The Daily Blog Open Mic – Friday – 14th August 2020

1. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2008/S00178/govt-must-consider-increase-mass-testing-for-all-citizens-now.htm

   Politics
   Gov’t Must Consider Increase Mass Testing For All Citizens Now
   Friday, 14 August 2020, 9:45 am
   Press Release: Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre
   NZ Ministry of Health/Minister do not have adequate data to understand ‘how and why’ the latest community Covid cluster has emerged this week, so they are concentrating at the cold store site where containers are transported by trucks, CEAC assume all drivers are tested, – If not we must now test all our freight transport drivers and incorporate this with the current ‘swab test’- and “the antibody test (also called a serology test.) which confirm all who develop immunity to Covid 19 for true accurate test results.
   Transport operations
   Most freight drivers manually touch the freight as it is offloaded from trucks so if any driver has Covid 19 it will be easily spread widely around the country, so CEAC calls on Government to have all truck freight operators to be tested now and every two weeks for Covid 19 to reduce community spread of Covid 19.
   WHY?
   · We need to know who has actually developed immunity to the virus.
   · We do not have these tools at present in the test protocol
   · NZ Ministry of health is using only the nasal or throat swab test, which can ‘migrate’ from the nasal or throat in a few days we are being advised.
   · The current ‘nasal throat Swab’ coronavirus test look for the virus’ genetic material in a sample of mucus, which is usually collected by a nasal or throat swab administered by a health care worker. and only diagnose a current infection.
   · Whereas the antibody test (also called a serology test.) finds who develops immunity to Covid 19.
   · It signifies that the person has been exposed to the virus long enough that their immune system has been responding to it- which is the real gold standard now being used.
   Before the coronavirus started spreading in Global communities, there was just one type of test to detect an infection; – the coronavirus test look for the virus’ genetic material in a sample of mucus, which is usually collected by a nasal or throat swab administered by a health care worker, but now several other types of testing are used in conjunction with the PCR swab test to ensure an accurate test result is obtained.
   What is this coronavirus antibody test?
   Unlike other tests on the market, the antibody test (also called a serology test) does not diagnose a current infection. “It signifies that the person has been exposed to the virus long enough that their immune system has been responding to it,” Stenzel says.
   It’s important to remember: Many people who are infected with the coronavirus do not experience symptoms. And knowing whether someone has been infected but wasn’t sick can also pinpoint people who may be in the clear to return to normalcy.
   People who have already had the virus are “probably not going to be a danger to other people,” Stenzel explains. Scientists are still working to better understand if and how the virus mutates, but Stenzel says the thought is that those who have “been exposed to coronavirus and have developed immunity and have completely recovered, hopefully won’t get it again.”
   Public health experts are also looking to serology tests to paint a more complete picture of how the virus spreads and to better understand its fatality ratio. The CDC is developing its own serology test for this reason”. Unquote.
   The following report here confirms that the current NZ Ministry of Health nasal throat swab test can be false negative in several ways.
   Proof is below; “A ‘negative’ coronavirus test result doesn’t always mean you aren’t infected”
   This was found reported in China during their pandemic, and they resorted to ‘lung Xray’s’ to confirm that the patient was seriously ill after so many confusing false negative swab results were repeatedly found occurring there.
   And this also shows how false Swab testing is;
   Quote; “A test developed by the researchers was able to detect 2019-nCoV in oral swab samples. But samples taken about 10 days later did not have a positive result.”
   Conduct full Covid 19 testing of all our citizens firstly and complete a full assessment of solid controlled ‘tracing of the Covid 19’.
   We must have mass testing of all our community firstly to have a solid ‘robust tracing process’ to fight Covid 19.

2. Tests:

   1) Phoned IRD told wait time was 15 minutes, call answered in 7.46
   2) Phoned Work and Income told wait time was 48 minutes, hung up phone as need to use bathroom at 1 hour and 21 minutes.
   3) Tried handing form into Work and Income outside of Auckland. Made to wait outside in rain with no marking for social distancing. Whilst the staff member wrote down people’s information one at a time for tracking purposes.

   So rather than be adults about it, and get people to do it themselves like everywhere else. Or even simpler – use an App. No at WINZ they crowd you into a small space with two security (no social distancing) and a extra one will come running if you raise your voice or if you are brown. They take moments like this crisis to treat people extremely poorly and they wonder why people think they toxic. It’s just more examples of a toxic culture.

   So why is it so hard for Work and Income to act decently? Why has the Minister done sweet bugger all to fix the toxic culture which infest this government department?

   Here’s a suggestion – Heads should roll, firing the manager at all the out of Auckland Branches would be a good start. Send the message this is a government department that needs to be fixed and fix quickly.

   All else I can see, is shutting it down, and paying everyone a living UBI.

Comments are closed.