Coronavirus - New Zealand
-
@NTA said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Godder said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
It was interesting to me that Hospitality NZ thinks this is doom for everyone, while the Restaurant Association think takeaways and delivery should be enough for their members to get through this.
One of the local "upmarket" places has been getting by selling stuff out of the warehouse at the back. Not just booze but also stuff like pizza bases, sourdough bread, fresh produce etc.
But let's face it: when it is $100 for 2 cases of Corona, and specials like the one below, FUCK the fresh produce
edit- - hang on, they're just shot size bottles?
-
@voodoo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Godder said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@voodoo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Godder said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I'd have stuck with this week, but 2 working days and avoiding a bunch of region breaches for the long weekend has some merit. Businesses being allowed to prepare from today for opening is obvious but at least it occurred to someone.
Seems a good reason to avoid yoyos between levels.
I absolutely fucking hated it when JA said "2 working days". What fucking decade is she living in??? Has she spoken to the Queenstown cafes and restaurants that do the vast majority of their trade on the weekend?
And what on earth are the criteria that we didn't meet to achieve 12pm on the 23rd, or that we must meet to hit 12pm on the 27th?
This is so stupid. If people's livelihoods weren't being destroyed, it would acrually be comical.
14 people in hospital. Less than 10 new cases per day. And we are killing the economy.
The Queenstown hospitality sector is going to be in ruins no matter what the government does. That's not to say that every business is going under, but when a region goes from 20,000 people + 3.9 million annual visitors to whatever the current numbers look like, there will be a lot businesses going under.
Likewise hospo in general - take away tourism and throw in a GDP hit, and a lot of the sector is finished. If the margins are so thin that week or two is unsurvivable, maybe the new economy was unsurvivable as well.
It was interesting to me that Hospitality NZ thinks this is doom for everyone, while the Restaurant Association think takeaways and delivery should be enough for their members to get through this.
Just give them all a fucking chance . What does taking away these 4 days do for the Covid "fight"? Because we can totally quantify whatvos does to the local economy.
@voodoo I am not sure howto phrase this without getting trouble with the other mods..... so I will try to be delicate.
Fuck off you stealing bastard, everyone and I mean EVERYONE knows that I am the alpha anti lockdown grumpy bastard. I have been whinging and complaining about this lockdown since you were in your lock down nappies son. Dont you dare think you can jump on MY bandwagon of curmudgeonly govt bashing and think you can out curmudgeoun me. You johnny come lately cockwomble. I have been most perturbed recently as you have repeatedly tried to outscore me in the anti lockdown stakes, I have engaged my lawyer and if you persist in your serious and triggering behavior I will issue you with a cease and desist letter. I know you have jumped on my train toot toot but dont for a second forget that I am the driver and you are but a lowly caboose boy.
May the fleas of 1000 camels infest your armpit you semen saturated daughter of a Laos transgender Green party member.Good day to you sir!
-
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
edit- - hang on, they're just shot size bottles?
The ones at the front - then it looks like a few 330ml (or are they 500?) and a couple of 700s at the back - one standard, one the honey flavour.
At Dan murphy's the 2 x 700 + 4 x 330 would be $109 so the shot bottles are all free.
-
@NTA said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
edit- - hang on, they're just shot size bottles?
The ones at the front - then it looks like a few 330ml (or are they 500?) and a couple of 700s at the back - one standard, one the honey flavour.
At Dan murphy's the 2 x 700 + 4 x 330 would be $109 so the shot bottles are all free.
So they should be. I've never paid for someone else's minibar.
-
@Duluth I've just read the Rapid Audit of NZ’s Contact Tracing undertaken by Dr Ayesha Verrall of the University of Otago
It's a long read but it does highlight, I think, why we escalated into Lvl 4 so quickly and also (probably) why the extra 5 days in it are so important as clearly MoH had a lot to do in this area to meet the reports recommendation that they be prepared for 1,000 new cases requiring 40K contact traces a day. Personally I think that is way OTT - but its from the independent Auditor so hey-ho
• Rapid case detection and contact tracing, combined with other basic public health measures, **has over 90% efficacy against COVID-19 **at the population level, *making it as effective as many vaccines.
