Can anyone answer this Covid-19 question?

[Chief Stipe]

We have had a very warm summer and in most of the country a very mild autumn.  With the latter the normal flu season has not yet kicked off.  Covid-19 kicked off in the Northern Hemisphere late-winter and early Spring.  There is very strong science indicating that Covid-19 is adapted to the same seasonal temperatures as the flu.

Why did we go into Level 4 Lockdown when we did?

Another question:

Why are we contemplating coming out of Level 4 if the virus season is yet to start?

I have my views - I'd love to hear yours.

[Freda]

For what my uninformed opinion is worth -  I don't think the blasted thing has been around for long enough to make an educated statement about what it's preferences are.

I have no problem with the imposition of level 4 ( the dithering around initially, yes I do, unfortunately)  but how we get out of it,  with what collateral damage,  remains to be seen.

Don't forget,  though, that predictions of recession/ depression are self fulfilling to a large extent.

The two  countries that were  vanquished and ruined after the second world war, ended up economic superpowers....Germany and Japan.

[curious]

Yes. I'm not interested in going back and complaining about the decisions already made even if they were made belatedly. There is no doubt a plethora of opportunities emerging. Quite exciting.

Edited April 19, 2020 by curious

[billy connolly]

11 hours ago, Chief Stipe said:

There is very strong science indicating that Covid-19 is adapted to the same seasonal temperatures as the flu.

Paradoxically speaking, flu related viruses claim approx 600,000 deaths per year, the preposterous notion of locking people up won't make one iota of difference, except maybe reduce road deaths !

Compared to a polluted nation like China, we live in paradise here.

Muldoon, Kirk et al will be turning in their graves.

[Chief Stipe]

7 minutes ago, billy connolly said:

Muldoon, Kirk et al will be turning in their graves.

Muldoon won't be turning with angst but delight.  After all he loved intervening in the economy and throwing money to the masses.

[mumbles]

Worked for (PROBALY NOT THE CORRECT WORD) NZ Rail for many years and Muldoon and his salary increases for Govt workers were something to look forward to every year.I think they were called Cost of Living Adjustments.Always came with 3/4 months backpay.I miss you Rob.

)

Edited April 20, 2020 by mumbles

[Weasel]

We went into Level 4 lockdown when we did because, having closed our borders but with Covid already in the country we still had to allow Kiwis to return home if they wanted to, and couldnt quarantine them all at once. Going into total lockdown also allowed us to flatten the curve and avoid crushing our health system with too many serious cases (requiring IC care and ventilators etc) all at once.

I expect there will be plenty more cases of Covid through the next 3-6 months BUT we are much better prepared with people, equipment, and information gleaned from its impact overseas. Whats most important in my opinion is to minimise infections among the elderly, especially in rest homes, villages etc. We've already seen what it can do in 'clusters;' like Rosewood. Hygiene and  physical distancing will remain critical through the colder months. And we have to get creative and clever about rebuilding our economy, esp tourism and hospo.

Opportunity knocks.

[All The Aces]

The only knocking will be at the welfare department doors with unemployment predicted to reach double digits. 

[Rusty]

Massive overreaction... all this nonsense. 

The World Health Organization tweeted the following earlier this year... let's just trust them, and the Chinese authorities. 

[Dark Beau]

Well they got that wrong didn’t they!

[mardigras]

8 hours ago, All The Aces said:

The only knocking will be at the welfare department doors with unemployment predicted to reach double digits. 

I would have expected the same - lock down or no lock down. Time to diversify, redeploy, reskill. Yes tough for many. But some will look forward and seek opportunity rather than complaining about something that was largely outside the control of anyone in NZ. Shit happens, get over it.

[curious]

30 minutes ago, mardigras said:

 But some will look forward and seek opportunity rather than complaining about something that was largely outside the control of anyone in NZ.

Some are and I'm enjoying the conversations with them. Quite exciting. The kiwi entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well and I think the economy will bounce back faster than many may think.

Edited April 20, 2020 by curious

[Weasel]

On 21/04/2020 at 12:59 AM, Dark Beau said:

Well they got that wrong didn’t they!

you're being very harsh. At the time, WHO was simply fulfilling its responsibility to communicate what it knew. Note the word 'preliminary'. So little was known at the time about a potential global threat. WHO was not wrong. They did not 'get it wrong'. They subsequently declared a public health emergency and later, a pandemic.

[Chief Stipe]

On 21/04/2020 at 12:59 AM, Dark Beau said:

Well they got that wrong didn’t they!

Do you think this Government has got it right by saying "Children don't transmit Covid-19 to Adults"?  So we can send kids from poor families back to school to be baby sat?

[Dark Beau]

I simply said that, what the WHO said in January, "that there was no clear evidence of Human to Human transmission"  was clearly wrong.

Chief Stipe, don't try and get me involved in something that I haven't commented on or which you have a political agenda for. 

[aquaman]

 

 

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Reply all

 

I think this just about sums up the land of sheep.

