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".
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…
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.”
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.)
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).
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
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).
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).
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.
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.
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…
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.
“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.
“National leader Judith Collins has admitted she made a mistake after she was caught on video over the weekend ordering icecream at the counter of a Queenstown café without wearing a mask.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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?
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.
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The OECD’s chief economist yesterday laid it on the line for the new Government: bring the deficit under control or face higher Reserve Bank interest rates for longer. And to bring the deficit under control, she meant not borrowing for tax cuts. But there was more. Without policy changes—introducing a ...
After a hiatus of over four months Selwyn Manning and I finally got it together to re-start the “A View from Afar” podcast series. We shall see how we go but aim to do 2 episodes per month if possible. … Continue reading → ...
In 2008, the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act 2008. The law established a system of targets, budgets, and plans, with inbuilt accountability mechanisms; the aim was to break the cycle of empty promises and replace it with actual progress towards emissions reduction. The law was passed with near-universal ...
Buzz from the Beehive Local Water Done Well – let’s be blunt – is a silly name, but the first big initiative to put it into practice has gone done well. This success is reflected in the headline on an RNZ report:District mayors welcome Auckland’s new water deal with ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate ConnectionsA farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – The Children’s Minister, Karen Chhour, intends to repeal Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989 because it creates conflict between claimed Crown Treaty obligations and the child’s best interests. In her words, “Oranga Tamariki’s governing principles and its act should be colour ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. ...
Brian Easton writes – This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them ...
TL;DR:Winston Peters is reported to have won a budget increase for MFAT. David Seymour wanted his Ministry of Regulation to be three times bigger than the Productivity Commission. Simeon Brown is appointing a Crown Monitor to Watercare to protect the Claytons Crown Guarantee he had to give ratings agencies ...
The gloves are off. That might seem to be the undertone of surprisingly tough talk from New Zealand’s foreign and trade ministers. Winston Peters, the foreign minister, may be facing legal action after making allegations about former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr on Radio New Zealand. Carr had made highly ...
I could be a florist'Round the corner from Rye LaneI'll be giving daisies to craziesBut, baby, I'll wrap you up real safe Oh, I can give you flowers At the end of every dayFor the center of your table, a rainbowIn case you have people 'round to stay Depending on ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to May 12 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Finance Minister Nicola Willis will give a pre-budget speech on Thursday.Parliament sits from Question Time at 2pm on ...
The price of the foreign affairs “reset” is now becoming apparent, with Defence set to get a funding boost in the Budget. Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that it will be one of the few votes, apart from Health and Education and possibly Police, which will get an increase ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 28, 2024 thru Sat, May 4, 2024. Story of the week "It’s straight out of Big Tobacco’s playbook. In fact, research by John Cook and his colleagues ...
Yesterday I received come lovely feedback following my Star Wars themed newsletter. A few people mentioned they’d enjoyed reading the personal part at the beginning.I often begin newsletters with some memories, or general thoughts, before commencing the main topic. This hopefully sets the mood and provides some context in which ...
April 30 was going to be the day we’d be calling Mum from London to wish her a happy birthday. Then it became the day we would be going to St. Paul's at Evensong to remember her. The aim of the cathedral builders was to find a way to make their ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Can’t remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus ...
Eric Crampton writes – Grudges are bad. Better to move on. But it can be fun to keep a couple of really trivial ones, so you’re not tempted to have other ones. For example, because of the rootkit fiasco of 2005, no Sony products in our household. ...
A new report warns an estimated third of the adult population have unmet need for health care.Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāHere’s the six key things I learned about Aotaroa’s political economy this week around housing, climate and poverty:Politics - Three opinion polls confirmed support for PM Christopher Luxon ...
Today is May the fourth. Which was just a regular day when my mother took me to see the newly released Star Wars at the Odeon in Rotorua. The queue was right around the corner. Some years later this day became known as Star Wars Day, the date being a ...
