribution to the fight against covid in the first lockdown

    • Macro 7.2
      20 September 2021 at 9:06 pm

      Sorry but your KFC got apprehended by the police and destroyed. 🚔😜

  8. Gezza 8
    20 September 2021 at 7:38 pm

    “Three senior staff have departed the National Party’s Parliamentary office in recent weeks as the party’s poll ratings have plummeted.

    Digital director Francis Till, press secretary Julia Stewart, and head of data and insights Sophie Lloyd have all departed. All have years of experience in Parliament.

    A comment on Till’s Instagram suggests he was dismissed rather than leaving the role voluntarily however.”
    …
    “Till declined to comment, but wrote on his Instagram that he had been dismissed, writing that he had drank from a “poisoned chalice” despite being warned not to.”
    …
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300411266/national-party-three-senior-staffers-departing-judith-collins-office
    … … … …

    The Collins Drama continues to play out ….

  9. Hard Left 9
    20 September 2021 at 7:39 pm

    'Group 3 unvaxxed advised to stay home', Localized lockdown – Suppression?

    Wouldn't people around Mangatangi have travelled into Hamilton for work? For elimination, shouldn't the whole of Waikato be in Level 4?

    Experts were calling for Auckland to stay in Level 4.

    • weka 9.1
      20 September 2021 at 8:00 pm

      People living in Mangatangi or having visited/worked there are being told to stay home. If there's any outward transmission, new cases will be picked up and managed as per normal. They've had a few days to do contact and location tracing of the known cases, and I would guess they're also looking forward in time to surrounding areas. I also assume we're further ahead of the curve than we were with the original Auckland case that set of this outbreak.

      • Cricklewood 9.1.1
        20 September 2021 at 8:07 pm

        Not sure about that if one of the kids was at school while infectious last week its very possible.it could have been passed on again and with the very short incubation Delta has its very possible someone else has picked it up, become infectious between Thursday last week and todays announcement and travelled into Hamilton for example

      • Hard Left 9.1.2
        20 September 2021 at 8:46 pm

        But, if the virus is in Hamilton it will spread fast because they are only in Level 2? Isn't it basically impossible to contain Delta with contract tracing in Level 2?

        You can't contract trace ahead of time though? I agree with the last part, the source appears to be one of the people who drove him to the bail address.

        • weka 9.1.2.1
          20 September 2021 at 9:06 pm

          If delta cases turn up in Hamilton, it won't stay at L2.

          I don't know how they manage this, but Mangatangi has a population of 400 ish people. It's different than a city of a million.

          I would expect increased public health messaging in those areas eg if you have symptoms stay home and get tested.

          They're also doing a huge test drive in the area, which should pick up cases, and those people will then give their movements, which generates close contacts and locations of interest, and those people will isolate and so on.

          • Hard Left 9.1.2.1.1
            20 September 2021 at 9:51 pm

            But, it could already have been circulating in Hamilton for 2 days and there could be x number of cases? But, then you are always behind, when you pick up cases they have already passed it on?

            • McFlock 9.1.2.1.1.1
              20 September 2021 at 10:22 pm

              As for contact tracing ahead of time, not sure what that would do to the tracers' workload or the impact on compliance. Or even what models they would use to predict it without swamping tracers and contacters with thousands more people who don't really have a realistic chance of being infected, and half of Auckland being traced for every positive case.

              • Hard Left …
                21 September 2021 at 11:40 am

                I was saying contract tracing cannot control Delta at Level 2, but your comment made me think about doing it 'ahead of time'. The government should have used something like the United States' Defense Production Act to force companies to become contract tracers.

                I also think they should have had a large facility/facilities for isolation or used monitoring. The tracers could isolate what they call 'very close contacts' 2 days ahead.

                • McFlock …
                  21 September 2021 at 2:30 pm

                  Oh, I thought that's what you meant by "ahead of time" at 9.1.2.

                  I think they already use MIQ slots for isolation – like that was why they suspended MIQ during L4?

                  The thing about predicting close contacts is that most won't actually have been close contacts.The flipside is to up the community testing – saw this morning that everyone in an entire suburb is asked to get tested?

                  If it's spreading between unknown contacts at L2, there's trouble, sure. But if it is focused in known family or social groups, and we pretty well know the limits of that group, then should be ok even at 2.

                  • Hard Left …
                    21 September 2021 at 3:10 pm

                    Yes, but MIQ capacity is limited. They only quarantine cases and sometimes their household.

                    Yes, they have been doing that over the past week. I am not sure what the uptake is though. Most people do not stay just stay in their family and social groups in Level 2 though?

                    • McFlock …
                      21 September 2021 at 3:32 pm

                      We-ell people are creatures of habit. Usual supermarket, usual workplace, usual home. Sure, you might pass someone in the supermarket, but they're far more likely to live a few blocks away than go to Wellington the next day.