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Subject: Fw: Where Is The Sense Of Proportion?

 

 

 

I am sure you find this interesting .

 

 



Authored by Alex Davis. a business executive and director of several companies in NZ and overseas.

 

New Zealand just recorded a further four Coronavirus deaths. As of April 14, 2020 that brings the total to nine……

Woman, aged 70’s with an underlying health condition.

Female, aged 90’s with an underlying health condition.

Male, aged 80’s with an underlying health condition(s).

Male, aged 70’s with an underlying health condition(s).

Male, aged 80’s with an underlying health condition(s).

Male, aged 90’s with an underlying health condition(s).

Male, aged 80’s with an underlying health condition(s).

Male, aged 90’s with an underlying health condition(s).

Male, aged 70’s with an underlying health condition(s).

 

Interestingly, for all individuals from three onwards, I had to burrow into the Ministry of Health’s briefings to determine that all had underlying health conditions.

The mainstream media failed to report that key fact.

The death of any individual is clearly tragic – everyone is someone else’s mother/father/sister/brother and their loved ones will be heartbroken.

But we also need to place these unfortunate deaths in context. In 2017 (the latest data released 2019 from the Ministry of Health) 33,599 people died.

That’s an average of 92 New Zealanders dying per day. Of the 33,599 people who died in 2017 the top 5 causes were:

10,438 circulatory (heart) related diseases

9,368 cancer

3,234 respiratory-related illnesses

2,113 external causes (accidents, crime, etc)

917 diabetes

2017 also recorded 668 suicides and 378 road deaths. All those individuals were someone else’s mother/father/sister/brother too.

 

This means that since the lockdown started on 25 March to today approximately 1,933 people have died in New Zealand.

However, in none of these instances did the government suspend parliament, rescind fundamental civil liberties or lock down the country and the economy.

Every decision comes with consequences. The cost of this lockdown is roughly $1 billion PER DAY.

The government itself is spending roughly $500 million per day directly. That means (so far) the lockdown has cost New Zealand roughly $21 Billion.

To put this in context, $21billion would pay for:

#More than our entire health budget for the year. treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/financial-management-and-advice/revenue-and-expenditure

#42 times what we spend on cancer every year. health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/new-zealand-cancer-plan-2015-2018

#Our entire education budget for 1.5 years. treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/interest-areas/education-and-skills

#Roughly 10,500 km worth of median barriers (Auckland to Wellington 16 times). newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/06/revealed-govt-s-median-barriers-plan-to-make-our-deadliest-roads-safer

#10 times the entire NZ Police’s budget (maintenance of law and order).  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewZealandPolice

#525 times what was allocated as a boost by the government to the Suicide Prevention (remembering suicide claimed 668 lives). budget.govt.nz/budget/2019/wellbeing/index

Almost 15 brand new, modern hospitals health.govt.nz/our-work/hospital-redevelopment-projects/dunedin-hospital-redevelopment-project

And that is all in just 21 days. If the lockdown ends on time those numbers will have increased another 25%.

How many cancer sufferers’ lives could be saved with this money? How many road deaths averted? How many suicides prevented?

How many children educated? And all of this money will need to be paid back either via future taxes or reduced services (or both) for decades to come. 

 

Well-intentioned people will, of course, argue that “we locked the country down to prevent 80K deaths.”

However, based on offshore data it is now clear that this figure was almost certainly significantly inflated

and is based on the increasingly discredited work of Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London which heavily influenced New Zealand’s own response.

When giving evidence in the UK parliament a few days ago, Prof. Ferguson said that he now expects fewer than 20,000 Covid-19 deaths in the UK,

but importantly, two-thirds of these people would have died anyway.  spectator.co.uk/article/how-to-understand-and-report-figures-for-covid-19-deaths- 

If Neil Ferguson is now expecting 20,000 deaths in the UK with a population of 66.5 million then New Zealand with a population of 4.9 million (13 times smaller) should proportionately have 2,711 deaths.

This would be a tragedy, but first, this number is a long way short of the predictions of 60,000 to 80,000 that our government used to justify the lockdown;

and secondly, even if we hit that terrible number it would be less than 8% excess mortality over New Zealand’s usual 33,000 deaths per year; and third, currently we have nine deaths.

 

In short, there is an increasing body of evidence from an ever-larger number of medical researchers, doctors and academics who are calling into question the proportionality of the response to the COVID-19 crisis.

According to data from the best-studied countries such as South Korea, Iceland (buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/coronavirus-testing-iceland) and Germany,

the overall lethality of COVID-19 is in the one per thousand infections range and thus about ten times lower than initially assumed by the WHO, and broadly in line with seasonal influenza.

A key study from Italy also found that 99% of those who have died had other illnesses and almost half had three or more co-morbidities.

For an excellent summary of articles on this topic see here: swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

 

The decision to enter (or exit) lockdown also needs to take into account the misery, deaths and collateral damage caused by the lockdown itself

in terms of increased rates of family violence, depression and suicide (UK suicides are up 25%), business failure and unemployment.

