Re-opening New Zealand’s borders without hard measures like lockdowns could lead to more than 11,000 hospitalisations – and more than 1000 deaths – even if we manage to vaccinate nine in 10 of all Kiwis.
That’s one outcome of a sobering new mathematical modelling study that explored a two-year, open border scenario without public health controls, and following a Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
The scenario looked at the potential impact of bringing in 10 overseas Covid-19 cases each day into a country where 90 per cent of the population – including children – had been given the same vaccine, in a programme that targeted high-risk groups.
That found there’d be an estimated 11,400 total hospitalisations – peaking with 324 active and 36 new daily cases in hospitals – and 1030 total deaths.
Latest research is grim.
Modeling shows that even at 90% vaccination rates, Delta will spread through the NZ population killing 1030 & hospitalizing 11400.
That’s at 90% with no lockdowns!
No Government, not even ACT could commit NZ to that and not expect open rebellion from the people.
The electoral backlash to unleash that upon our poorly funded Health sector and vulnerable communities would decimate any Party signing off on this, but it raises the immediate question of how do we lift lockdowns when they alongside high vaccination rates plus social distancing and masks is the only means of breaking a wave of sickness that knocks out our health sector.
Death Cult Capitalists are not going to be able to trick sick and frightened people into going back to normal because normal was the problem.
The only way forward is a combination of lockdowns, tight border controls, maximum vaccination rates alongside infrastructure for annual booster shots UNTIL we can build additional capacity for the inevitability of endemic spread in our hospitals, morgues and cemeteries.
People who attempt to point to the flu or suicide or heart disease as examples of existing death that we accept as an argument for simply surrendering to the virus always forget that those deaths have been built into the capacity of our existing mortality infrastructure.
We don’t have enough morgues or cemeteries and hospitals to process these sudden and much larger death rates, and remember, that’s 1030 dead at a 90% vaccination rate, we are no where near that level of vaccination.
Keeping it out for as long as possible while using lockdowns and mass vaccinations alongside social distancing and masks is the only game in town for a very long time.
You can dress it up however you like, but no Government is going to sign off on 1000 lives like that.
God defend us if we ever do!
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It appears the UK have signed up for it. Factoring in death a quite OK by them. And we’ll see come the new year how acceptable that is.
NSW certainly is saying they will, as is ScoMo. They want to pretend this is in the same ballpark as the flu. They wish! As Ashley Bloomfield said yesterday, Covid as it stands today is 10 times more lethal than the flu ever was.
But the market has a way. I can picture during a pandemic like this where even the vaccinated may still be cut down by it, that rather than carrying on like we used to, the fantasy the right and deniers have, people will give indoor malls a wide birth and shops and probably supermarkets and aircraft/tourism or any other form of public transport. Then what for our consumer capitalism? And our climate change goals?
These dickheads like ZB and National and it’s ilk need to stop pretending we can go back to being normal. This is the new normal! Accept it.
Martyn, this all pales into insignificance when you recognise that we have been on a totally unsustainable business-as-usual path for decades, and that path -which we are STILL ON- leads to extinction in a matter of decades.
What is more, the dire ramifications of the complete failure of ALL political parties to take any measures to protect the population from the burgeoning effects of Planetary Meltdown and Energy Depletion and Ocean Acidification etc. means that they are ALL criminally negligent.
Sure, Covid is an immediate threat to business-as-usual, so it gets all the attention whilst other aspects with a far greater impact a year or two down the track get NO attention.
We are in the early stages of collapse, and what we are witnessing is symptomatic of that collapse.
One thing is certain: everything will be made worse by the criminals and clowns that infest the political system.
Is there any way to ensure that 100% of the dead are property investors? Asking for a friend.
you’re asking for yourself.
You mean property speculators???
Ah, mums and dads with spare cash and/or a bit of skin in the game.
At least we won’t need that second harbour bridge crossing anymore and solve the helicopter problem in Herne Bay and overcrowding in the Grammar zone, but hang on, who will run parliament?
It’s Hendry and the Lancet. 2 disproved mediums.
Here in Smallville we have 2 coffin factories and replicating the last lockdown, they have been burning the midnight oil building boxes in anticipation of what can only be described as a “DEAD CERT.”