Buzz from the Beehive Much more media attention is being paid to something Winston Peters said about former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr than to a speech he delivered to the New Zealand China Council. One word is missing from the speech: AUKUS. But AUKUS loomed large in his considerations ...
Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be ...
The annual list of who's been bribing our politicians is out, and journalists will no doubt be poring over it to find the juiciest and dirtiest bribes. The government's fast-track invite list is likely to be a particular focus, and we already know of one company on the list which ...
In the weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Southern Israel I wrote about the possible 2nd, 3rd and even 4th order effects of the conflict. These included new fronts being opened in the West Bank (with Hamas), Golan … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is one of the oldest truisms that there is never a good time for MPs to get a pay rise. This week’s announcement of pay raises of around 2.8% backdated to last October could hardly have come at a worse time, with the ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Newshub can reveal a fresh allegation of intimidation against Green MP Julie-Anne Genter. Genter is subject to a disciplinary process for aggressively waving a book in the face of National Minister Matt Doocey in the House – but it’s not the first time ...
The Treasury has published a paper today on the global productivity slowdown and how it is playing out in New Zealand: The productivity slowdown: implications for the Treasury’s forecasts and projections. The Treasury Paper examines recent trends in productivity and the potential drivers of the slowdown. Productivity for the whole economy ...
Winston Peters’ comments about former Australian foreign minister look set to be an ongoing headache for both him and Luxon. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts and , along with regular guests on Gaza and ...
These puppet strings don't pull themselvesYou're thinking thoughts from someone elseHow much time do you think you have?Are you prepared for what comes next?The debating chamber can be a trying place for an opposition MP. What with the person in charge, the speaker, typically being an MP from the governing ...
The land around Lyme Regis, where Meryl Streep once stood, in a hood, on the Cobb, is falling into the sea.MerylThe land around Lyme Regis, around the Cobb that made it rich, has always been falling slowly but surely into the sea. Read more ...
Photo by Jari Hytönen on UnsplashIt’s that new day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when and I co-host our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm. Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was bound to win headlines when he set out his thinking about AUKUS in his speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. The headlines became bigger when – during an interview on RNZ’s Morning Report today – he criticised ...
The Post reports on how the government is refusing to release its advice on its corrupt Muldoonist fast-track law, instead using the "soon to be publicly available" refusal ground to hide it until after select committee submissions on the bill have closed. Fast-track Minister Chris Bishop's excuse? “It's not ...
As pressure on it grows, the livestock industry’s approach to the transition to Net Zero is increasingly being compared to that of fossil fuel interests. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesTL;DR: Here’s the top five news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above ...
The New Zealand Herald reports – Stats NZ has offered a voluntary redundancy scheme to all of its workers as a way to give staff some control over their “future” amidst widespread job losses in the public sector. In an update to staff this morning, seen by the Herald, Statistics New Zealand ...
On Werewolf/Scoop, I usually do two long form political columns a week. From now on, there will be an extra column each week about music and movies. But first, some late-breaking political events:The rise in unemployment numbers for the March quarter was bigger than expected – and especially sharp ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: TVNZ says it is dealing with about 50 formal complaints over its coverage of the latest 1News-Verian political poll, with some viewers – as well as the Prime Minister and a former senior Labour MP – critical of the tone of the 6pm report. ...
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
Your Excellency Ambassador Meredith, Members of the Diplomatic Corps and Ambassadors from European Union Member States, Ministerial colleagues, Members of Parliament, and other distinguished guests, Thank you everyone for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen - In diplomacy, we often speak of ‘close’ and ‘long-standing’ relations. ...
The Therapeutic Products Act (TPA) will be repealed this year so that a better regime can be put in place to provide New Zealanders safe and timely access to medicines, medical devices and health products, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello announced today. “The medicines and products we are talking about ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, today released his decision on twenty recommendations referred to him by the Wellington City Council relating to its Intensification Planning Instrument, after the Council rejected those recommendations of the Independent Hearings Panel and made alternative recommendations. “Wellington notified its District Plan on ...
