The grief given NZ for putting the people before money by international critics says more about them than it does us.
Sure there has been a leak but when you consider we’ve safely processed hundreds of thousands through MIQ with only a handful of outbreaks we shouldn’t throw the bath out with the baby and the water.
Sure our vaccination program has been slow but a chunk of that had to do with supply and the urgency of others facing actual outbreaks requiring it more than us.
The place of criticism is how Labour got bullied into the Australian travel bubble by the death cult capitalists that ideologically fuelled this latest outbreak.
That said – there is no Plan B. We must remain in lockdown until this outbreak is smothered and we must ramp up vaccinations until at least 85% with the annual booster infrastructure put into place.
We will need to restrict MIQ even further until then and monitor hospitalizations over infection rates once we hit 85% so that we can enter lockdown if we risk being over run.
This way we can still keep our eradication plan with tweaks to acknowledge this is going to become endemic within our community whether we like it or not.
We will need to build increased hospital capacity alongside extra morgue capacity to handle the sick and the extra dead.
This all falls over the moment a far more lethal variant mutates.
Jacinda has protected us from the worst of this pandemic but we now have to vaccinate while keeping the border painfully restricted, I can’t see a loosening of those rigid border controls until the end of next year.
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Labour has never been more popular than after a lockdown.
And as for business braying, many posted record profits after 2020 lockdown and had to pay back their wage subsidies.
Of course they paid back the subsidies dolt!
It was never intended that it replaced profits.
The intention was to provide cashflow so that workers could keep their job and small businesses survive.
Nope business were only supposed to claim the wage subsidy it if they thought they would have considerably less income in that time, many also took the wage subsidy inspite of making people redundant. That is the type of ‘socially responsible’ Sarcasm, employers that thrive in NZ.
You are 100% correct. Until a vaccine is developed that sterilises the virus, there should never be a fully open border (this is assuming that these new lockdowns prove to once again eradicate the virus – I’m not so sure given how much virulent Delta is).
Hawaii now has more cases in the 65+ age group than they have ever seen in the entire pandemic(!)… and 85% of that age group is fully vaccinated (99.9% have had at least one shot) and they have had a mask mandate since July of last year with 90″% compliance. As the vaccine/mask narrative continues to collapse, things will get (much) worse before they get better.
https://health.hawaii.gov/coronavirusdisease2019/current-situation-in-hawaii/ (scroll down to “Weekly New CoVID-19 Cases*, Hawaii 2021” for the interactive chart).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/hawaii-covid-cases.html
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/video/2021/08/20/hawaii-contact-tracing-efforts-overwhelmed-by-growing-number-covid-cases/
This pandemic is very far from over. The vaccine is not going to provide the “back to normal” panacea that many people think is being promised to them.
I agree, but being vaccinated will
1. reduce risk of spreading to others
2. reduce risk of serious illness and long COVID
3. protect the health system from being overrun.
Israel is reportedly showing progress in Covid treatment medications. They say that what they have could be a game changer.
The EXO inhaled into the lungs helps those with the Cytokine storm from immune system over reaction to infection – it’s a hospital treatment option in those cases.
Preferable would be anti-virals to reduce load spread before it gets to that.
Yea well actually Plan A was pretty good. Lockdown to protect the vulnerable until we have a vaccine to protect them. Plan A seems to have morphed into ‘vaccinate everyone regardless of risk for an illness which has now been superceded’. Vaccinate the vulnerable and stop the collateral damage to the remaining %95.
Why does everyone refer to UK, USA and Israel when talking about strategy for handling covid.
Why not look at other smallish island economies.
Iceland for instance- recently surged to 100 cases a day, but zero deaths!
Taiwan recently peaked at 500 cases a day-now down to 11 very low deaths number
Singapore 66,000+ cases 47 deaths.
Guess they must have all had level 4 lockdowns and closed borders?
Nope. They have leaders who can think their way thru these sisutation.
But we(NZ) wasnt to reference NSW, UK and USA.
Probably because they have scary numbers
Maybe Jacinda and team need to either
Change their Star struck health advisors
or Put on their big boy pants and get NZ moving again.
Was there a plan A. It seems to me that little was learnt from our first lock down . Massive queues at the supermarket yet small butchers bakers fruit shops could control customer flow just like the dairies. Small businesses could operate without danger to others.