• New Zealand needs to anticipate a ‘new normal’ of local transmission and small clusters without alert level four restrictions, with the potential for one or more very large outbreaks over the next two years. Examples, such as the church outbreak in Korea, which reached over 4000 cases in just over two weeks, show how COVID-19 outbreaks can expand very quickly. However even large outbreaks can be brought under control without lockdowns if the public health response is ready and adequate.
• Specific characteristics of Covid-19 make contact tracing more effective than for influenza. Firstly the time from a person being exposed to Covid-19 to developing illness is longer (5-6 days) meaning there is time for contact tracing to occur. Secondly, it appears easier to identify Covid-19 cases who transmit the infection, as unlike influenza, there is as yet no evidence that asymptomatic cases transmit the disease. This means contact tracing is an important activity to achieve elimination or ‘stamp out’
• New Zealand’s communicable disease control system is highly devolved with 12 Public Health Units (PHUs) responsible for case and contact management. PHUs are staffed by medical professionals experienced in communicable diseases control
• In March the workload of PHUs exceeded their capacity to conduct rapid contact tracing on occasion, even though case numbers were less than 100 per day.
• The ‘National close contact service’ (NCCS) hub has been operational since 24 March.
• The NCCS was established, together with a technology solution (NCTS), to perform contact tracing at times of high demand for PHUs. It is a scalable initiative underpinned by high quality technology. It is currently used by PHUs in a narrow set of circumstances. With better triage of referrals and protocols this could be expanded further.
• When New Zealand moved to alert level 4 on 25 March, many PHUs were at or beyond their capacity to manage cases and contacts, even with increasing support from the newly established NCCS. During that week, nationwide daily case numbers ranged from 70-86. Some PHUs have since expanded their contact tracing workforce on a temporary basis – drawing on staff normally involved in vaccination and school programmes – but this is unlikely to be sustainable once routine public health work recommences when the level 4 alert is lifted. Even these temporary increases are insufficient for the likely future workload. The capacity of PHUs is the primary factor limiting New Zealand’s ability to scale up its case management and contact tracing response to Covid-19.
• With the introduction of the NCCS PHUs continue to receive notifications of new confirmed or probable cases from laboratories and clinicians. PHUs experiencing heavy workloads can choose to divert parts of the workflow to the NCCS. PHUs inform the case of their result, arrange their home-isolation and identify close contacts. Close contacts who live with the index case are managed by the PHU. Other contacts can be transferred to the NCCS for tracing. These lists of close contacts, which take various forms, are forwarded to the NCCS either via an existing web database used by some PHU’s, SFT or email. The NCCS has developed a ‘finding service’ that seeks contact information from various health and other government datasets. NCCS staff call close contacts and advise they are contacts of a Covid-19 case and obtain the contacts’ agreement to quarantine (commonly called self isolation).
• There are also difficulties in finding contacts that need to continue to be addressed. The NCCS is an impressive service especially considering it has been established in just weeks. However it is not a suitable nor desirable system for managing all contacts. The NCCS also has limited use in certain important situations, such as in the event of a large complex cluster or specific scenarios that require intense involvement of Medical Officers of Health.
• The NCCS model and its underlying technology is designed for scaling up and has had some experience of moderately high volumes. On 1 April, 701 contacts were traced by the NCCS. A suitable flexible workforce is being sought for the coming months. This service will be an important component of a scalable system that can be accessed by PHUs on an as-and when needed basis.
• It is highly likely that there will be multiple instances of community transmission needing case management and contact tracing at intervals and across the country for the next year and beyond. To avoid regular nationwide returns to level 4 restrictions, PHU capacity must be increased. If cases can be quickly identified and isolated and contacts quickly notified and quarantined then we have the potential to slow or stop transmission without widespread social disruption.