There is also the fact that delays to surgery and medical treatment will almost certainly lead to otherwise preventable deaths. 

How are these deaths and the grief of their families measured against COVID-19 victims?

As Michael Burry, the man who blew the whistle on the US housing market (made famous in the firm The Big Short), tweeted,

“If COVID-19 testing were universal, the fatality rate would be less than 0.2%. This is no justification for sweeping government policies,

lacking any and all nuance, that destroy the lives, jobs, and businesses of the other 99.8%.”

 

Finally, at an international level, Oxfam estimates the decision by developed nations to shut down the world economy in response to COVID-19 could push half a billion people

(6% of the global population) into poverty, resulting in millions of deaths – the majority of them children and women – from unsanitary conditions, malnutrition and preventable disease.

The effect could be to set back the fight against poverty by a decade and as much as 30 years in some regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa.

More than one million Bangladeshi garment workers (80 percent of whom are women) have already been laid off after orders from western clothing brands were cancelled or suspended.

For a Prime Minister who claimed she entered politics “for one reason: child poverty” the actions of her government are curiously opposed to that goal.

The lockdown is likely to lead to the largest destruction of value (and consequently the largest increase in poverty), New Zealand has ever experienced, with all the associated negative social and health outcomes.

 

There is no question we are faced with difficult decisions and none of the foreseeable outcomes are good, but we can’t afford to panic.

We need to balance the costs and consequences carefully and do what is right for all New Zealanders, young and old, healthy and ill.

We need to maintain a sense of proportion. We are in great danger of being the elephant who, having seen a mouse, stampedes off a cliff to its death.

 

 

[mardigras]

That's equally just propaganda fuelled from the alternative side. 

What a load of unsubstantiated bullshit this is.

Every decision comes with consequences. The cost of this lockdown is roughly $1 billion PER DAY.

The situation NZ faced would likely be very much the same if it hadn't gone into lockdown. Without lockdown. No tourism, massive reduction in hospitality revenues, limited motel/hotel revenue. Jobs being lost, unemployment increasing, government paying out for that.

The only people that couldn't see that are those that seem to have an agenda of their own. Talk about scaremongering.

[mardigras]

38 minutes ago, aquaman said:

 

 

 

When giving evidence in the UK parliament a few days ago, Prof. Ferguson said that he now expects fewer than 20,000 Covid-19 deaths in the UK,

but importantly, two-thirds of these people would have died anyway.  

 

 

That's particularly funny - since they've already passed 20,000 covid-19 deaths. (I think everyone is going to die anyway).

Edited April 22, 2020 by mardigras

[aquaman]

This virus is a hoax. It is over rated, and is no danger to 99% of people. NZ is a land of sheep, and very soon the people of NZ will join the sheep in the paddocks as there will be nothing left. We have a government out of their depth, grossly incompetent completely out of step with the severity this very mild virus represents.

[aquaman]

5 minutes ago, mardigras said:

That's particularly funny - since they've already passed 20,000 covid-19 deaths. (I think everyone is going to die anyway).

The useless tossers attribute every death by an old person to corona 19 when in reality they died of old age, just bullshit from politicians that are out of their depth. This is a hoax being whipped up by the fake news.

[mardigras]

4 minutes ago, aquaman said:

The useless tossers attribute every death by an old person to corona 19 when in reality they died of old age, just bullshit from politicians that are out of their depth. This is a hoax being whipped up by the fake news.

About as much bullshit as the article you put up. And it's odd how they all died from old age in the last two or three weeks. 

Hoax or not, NZ economically isn't being any more impacted than without the lockdown. Just enjoy the break if you're here. Unemployment/outlook - all the same either way. 

Is it only a hoax in NZ - or is it a hoax everywhere?

Edited April 22, 2020 by mardigras

[mardigras]

8 minutes ago, aquaman said:

This virus is a hoax. It is over rated, and is no danger to 99% of people. NZ is a land of sheep, and very soon the people of NZ will join the sheep in the paddocks as there will be nothing left. We have a government out of their depth, grossly incompetent completely out of step with the severity this very mild virus represents.

Talk about a hoax. What bollocks. What damage is the lockdown doing. Peanuts.

[aquaman]

Whats needed in NZ is people with balls, people prepared to stand up against this wrecking of the economy by a bunch of people that have never had a job or run a business in their sheltered cotton wool lives. Wake up NZ, you are being led to economic ruin.

[mardigras]

1 minute ago, aquaman said:

Whats needed in NZ is people with balls, people prepared to stand up against this wrecking of the economy by a bunch of people that have never had a job or run a business in their sheltered cotton wool lives. Wake up NZ, you are being led to economic ruin.

I'd say that's the biggest hoax - and it looks like you've fallen for it. You went on about how gullible people were. And here we are.

Economic ruin - yeah, from the lockdown. Sure.

[aquaman]

I will not argue with you, I have my opinion, you have yours, history will be the judge.