@Therehavetobeadjustments
I've seen several reports now of people queuing for 7 hours and even 9 hours for a test.
Crikey, why so long?
There were repirts of 'technical difficulties' which i think translates into not having available equipment at some sites. But overall it sounds like sheer numbers trying to get tested in certain places. It sounds like areas where they have identified a site of interest, they are just being overwhelmed at testing centres.
Ive just checked the latest and they are saying theyve picked up covid in the wastewater in Warkworth which is a town just outside Auckland. And theyve added more testing facilities there now, but from whats been said it doesn't look like they've picked up many cases there yet. I think that gives something of an indication of how they are still playing catch up on identifying where its spread from known cases.
Its now up to 50 cases and over 5000 close contacts.
Arden also said she hoped people were santising properly at portaloos at testing centres which i found slightly eyebrow raising. The idea of portaloos at testing sites and 7 hour queues is one i find a little confusing for a virus we know is airborne and can be transmitted through the fumes of human waste. That does strike me as a potential recipe for problems with a zero covid policy. Whilst not needing to pre-book a test makes sense to speed up the process / encourage more people to come forward, that only makes sense in these early stages if you ensure you don't make testing centres potential exposure points too.
So far it sounds like theyve linked all the cases back to the cluster. Thats probably where you should expect it to be for all the preparation NZ have had. I think looking back to the uk they said the first 100 cases were the most crucial. Once you get past that figure, the numbers start to be much more difficult in terms of contact tracing and case load. I think once NZ hits that point it could start to be more problematic.
They were saying that they had found that contact tracers had found it hard to get full information from positive tests about where they had been because they had been extremely stressed and that had caused delays. This was leading to them using details from card transactions to jog memories.
The problem with all this is that time is crucial and it is easy to fall further and further behind chasing contact points. Obviously once the lockdown effect kicks in that should reduce potential contact points anyway, but all these delays do mean that a lock down in Auckland at least is likely to be at least a month now i suspect.
I do think this stage is fascinating to watch as it really does show the difficulty of the task even with preparation and testing available as a case study. It does do a lot to show just how powerless the uk was in the early stages of the pandemic and once things has taken off, even with political mistakes, it was probably something that no one had a realistic chance of preventing given our lack of knowledge. The uk could have done better early one, but i think this gives an idea that notions that we could have done significantly better are unrealistic.