• There is also a threat of a large outbreak. Such situations pose a challenge for planning because exponentially increasing demand will need to be met in a short period of time. Case isolation and contact tracing remain effective against Covid-19 even during large outbreaks. Therefore as a matter of preparedness there must be a plan to rapidly scale PHU and NCCS capacity to manage up to 1000 new cases a day if needed, while maintaining the essential performance quality to minimise the chances of transmission beyond identified case contacts.
• At the time of writing the Ministry of Health and local developers are building a smartphone app to assist with contact tracing. As it is not yet completed and a number of key aspects are under consideration, it cannot be meaningfully evaluated. Near instantaneous notification of contacts following case diagnosis is promising from a public health perspective, but other elements of the process of case assessment, testing and notification will still need to be optimised. High levels of uptake will also be required to achieve impact.Recommendations
- The Ministry of Health should expand the capacity of Public Health Units (PHUs) to
isolate Covid-19 cases and trace their contacts three to four fold for as long as Covid-19 remains a public health threat. Some of this additional capacity should include contact tracing teams that can move from one PHU to another according to need. - The Ministry of Health should develop a Covid-19 outbreak preparedness plan that includes how to rapidly scale case identification and contact tracing and regain control. The plan should specify the task-shifting arrangements between PHUs and NCCS and any additional resource required to deal with up to 1000 cases per day while maintaining high performance.
- The Ministry of Health should develop a system that monitors the case-isolation and contact tracing process from end-to-end in the NCCS and PHUs. Recommended key performance indicators are listed in the appendix. Of these 17 indicators, 3 are critical, 3 are urgent, 10 are high priority and 1 is moderate priority. Ability to measure these indicators in real-time should be proven.
- The NCCS and its providers must ensure close contacts in home quarantine are
contacted every day to monitor for adherence to isolation and to assess for the
development of symptoms. - The NCCS and Medical Officers of Health should collaborate to better define referral protocols and triage systems, especially with respect to more complex or high-risk contacts.
- The Ministry of Health should give PHUs access to the NCTS in order to retain visibility of contacts traced by the NCCS.
- The Ministry of Health should engage with PHUs to determine if the NCTS could be suitable, with modification, as a single national contact information system.
- The Ministry of Health should rapidly complete development of a smartphone app to assist contact tracing and pilot it in New Zealand. Evaluation of the app should include assessing the proportion of contacts identified by the app who develop covid-19, as well as other relevant parameters in the appendix.
An effective high-quality contact tracing system for Covid-19 will have the following
characteristics:
• Scalable – able to respond to exponential growth in case numbers
• Fast – contacts should be placed in isolation quickly.
• Effective – contacts will adhere to the self-isolation direction and onwards
transmission from contacts will be rare
• Equitable – high performance across age and ethnicity
• Acceptable – to contacts and PHUsApologies for the long post
Report available at https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/contact_tracing_report_verrall.pdf
- The Ministry of Health should expand the capacity of Public Health Units (PHUs) to
-
I skimmed through it.
I was hoping for more information on the software behind NCTS. That was the area that was heavily criticised anonymously over the weekend.
Whenever the PM or Bloomfield was questioned about it they pivoted to talking about the organisation of people on the ground. That makes me suspect the source of the problems is the software (and therefore one of the main reasons for the extension L4 extension? We'll find out months later..)
Does anyone have more info?
-
@Duluth Yeah I didn't include anything on NCTS as the info was so sketchy. TBF at the time the report was written it had not been operating long.
From what Bloomfield has said NCTS is a very basic package with the ability (& intention) to bolt on other packages, like Singapore's, as and when.
My understanding is that all it really is at the moment is a central database that takes personal info (NHI's addresses etc) from the various DHB Patient management systems and cross references it with other govt db's.