The other problem is MIQ why 18 months in are we not building special units away from our capital city . I am sure this will not be the last of these types of diseases as man pushes the boundaries of nature . Nature has a way of fighting back and we need to be prepared. If there was a period that they were not required for isolation they could be used as a retreat for the needy.
Vaccinate as many as possible. If the South Island as no cases by Tuesday drop them straight to a level 2.5 with mask wearing mandatory for at risks places, people must scan in or fill out their details for contact tracing. Let people from other areas excluding Wgtn and Auckland travel to South Island for work or business purposes providing they have had 2 vaccines and have not been to any of the exposures sites identified. Alternatively we can prevent anyone fron North Island from travelling to South Island until numbers are below double digits and contacts have been identified. This is an opportunity for when we decide to open up as better to start on a smaller scale. At least the South Island can get back to business. So I am crossing my fingers they have no Delta cases. In the meantime people all need to adhere to the lock downs as we only have one chance at this. And our opposition parties need to stop undermining our Epidemiologist they know what they are doing let them do their jobs, we don’t want the public losing confidence in our public health experts.
I understand the Skeggs report states get most of the people fully vaccinated before opening the borders?
Not much point in getting scientists to complete a report then ignoring it? Unless you do not believe in science( no there is no global warming and God is going to save us all anyway).
Anyway how you going to get New Zealand moving again when the workforce is mostly sick in bed or in hospital?
This is what I get from the Covid news – 148 cases -NONE IN INTENSIVE CARE -NO DEATHS.
It could be better but it could be much worse.
People need some perspective.
Good article. Personally? I favour keeping those borders closed as well as soldiering on with the vaccine program. We’ll get there.
Come on, it’s no worse than the common flu?
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/covid-denier-in-a-sydney-hospital-with-horrible-symptoms/news-story/b85d693a9e618a947cab2967028d0ac5
There needs to be a proper survey with a significant number of people to determine if NZ even has 85% who are willing and able to get vaccinated.
I’m sorry to say it, but this vaccine looks increasingly ineffective at preventing either transmission or hospitalization or death.
Early Detection
Wastewater checks daily.
Buildings (schools, universities, hospitals, workplaces).
Temperature checks – blocking those with temperatures and referring them for testing.
Also import the saliva testing home kits from the USA for all front-line workers – teachers, nurses border staff etc).
Vaccine passports (restaurants, cafes, bars, night clubs).
Managed Isolation – first week confined to rooms and doors only opened just enough to receive food (have waste bins inside rooms for the first week).
Aircooled Guy. I looked further into your posts on the science out of Israel.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 21 by Public Health England,
“The Canadian report also found that one dose of the Moderna vaccine was 70% effective in preventing symptomatic disease and 95% effective in preventing hospitalization or death; there were too few COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated to estimate the effectiveness after two doses.
Meanwhile, in Israel, the health ministry released preliminary, unpublished information on July 5 suggesting that with the rise of the delta variant in the nation, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was now 64% effective against infection or symptomatic illness, but still 93% effective in preventing serious illness and hospitalization. The ministry had previously estimated the vaccine to be 97% effective against symptomatic disease, with similar levels of protection against hospitalization and death, at a time when the alpha variant made up the vast majority of COVID-19 cases.
McCullough, therefore, is right that Israel estimated the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine effectiveness at “only about 60 to 70%.” But that is still a substantial amount of protection — and McCullough neglects to mention the vaccine’s excellent ability to prevent the worst outcomes of COVID-19.
In late July, the ministry further reduced its vaccine effectiveness estimate for symptomatic COVID-19 to 40.5%, but once again, found protection against severe disease to remain robust — 88.0% effective against hospitalization and 91.4% effective against severe COVID-19.
It’s worth mentioning that some experts doubt the accuracy of the Israeli estimates, which are outliers compared with the other results and rely on a different methodology. In its July 27 scientific brief on the vaccines, the CDC said “more technical information is needed to allow full interpretation.”
The most recent Israeli figure, in particular, is based on a small number of cases over a short period of time and should be considered preliminary, according to an expert advising the Israeli government on the coronavirus. The ministry itself also acknowledged the results might be skewed because of differential testing among the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. ”
So it’s best not to put all your scientific eggs in one basket my friend.
MSM just give evidence to the naysayers out there.
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