Rape Awareness Week (6-10 May) is an important opportunity to acknowledge the continued effort required by government and communities to ensure that all New Zealanders can live free from violence, say Ministers Karen Chhour and Louise Upston. “With 1 in 3 women and 1 in 8 men experiencing sexual violence ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government will be delivering a more efficient Healthy School Lunches Programme, saving taxpayers approximately $107 million a year compared to how Labour funded it, by embracing innovation and commercial expertise. “We are delivering on our commitment to treat taxpayers’ money ...
New research on the impacts of extreme weather on coastal marine habitats in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay will help fishery managers plan for and respond to any future events, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. A report released today on research by Niwa on behalf of Fisheries New Zealand ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters will lead a broad political delegation on a five-stop Pacific tour next week to strengthen New Zealand’s engagement with the region. The delegation will visit Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tuvalu. “New Zealand has deep and ...
There has been a material decline in gas production according to figures released today by the Gas Industry Co. Figures released by the Gas Industry Company show that there was a 12.5 per cent reduction in gas production during 2023, and a 27.8 per cent reduction in gas production in the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins tonight announced the recipients of the Minister of Defence Awards of Excellence for Industry, saying they all contribute to New Zealanders’ security and wellbeing. “Congratulations to this year’s recipients, whose innovative products and services play a critical role in the delivery of New Zealand’s defence capabilities, ...
Welcome to you all - it is a pleasure to be here this evening.I would like to start by thanking Greg Lowe, Chair of the New Zealand Defence Industry Advisory Council, for co-hosting this reception with me. This evening is about recognising businesses from across New Zealand and overseas who in ...
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you as the Minister for Digitising Government. I would like to thank Akolade for the invitation to address this Summit, and to acknowledge the great effort you are making to grow New Zealand’s digital future. Today, we stand at the cusp of ...
New Zealand is urging both Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate ceasefire to avoid the further humanitarian catastrophe that military action in Rafah would unleash, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The immense suffering in Gaza cannot be allowed to worsen further. Both sides have a responsibility to ...
A new online data dashboard released today as part of the Government’s school attendance action plan makes more timely daily attendance data available to the public and parents, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. The interactive dashboard will be updated once a week to show a national average of how ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced Rosemary Banks will be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States of America. “Our relationship with the United States is crucial for New Zealand in strategic, security and economic terms,” Mr Peters says. “New Zealand and the United States have a ...
The Government is considering creating a new tier of minerals permitting that will make it easier for hobby miners to prospect for gold. “New Zealand was built on gold, it’s in our DNA. Our gold deposits, particularly in regions such as Otago and the West Coast have always attracted fortune-hunters. ...
Minister for Trade Todd McClay today announced that New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will commence negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA). Minister McClay met with his counterpart UAE Trade Minister Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi in Dubai, where they announced the launch of negotiations on a ...
New Zealand Sign Language Week is an excellent opportunity for all Kiwis to give the language a go, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. This week (May 6 to 12) is New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Week. The theme is “an Aotearoa where anyone can sign anywhere” and aims to ...
Six tertiary students have been selected to work on NASA projects in the US through a New Zealand Space Scholarship, Space Minister Judith Collins announced today. “This is a fantastic opportunity for these talented students. They will undertake internships at NASA’s Ames Research Center or its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where ...
New Zealanders will be safer because of a $1.9 billion investment in more frontline Corrections officers, more support for offenders to turn away from crime, and more prison capacity, Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell says. “Our Government said we would crack down on crime. We promised to restore law and order, ...
The OECD’s latest report on New Zealand reinforces the importance of bringing Government spending under control, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The OECD conducts country surveys every two years to review its members’ economic policies. The 2024 New Zealand survey was presented in Wellington today by OECD Chief Economist Clare Lombardelli. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Next week the government will again next try to get its legislation through to deal with non-citizens who won’t cooperate with efforts to deport them. The bill, which the opposition and crossbench refused to rush ...
