GUEST BLOG: Bryan Bruce – Together we can beat this Covt-19 thing.
Divided many of our whanau will die.
It’s that simple.
The government made a really good decision today to start locking down our country
If we accept this essential period of isolation as something we just have to do and If we think of others as well as ourselves ,we can save thousands of Kiwi families a lot of heartache and misery.
We may even come out the otherside more focused on the really important values in life and more united as a nation.
Please stop panic buying -especially groceries. There will be food for all of us over the coming weeks. Also big crowds,especially in confined spaces, is how viruses like Covt 19 spread!
And please think of the health workers and emergency services personnel. We’ll be relying heavily on them in the coming weeks and it isn’t fair that when they come off a long shift the shelves at the supermarket have been skinned out until the next truck arrives ( which it will!)..
Most importantly please follow ALL the public health guidelines on how to protect yourself and others
•Cough or sneeze into your elbow or by covering your mouth and nose with tissues.
•Put used tissues in a lined bin or a bag immediately.
Wash your hands with soap and water often (for at least 20 seconds).
•Try to avoid close contact with people who are unwell.
•Don’t touch your eyes, nose or mouth if your hands are not clean.
•Avoid personal contact, such as kissing, sharing cups or food with sick people.
•Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces and objects, such as doorknobs.
•Stay home if you feel unwell.
Call Healthline on 0800 358 5453 if you have any symptoms and have been recently been overseas or have been in close contact with someone confirmed with COVID-19.
People who have recently been overseas, or who may have been exposed to COVID-19, are required to self-isolate to keep their communities safe.
If you arrived in New Zealand in the last 14 days, you should self-isolate for 14 days from the date you departed the last country you visited.
If you have been in close contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 you should self-isolate for 14 days from the date of close contact.
We know from other outbreaks that self-isolation is effective, and most people are good at keeping themselves – and others – safe and well. To find out more, see our Self-isolation resource.
More information for contacts of cases in New Zealand is available at Contact tracing for COVID-19.
Dedicated Healthline 0800 number for COVID-19 health advice and information
The number is 0800 358 5453 (or for international SIMs +64 9 358 5453).
It is free and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
This isn’t a happy story but the ending does not have to be tragic
Please lead your friends and whanau through this difficult time by getting them to do the right thing.
’til tomorrow..
Kia Kaha
Bryan Bruce is one of NZs most respected documentary makers and public intellectuals who has tirelessly exposed NZs neoliberal economic settings as the main cause for social issues.
Here is an apparently factual piece of information about the spread of Covid-19 put up on TS by joe90 who seems dedicated to facts from reliable sources. And following that I will try to show a comparison with growth rates in the USA and Italy which are looking very similar (which means that the USA could have the same high rates as Italy.)
joe90 7.1.1
10 March 2020 at 8:34 pm Daily Review
Google is your friend.
Conclusion
I’m fairly confident that, left unchecked, COVID-19 will increase at a doubling time of 2-3 days. When containment in breached in a location this is the rate that the growth occurs at over the first few week or so.
When effective measures are put in place this decreases. An effective quarantine may be able to convert the growth into a sigmoid function with a limit on the failure rate.
Some locations (Japan, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong) have managed to avoid exponential growth despite having a large number of cases.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/KJBQ7GiyvFTBnSEEC/growth-rate-of-covid-19-outbreaks
And this chart showing Italy and USA is startling. I hope it will show up for you, or look up the The Standard site.
joe90 7 Daily Review
10 March 2020 at 8:18 pm
Twelve days ago Italy had 600 Covid-19 cases. Today, it has nearly 10,000 cases and the entire country is shut.
Here’s what the last 5 days of #COVID19US growth look like mapped to the Italian epidemic starting 2/22. Trajectory looks awful similar.
Scotland and NZ have similar populations – Scotland’s 5.438 million (2018), us much the same.
(For 2018 it showed London at 8.9 million and England at 56 million approx. You can see how that entity dominates the UK, its directives, and its direction.)
Scotland at 12 March had under 50 Covid-19 cases – to 24 March shows 500 cases.
Scotland have deaths rising from 1 daily 13-16 March to 14 at 23 March, one week later
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-52009463
And a video from an early case off the cruise ship. With a good explanation of what the signs are and problems establishing temp etc.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2E1t3yMXgE
Me again^!^ WHO says:
“But we are not prisoners to statistics. We’re not helpless bystanders. We can change the trajectory of this pandemic,” Tedros told an online briefing for more than 300 journalists.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/412473/coronavirus-who-warns-pandemic-is-accelerating
You can look up the stats yourself.
And Chris Martenson Peak Prosperity has lots of interesting reasoned factual stuff and explains well.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/even-the-young-healthy-are-getting-the-coronavirus/
(Martenson mentions social control down in South London and parts of New York I think)
Mentions that a mask should be worn. Air and droplets together which spreads anything and a mask means sure held in and not go to others, and fair as thing are now. NZ praised around 20 mins. Then goes through
progress day by day, might be light up to 5 days then….
But we in NZ are doing the right thing. it seems. Except in my opinion, that we need to set up managed isolation for returning NZs and others able to come here. Otherwise they can be loose cannons, and we don’t want them scattered around and having to be chased. People who feel good can understandably feel as if they ARE fine, when they ain’t. And the couple explaining it all on the cruise ship youtube link above put stress on that. (Didn’t have a headache.)
Note – * You can have antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia but not viral pneumonia. Find which you have.
* There are three types of thermometers – one for under tongue, one under arm, one up rear. They give different readings.
* About 20 mins into link it’s about lung breathing. Lung exercises. EFT Emotional Freedom Technique – Gary Craig which he recommends – he used it to expand his lungs and improve breathing – test showed 93 to 99 and he got better all the time.
* He recommends home remedy of salt gargling for throat.
Kia ora Bryan.
You repeat Jacinda’s claim “there will be food for all of us over the coming weeks”.
Clearly the large number of New Zealanders who are “panic buying” grocery items did not believe her.
And now, arguably as a result of self-fulfilling doubt, there are shortages.
If the shortages are rectified within days then we will have to allow that Jacinda may have been right. But if they continue through the next four weeks then we will know that there are things she is not telling us about the fragility of the food supply chain in New Zealand.