                      So you have problems with individuals who have many, many contacts – salespeople, "essential" politicians trying to keep their jobs, that sort of thing. Then there are the mixing events, like rugby matches and rock gigs.

                      There's a lot of crossover with network theory – most people only have a few nodes of connection and those are pretty short distance edges. Then there are a few people with a lot of connections, and a few people with "long string" connections so that they have the usual flatmate/work connections but also have say a connect with someone in a different town – e.g. truckies.

                      So limiting the size of gatherings deals to the nodes with lots of connections, and things like contactless deliveries helps limit the likelihood of the long strings infecting unconnected subnetworks.

                      But it also illustrates why predictive isolation might be functionally impossible to implement: say I am a close contact of a colleague who went to a supermarket between 4 and 5 pm. So I go into isolation, even though my colleague probably hasn't infected me. But then I went to a supermarket between 7 and 8 pm. The might be an extra 400 people who need to be tracked down and isolated and tested, when their transmission node (me) probably didn't have it anyway. Then there are all my other colleagues as close contacts (and the people they were on the bus with being "close contacts once removed"), etc. The numbers pretty quickly become unmanagable.

                      Whereas we'd probably all be better off doing it as we are now.

                  • Hard Left …
                    21 September 2021 at 6:12 pm

                    Sorry for my short reply to your detailed post. I was more referring to places like bars, restaurants, shops e.t.c.

            • weka 9.1.2.1.1.2
              20 September 2021 at 11:35 pm

              sure, but there's a balance to be had between the negative social realities of lockdown and the necessity to get ahead of transmission.

              Someone who understands it better than me can maybe talk about the R value of delta at the start of transmission in the community. I thought it was the low R value that enabled Auckland to go from L4 to L3 this week, the value being low because most people getting covid at the moment are already in isolation.

              • weka …
                20 September 2021 at 11:37 pm

                It's not like Hamilton is in L1. L2 does have measures in place to prevent spread of unknown covid in the community, that's the whole point of all of us staying in L2 until the transmission chains are broken.

                I'm also guessing that the MoH/government wants to know more before putting Waikato into a higher level, they want to know what they are dealing with.

                • Hard Left …
                  21 September 2021 at 11:42 am

                  Distancing is only really followed in hospitality and I suspect masks are only being worn in shops and healthcare.

              • Hard Left …
                21 September 2021 at 11:41 am

                What do you classify as negative social impacts of lockdown? Yes, they cited the low R-value. However, some of the daily cases are infectious in the community and in Level 3 the chances of passing it on are higher so the R-value may increase.

          • Sacha 9.1.2.1.2
            21 September 2021 at 12:10 pm

            The main NZ Covid modelling software can now predict likely areas of spread from very localised Stats NZ data, so I imagine they would have run that to set the size of this latest L4 pocket. Nothing is foolproof when humans are involved, however. Excellent contact tracing is essential.

            • Hard Left 9.1.2.1.2.1
              21 September 2021 at 12:31 pm

              I was very surprised the initial modelling predicted 50-100 and then 100-200 cases given it was Delta with an unknown source and many large exposure events.

              • Incognito …
                21 September 2021 at 2:33 pm

                Shaun Hendy said this on Monday 23 Aug:

                However, he [Hendy] warns the outbreak will continue to grow.

                "I would say a best case scenario would be something like what we saw in August last year – probably, higher than that. Maybe 200 [cases] might be the best case scenario but it could go as high as 1000 [cases]. That's still a possibility.

                "But we will see later this week how alert level four is working and it's alert level four which will actually determine the number of cases in this cluster."

                https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/08/covid-19-disease-modelling-expert-shaun-hendy-warns-nz-outbreak-could-grow-to-1000-cases.html

                • Hard Left …
                  21 September 2021 at 3:11 pm

                  That was the 'worst-case scenario' a week into lockdown. What I was referring to was the predictions during the first week.

                  • Incognito …
                    21 September 2021 at 3:29 pm

                    First week of what??

                    NZ moved Level 4 lockdown on midnight Tuesday 17th of August, so in all reality on Wednesday 18th of August. The date stamp on the linked piece is 23th of August.

                    Do you know how modelling works? Do you know what it can and cannot do? Do you know how it depends on boundary settings, initial parameterisation, and overall model assumptions? Do you know that useful predictive models include probabilities and confidence intervals?

                    • Hard Left …
                      21 September 2021 at 6:12 pm

                      Yes. I am at university and have done Statistics papers at Stage 1, 2 and 3. What I am saying is you should not take modelling as what is going to happen.

            • weka 9.1.2.1.2.2
              21 September 2021 at 1:21 pm

              oh that is cool.

  11. I Feel Love 11
    20 September 2021 at 10:01 pm

    In Indiana USA more people died in 2020 than were born, according to Nightly News (Sept 19).