A long-term project that will set out an alternative vision for Aotearoa that looks beyond the narrow confines of the policy straight jacket adopted by successive governments. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bree Hurst, Associate Professor, Faculty of Business and Law, QUT, Queensland University of Technology TK Kurikawa/Shutterstock A much-awaited report into Coles and Woolworths has found what many customers have long believed – Australia’s big supermarkets engage in price gouging. What started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Ghezelbash, Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney The Albanese government wanted to avoid an inquiry into its migration amendment bill. The report, handed down yesterday by a senate committee that ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joo-Cheong Tham, Professor, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne Lobbying is at the heart of government. Who has access to and influence over key government officials shapes the decisions governments make – and how they make them. The ability to influence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Myfany Turpin, Associate Professor, Ethnomusicology, Linguistics and Ethnobiology, University of Sydney The act representing Australia at this year’s Eurovision contest has sadly not qualified for the grand final. Yet for Zaachariaha Fielding and Michael Ross, the duo that makes up Electric Fields, ...
In announcing changes to the school lunches programme, David Seymour said kids would no longer be served ‘woke’ foods. To clear up any confusion, The Spinoff has compiled a guide to the wokeness levels of some common food items. Apple = NOT WOKE Avocado = WOKE Avocado, smashed = EVEN ...
The Minister Responsible for GCSB and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security have been notified of this review, and have been provided a finalised Terms of Reference. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Minglu Chen, Senior Lecturer, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney Robert Way/Shutterstock As the past few years have illustrated so clearly, the Australia-China relationship is complicated. As such, it is crucial for Australians to develop a more nuanced understanding of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mariana Campbell, Research Lecturer, Conservation, Charles Darwin University Marilyn Connell Australian freshwater turtles are facing an alarming trend. Almost half of these species are listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. The Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus) is one of Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debbie Passey, Digital Health Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne Algorithms have become integral to our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, algorithms learn your preferences and prioritise the content you are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are nothing without ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Josephine Barbaro, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, Psychologist, La Trobe University Unsplash We’ve come a long way in terms of understanding that everyone thinks, interacts and experiences the world differently. In the past, autistic people, people with attention deficit hyperactive disorder ...
PNG Post-Courier Papua New Guinea’s deputy opposition leader James Nomane has accused the government of “reckless economic management” that has forced devaluation to manage loan repayments in foreign currency and placate the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prime Minister James Marape “must stop lying to the people of Papua New Guinea”, ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Jane Arthur, author of Brown Bird, and former bookseller at Good Books.The book I wish I’d writtenI have been working on not comparing myself to others. On accepting that what I can ...
The final decision on the Wellington District Plan makes it official: High-density housing is legal across most of Wellington. Housing minister Chris Bishop has announced his decision on the Wellington District Plan, approving a series of amendments to radically upzone most of Wellington, allowing tens of thousands of new townhouses ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards – Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. “Follow the money” is the classic directive to journalists trying to understand where power and influence lie in society. In terms of uncovering who influences various New Zealand political parties and governments, it therefore pays to ...
RNZ News As Israel presses ahead with strikes in Rafah and seizing the Rafah crossing from Egypt, aid agencies are sounding the alarm of a “catastrophic humanitarian situation”. Rafah was “significant” because it was the only part in Gaza that had not been terribly damaged by the conflict, United Nations ...
With funding set to be scrapped for the Hamilton-Auckland commuter train, Te Huia enthusiast Georgie Dansey argues for it to be thrown a lifeline. It’s 5.45am and the chain of my crappy old bike falls off slugging up the one hill in Hamilton. I contemplate yeeting the bike into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Cooke, Honorary Fellow, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland We feel ecological grief when we lose places, species or ecosystems we value and love. These losses are a growing threat to mental health and wellbeing globally. We all see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shauna Brail, Associate Professor, Institute for Management & Innovation, University of Toronto A shift to hybrid and remote work continues to affect worker presence in Toronto’s downtown.(Shutterstock) Downtown Toronto, the core of Canada’s largest city, continues to reel from the lingering ...