National/ACT just thinking about the Undertakers. A new growth industry full of ‘productivity’.
Time to invest in the Funeral/Undertaking Industry I feel if we Open the Borders.
Bugger all profit on an increase in deaths by approx. 1,000 deaths for a year or two. Simple math really. Mind you, we need all of the extra income possible to pay off the ever increasing debt, which would otherwise be saddled on our children and grandchildren. Does anyone have a few seeds for a money tree?
We need access to more vaccine(s). I wanna shot of the Sputnik V. It has a good track record of 90% efficacy and was reluctantly approved by Lancet and the WHO but still western(ised) governments would rather pay more, twice as much for the pfizzer.
Lockdown till 2022! Lock down the borders too!
Good article and the only way forward, Martyn. Totally agree.
On a lighter note is that their is an imdb page for the 1pm updates:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12511606/
Be sure to read the “reviews” for a laugh (good on NZers for finding much needed humour during this pandemic): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12511606/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=desc&ratingFilter=0
Weather or not the govt enforces the lockdowns, the virus may spread anyway… specially as more and more people get vaccinated and get slacker with the lockdowns.
If we dont stamp out Delta, we have a rough couple of years ahead in the first instance.
Putting this in perspective, we lose about 500 people every year to influenza: You’ve got to die of something.
So what are you suggesting Andrew, that extra deaths, suffering and misery with runaway Delta is OK.
In 2019, 500 New Zealanders died from the seasonal flu. With the modelling above you say 1030 will die from COVID – is that really a big deal?? I get that these are people with families and loved ones, but people have to die from something, and COVID is going to become just another one of those things. Heart disease kills more than 5000 NZers per year https://www.lifecovered.nz/life-insurance/leading-causes-of-death-in-new-zealand/. Grow up, harden up, and learn that hard choices are a part of life and governing.
Yeah but yeah but no Marcus. Long covid means seriously damaged lungs and debilitating ongoing serious health problems for the rest of one’s life.This is the reality you are talking about. Think sudden permanent Chronic Fatigue syndrome affects all age groups and cognitive thinking as well. Particularly memory in teenagers.This is one helluva virus that is constantly mutating and will fuck over the human species for many years to come. We don’t have anywhere enough in the way of vaccines of varying types available AND our health system is rooted thanks to the dumb arse neolibs. So lockdown is the answer if you understand even remotely what we are dealing with. We need purpose built Isolation centers starting NOW out in the backblocks. This we can do. Our whole approach needs to ramp up several notches and we need advice from those with real vision not the business sector. This is a war not a skirmish. Raise taxes and spend the money on the health sector. It is the only thing that matters.
Lockdown may be the answer in the short term, but in the long term it’ll send the country broke. Billions per day – it’ll work for a few more months, but after that it’ll be unaffordable. Just look to developing nations who already have deemed it unaffordable.
Also, re ‘long covid’ – what proportion of people get that? It’s negligible.
What everyone seems to ignoring is that the current variant of concern, Delta , is only one of a plethora of mutations fermenting out there in neo-lib land , more by every passing day.
Given the algorithm driven frenzy of ‘covid condspirators ‘ out there my money’s on NZ struggling to achieve 70% vaccination.
Also of relevance is the evolving body of information about antibody ‘fade’ and the need for further boosters of various types.
As can seen by the summer time surge in hospitalisation/death in the US Bible belt a large and distinctly ‘anti’ unvaccinated population is a recipe for disaster and continuing mutation.
IMO , we are staring down the barrel of a 10 year plus waxing & waning pandemic and if we are able to manage it successfully we absolutely need to restrict and manage our border.
To that end Government needs to bite the bullet and construct multiple MIQ facilities consisting of self-contained individual accommodation[ basically small demountable buildings] based on the successful Howard Springs facility in NT Australia.
The upside of any success would be a significant head start to housing the homeless once the demountables become excess to requirements
FFS! They can’t even build any houses. So don’t expect them to be able to build accommodation for transients.
Just lockdown the borders indefinitely. Everybody has had a chance to come home in the last 18 months.
Send the lepers to any country that they choose other than remain here.
There ideaology suits Oz or the US, or the UK.
We don’t need them.
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