As such it is very simplistic but from my exposure to health information management even achieving this would be quite a mission. Every DHB uses a different PMS - some do have the same one but they also record info within them differently and capture different fields etc.
In theory NZ should have an advantage with health information management as we all have a unique NHI from birth which should allow for really accurate tracking of individuals but this info has never been collated at a national level. So there will be multiple patient files both across and within DHB's. therefore multiple contact details etc.
Then factor in GP records and its a massive overload of conflicting info. Data cleansing this would be a big job but should give a real payback in terms of the speed to track an individual down. That's where I think it's at currently.
-
@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
So there will be multiple patient files both across and within DHB's. therefore multiple contact details etc.
that is somethign that surprised me recently to learn that the information is not shared between DHBs so if you are admitted to any hospital or see a Dr anywhere in NZ they dont have access to your medical records!
-
@Godder said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@voodoo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Godder said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I'd have stuck with this week, but 2 working days and avoiding a bunch of region breaches for the long weekend has some merit. Businesses being allowed to prepare from today for opening is obvious but at least it occurred to someone.
Seems a good reason to avoid yoyos between levels.
I absolutely fucking hated it when JA said "2 working days". What fucking decade is she living in??? Has she spoken to the Queenstown cafes and restaurants that do the vast majority of their trade on the weekend?
And what on earth are the criteria that we didn't meet to achieve 12pm on the 23rd, or that we must meet to hit 12pm on the 27th?
This is so stupid. If people's livelihoods weren't being destroyed, it would acrually be comical.
14 people in hospital. Less than 10 new cases per day. And we are killing the economy.
The Queenstown hospitality sector is going to be in ruins no matter what the government does. That's not to say that every business is going under, but when a region goes from 20,000 people + 3.9 million annual visitors to whatever the current numbers look like, there will be a lot businesses going under.
Likewise hospo in general - take away tourism and throw in a GDP hit, and a lot of the sector is finished. If the margins are so thin that week or two is unsurvivable, maybe the new economy was unsurvivable as well.
bolded textIt was interesting to me that Hospitality NZ thinks this is doom for everyone, while the Restaurant Association think takeaways and delivery should be enough for their members to get through this.
That's a weird one (last paragraph). The two associations aren't representative of exactly the same people as HANZ also represents accommodation providers, but if HANZ intended to speak on behalf of it's restauranteur members, then someone has this blatantly wrong, or grossly over-generalised.
-
-
@dogmeat said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
From what Bloomfield has said NCTS is a very basic package with the ability (& intention) to bolt on other packages, like Singapore's, as and when.
They mentioned a modified Case management system. I'm fairly sure I know which software and it is underwhelming. That was the dinosaur mentioned in the NZH from the weekend
(hmmm actually the NCTS software is not the same as the other crappy software Bloomfield mentioned)I doubt we'll find anything else out until PMQ's returns
-
Considering I got a phonecall trying to trace someone on a mobile number I've had for more than 10 years, the data quality must be pretty average.
Also, it comes through as 'anonymous caller' so I didn't pick up the first time. Challenges in the modern world eh
-
@nzzp TBF, if it is a person calling it could simply have been a mis-push on the number too, or the person giving them the data has supplied an incorrect number to trace?
But yeah the anonymous caller thing does my head in, most of our major suppliers numbers show as Anonymous, I tend to ignore these unless I am expecting a call, but at least suppliers usually leave a message meaning I call them back, but spammers dont.
-
@taniwharugby said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@nzzp TBF, if it is a person calling it could simply have been a mis-push on the number too, or the person giving them the data has supplied an incorrect number to trace?
yep, but they phoned twice.
No biggy, but my anecdote (aka lived experience)
-
@taniwharugby said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@nzzp so yeah either given wrong info by someone, or poor data....
Someone probably transcribed the number into their journal wrong.
-
@antipodean cant read thier own writing