Coronavirus - New Zealand
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@Winger said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@JC said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
But to suggest the only alternatives are a wrecked economy or letting people do whatever they want unless somehow they are classified as vulnerable (and Jesus only knows how you would do that without infringing people’s rights) lacks nuance that you must surely know is part of the story here.
But Ive never suggested this. Quite the opposite. The previous anything goes approach (sick at work) pissed me off. So I want a more mature approach based on a sensible risk cost assessment. But also not throwing our human rights out the window. Unless a say deadly killing black plague type flu reappears with no cure. The I would willingly accept tougher measures.
edit and here's one opinion that I sort of agree with. But the public have largely gone along with this lock-down. Until this changes the madness will continue
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300037792/new-zealand-will-be-left-behind-with-covidhysteria
OPINION: The latest series of Covid-19 blunders is a timely reminder that the entire premise of the lockdown was hubris. The bureaucrats went from flattening the curve to believing that they could eliminate the virus and quarantine a population of 5 million people indefinitely from the 7 billion other people on the planet.
They can't. The inevitability of this program's failure, however, does not mean we will abandon it easily. But we will abandon it.
Governments don't walk away from a policy merely because it isn't working. They simply re-double their efforts, imposing more costs and stripping away more freedoms while the populace cheers them on to ever-greater acts of idiocy until we all exhaust ourselves and move on to the next crisis.
For the moment, however, we are at war with a virus and believe that our public officials can keep out a microscopic bug when they can't prevent cocaine from being smuggled in. We've now called in the army to patrol the border; because using soldiers to control a civilian population always works well.
That opinion piece starts from a wrong position.
There was never an aim that we would become totally free of the virus but there was an aim to eliminate community transmission and be ready to identify, trace and manage threats.
The important thing now is to get the second part of that running properly. I think that in the excitement of reducing cases to zero all parties lost stringency on that aspect.We need a clear, communicated plan on incoming people just like we did on part one.
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@taniwharugby said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
2 new cases today, both in managed facilities, taking total to 9.
I hope the isolation facilities are getting thier shit together because not only the risk to the wider public, but an outbreak in a facility could be really bad too.
Yes, agree about the facililtes need for controlling spread within.
Got colleague coming back from India. Have to move from unaffected part of country to/via hotspot (Delhi) to get the flight. There will be a regular trickle of new cases coming in now, I think.
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so a side effect of our shitty quarantine/isolation and I think in part to poor reporting in the media...I have seen hundreds of people sitting in thier car waiting to be tested at one of the testing stations up here this morning, assume similar scenes at other stations around NZ?
I expect most, if not all will just have 'normal' flu or cold and are worried given the recent spike.
All the 'calmness' of our great leader needs to step up and take control.
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@taniwharugby apparently the criteria for testing has widened hence the increased volume. Our whole bubble self isolated until I got my test result, what I find interesting is a mate was tested and told by his GP that the rest of the family could continue on as normal. That advice seems wrong to me if the goal is to limit potential spread
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@canefan I have a weekly meeting near the testing facility, last Wednesday there was 1 person waiting to be tested.
I spoke to a client on Monday, whose friend, was ill, and when he went to the Dr, they kept trying to test him for Covid, even though he was adamant he didnt have it, 2 weeks later (2 Covid Tests and they wanted to do a 3rd) visited Dr again he was rushed into hospital (not covid) 10 day stay.
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Over here in Sydney I think I'm the only one within a friend group of roughly 10 not to be tested yet. They have drive in and walk up tests now which are completely open - no Drs appointment needed, just rock up. One hypochondriac friend of mine has been tested 3 times now.
Funnily enough I've been sickest out of all of them, but it was at the start of Covid when they weren't testing as much it was almost impossible to get one.
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I got tested this morning, coincidentally. I had a bit of a phlegmy throat and have had a flu vaccination so counted that out. My GP won't see me for any symptoms like that unless I've had a test, so I called the Healthline people first thing yesterday. They were very pleasant, took some details and said I met the criteria for testing, and they'd get someone to call to arrange it. A nurse called mid afternoon and asked me some more questions, if you don't have symptoms you're not getting tested apparently. Since I had a couple she arranged for a test at 11 this morning. There was a line of about 7 cars in front of me even with timed appointments. The security guy, who was very chatty, said they are pushing through about 300 tests a day at that location.
I'm not to expect results until Friday, so if Im positive 4 days will have passed between me calling and getting the results. Seems kinda long.
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@taniwharugby said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I spoke to a client on Monday, whose friend, was ill, and when he went to the Dr, they kept trying to test him for Covid, even though he was adamant he didnt have it, 2 weeks later (2 Covid Tests and they wanted to do a 3rd) visited Dr again he was rushed into hospital (not covid) 10 day stay.
Covid blinkers! I guess when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail.
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I know Baron is no longer around, but I'll just leave this here....
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12340756
I hate being right
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Not sure why this is an issue...
IMO, people should be restricted to thier rooms for as much of the 14 days as possible, that is the best way to reduce internal transmission of it as well.
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Another case caught in Isolation.
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@taniwharugby Good, caught where it should be caught
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look at those test numbers in the last month, yesterday with the highest single day number of tests, based on articles on Stuff today (brilliant sauce BTW) and what I saw here we might go over 10k in tests today
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@taniwharugby What is driving it? Paranoia, relaxation of testing eligibility criteria? Certainly things hotted up after news of the escapees hit
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@canefan I'd say paranoia is part of it, particularly after last week.
Plus, we have now been out and about for a couple of weeks, normal cold/flu bugs spreading, so people are being cautious when not feeling well.
Managing these isolation facilites is now even more important, and I think to slow the flow of people coming back, they need to start charging them, I think numbers would slow if people knew they would have to pay for 2 weeks accomodation, whereas now, they come back, stay in a hotel (albeit in isolation) for free.
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@taniwharugby said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Managing these isolation facilites is now even more important, and I think to slow the flow of people coming back, they need to start charging them, I think numbers would slow if people knew they would have to pay for 2 weeks accomodation, whereas now, they come back, stay in a hotel (albeit in isolation) for free.
I think we may even find the opposite. The bottle neck at the border is the limited number of quarantine places themselves, if people could pay for their own (appropriately managed! ) quarantine, and in doing so they could increase capacity, there'd be even more people coming back in. (The vast majority of arrivals at the moment are still returning citizens)