Responding to an Auditor-General's report slamming failures in the administration of the 2023 General Election, Taxpayers’ Union Policy and Public Affairs Manager, James Ross, said: ...
Productivity apps now make up a big chunk of the software market. But do they work? And why do they all have AI integrations?Despite being firmly on the record as a physical planner fan, I sometimes dream of something better than my pretty diary and its scrawled, ugly, interior ...
The Taxpayers’ Union says the Beehive need to lead by example, following reports of more than $50,000 spent upgrading video conferencing equipment and furniture in the Prime Minister’s office. Taxpayers’ Union Campaign Manager, Connor Molloy, ...
An objective list of the 50 most powerful people in New Zealand, as judged by the Spinoff Editorial Board. It’s power list season, baby, and we want in on the action. Sure, there’s the rich list and the powerful “c-suite” list and the young people with power (hmmm) but here, ...
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Just saw this on TV1:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fhsay1plEfg
Cute & clever
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/451909/live-the-pm-on-cabinet-s-alert-level-decision
As a "rule breaker" I can go on breaking the rules – PLAYING MY PART.
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".
Mr. and Mrs. LF are only allowed take-aways. No holidays Bill. Good to see you back.
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…
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.
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.
OMG that is freaking terrible Gezza.
Well done for staying organised to the end.
Cheers for the best wishes. Will report back.
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.
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.
Aye.
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).
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!
“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
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.
That's very true… some here are very intolerante to that message.
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?
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.
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):
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?
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.
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.
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
Preprint from August,
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
I like your thinking
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.
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?
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.)
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).
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
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.
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).
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).
Seems to be that biggest risks sit with indok3r areas with poor ventilation
I suppose what interests me is where the risks are lower and people get slack.
"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.
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/
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…
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! I picked it right! KFC from Wednesday morning in Auckland.
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.
some of us rely on takeaways for nutrition and meals.
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.
"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
Sorry but your KFC got apprehended by the police and destroyed. 🚔😜
“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 ….
Oh Gawd !
“National leader Judith Collins has admitted she made a mistake after she was caught on video over the weekend ordering icecream at the counter of a Queenstown café without wearing a mask.
The National leader, who has been quick to point out when others have run afoul of Covid-19 regulations, was joined by deputy leader Shane Reti and local MP Joseph Mooney – both of whom were also maskless – at Patagonia Chocolates on Saturday evening.”
…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-judith-collins-filmed-without-mask-at-queenstown-business/Q4IFBI5SQ2B7UBUVRCIU3QRIPA/
… … … …
Would calling her a “big fat hypocrite” be, umm…just cruel, really, now?
Judith sure seems to have the Reverse Midas touch. 😬
Ice cream wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
So she kicks a storm up do get to Wellington because opposition is important, then fucks off to queenstown for icecream, unfucking believable.!!
look, this is essential work. It's why she left the people in Auckland to face L4 without her.
Shades of National's next full caucus meeting under Collins' command?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V7NlFWh7Sz8
Dreadful grammar, but agree entirely with the sentiment 😀 👍🏼
Whoops ! Too many degrees of separation there.
That’s in relation to bwaghorn’s “unfucking believable.!!”
'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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Sorry for my short reply to your detailed post. I was more referring to places like bars, restaurants, shops e.t.c.
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.
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.
Distancing is only really followed in hospitality and I suspect masks are only being worn in shops and healthcare.
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.
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.
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.
Shaun Hendy said this on Monday 23 Aug:
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
That was the 'worst-case scenario' a week into lockdown. What I was referring to was the predictions during the first week.
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?
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.
oh that is cool.
Living their best lives.
https://twitter.com/Jake_Hanrahan/status/1439304675514273800
In Indiana USA more people died in 2020 than were born, according to Nightly News (Sept 19).