NZ back into lockdown.

[Malin52]

1 case in the community. All of NZ back into lockdown Level 4 because no link to border found.

Hard and fast.

@RedToothBrush - slightly off the topic but linked to your earlier post ( which I agree re the U.K. strategy to boosters and what seems like a more cautious post) I think this recent study re naturally immunity being superior to vaccine is also possibly playing into both the booster question and into the vaccinating children question:

mobile.twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1430706897955565572

Also is relevant to playing into NZ/Aus strategy.

Must be an open question whether vaccinating certainly primary aged is the best strategy ( I also suspect in the U.K. JCVI must have some thinking around any adverse vaccine effects on children damaging other vaccination programs which are more important to kids). You can see in the U.K. re boosters an argument of caution if boosting healthcare workers, over 70s and CeV approach.

Of course it’s also just a reminder how everything continues to develop and we still don’t know that much re vaccines/ impact of lockdowns etc. Which also highlights just how tricky it is for all countries.

What individual private companies or entities decide to do is hardly indicative of Government policy.

*boosting ‘only healthcare etc’ should read.

Potentially slightly worrying news for the South Island.

It needs to be stressed that the authorities think it could be linked to 3 active cases in MIQ in the city, but covid has been detected in the wastewater in Christchurch.

No other positive cases on the south island are known about.

So thats a waiting game to see if there's a problem or not at this stage.

I don’t see how NZ or Australia will get to 80
per cent vaccination rates of the entire population without it being semi mandatory in lots of settings. We are being told that is what you need in the U.K. where we have a mix of natural immunity and high voluntary vaccination rates whereas the former two countries have virtually zero natural immunity.
In US, I suspect private health care will soon become significantly more expensive for anti Covid vaxxers as well as lots of private companies/bodies/schools mandating it. It is different in every country. France seems to have massively increased vaccine uptake since Covid certificates became a thing and has just become a big thing in Germany too.
Government policy in Western democracies might be indirect - as in try and place burden on companies/private bodies to make people get a vaccine as they don’t want to come across as too harsh (they won’t to be voted in again) but it boils down to the same thing surely. If the NZ Pm won’t open up fully until there is a very high vaccine rate then surely there will be some high level persuasion etc to get the vaccine.

@Sunnyfreezesushi

I don’t see how NZ or Australia will get to 80 per cent vaccination rates of the entire population without it being semi mandatory in lots of settings. We are being told that is what you need in the U.K. where we have a mix of natural immunity and high voluntary vaccination rates whereas the former two countries have virtually zero natural immunity. In US, I suspect private health care will soon become significantly more expensive for anti Covid vaxxers as well as lots of private companies/bodies/schools mandating it. It is different in every country. France seems to have massively increased vaccine uptake since Covid certificates became a thing and has just become a big thing in Germany too. Government policy in Western democracies might be indirect - as in try and place burden on companies/private bodies to make people get a vaccine as they don’t want to come across as too harsh (they won’t to be voted in again) but it boils down to the same thing surely. If the NZ Pm won’t open up fully until there is a very high vaccine rate then surely there will be some high level persuasion etc to get the vaccine.

OK but why are you singling out Aus and NZ, when it’s already happening in good old USA?

OK but why are you singling out Aus and NZ, when it’s already happening in good old USA?

Aus / NZ have a very different strategy to USA. Polar opposites. US has a big problem but they are not going to lockdown again.

Their borders are closed to many but a lot of that is just another 'America First' President than any justifiable reason.

Whilst it may be that Aus / NZ may struggle to get to 80%, I also think they have a much better chance. Far fewer idiots......

Cases were supposed to peak between wed and fri. However it doesn't look as if thats quite happened yet. NZ is now up to 429 cases with over 60 reported in the last 24 hours. This is being described as 'discouraging' and the discussion has now moved to what happens if numbers don't plateau soon - the worry and internal government/scientific argument is now whether growth has become exponential or not. Its being suggested that level 4 restrictions will be tightened further if numbers don't start to reduce soon - with selective closure of essential businesses like some supermarkets.

However despite this pessimism, there is also some good news in that all cases have been connected to known clusters so it doesn't appear that the situation is out of control yet.

The government is expecting another bad week next week which wasn't what was anticipated previously. I think at this point whilst it seems the outbreak is contained, you have to start to question whether it really is going to be possible for NZ to manage the situation as they would perhaps like. Its a question of continuing to cross fingers.

My concern is here is how modelling doesn't seem to be fully accounting for how infectious Delta is, and how it seems to be behaving differently to previous variants. I think if you look at whats happening in the UK too, there's some creeping doubt about how we get numbers down again perhaps contrary to expectations laid out in modelling. Delta isn't the same as before and we are moving into a new stage where vaccines may be waning too.

It was 82 new cases today. Apparently this doesn't count as exponential growth because it isn't doubling every couple of days, which is not a definition that I've seen before.

On the upside, the scare in Christchurch showing covid in the sewage samples has been linked to the managed covid cases, so there is still 0 community cases in the South Island. Surely they'll have to lower the restrictions there soon?

@FourTeaFallOut

It was 82 new cases today. Apparently this doesn't count as exponential growth because it isn't doubling every couple of days, which is not a definition that I've seen before.

On the upside, the scare in Christchurch showing covid in the sewage samples has been linked to the managed covid cases, so there is still 0 community cases in the South Island. Surely they'll have to lower the restrictions there soon?

I think arguing over a technical definitions might hide the real growing concern that's clearly present amongst some NZ scientists. Some are saying its not exponential some are saying growth is high enough to cause concern that it is already or will become exponential eventually. There is clear disagreement and that in itself is a story. Confidence that things can be managed isn't as strong as it was. Theres genuine concern going on and clearly thats only going to get worse if there isn't a plateau soon. Thats a big shift from the optimistic predictions there had been earlier which had been fairly widespread in NZ itself. Confidence is dropping that the approach taken is going to be effective - hence talk of tightening of restrictions further in Auckland.

I can't imagine what further there could be to restrict beyond the current restrictions? So far, all I've seen is the possibility of closing some essential shops. I'd love to know which essential shops are actually now not that essential - are these the kiwi equivalents of home bargains - with a handful of food aisles among a bunch of useless tat or are these further closures going to make life more difficult?

If cases don’t start falling over the next weeks I predict we’ll start to see more disquiet amongst the journalists about the strategy and we’ll begin to see a slow pivot from Arden et al with some very gentle “living with Covid” noises to see how the public reacts.
Another problem with a zero Covid strategy is that it stops you politically logistically preparing for a “living with” strategy as even being seen to do so is an admission of eventual failure.
Why do you need higher ICU capacity if you never intend to allow cases to grow. Why do you need rapid flow testing if there will never be community spread? It really is a political cul de sac / catch 22.
And of course the public will immediately say why weren’t we prepared!
I remember last summer when we came out of lockdown 1 some of our politicians wanted to be led by the public as to speed of opening and maybe that’s what will have to happen in NZ too

There was an article today in the NZ Herald about nurses at Auckland Hospital complaining that they hadn't yet been fitted for a N95 mask and were being told just to wear any, even though if its not fitted correctly its not effective. Apparently it takes 15 mins to fit.

The stories strikes me as being one that fits into the point you are making sashagabadon, whereby putting your eggs into the zero covid strategy means your planning elsewhere is lacking. Its the same thing as closing vaccination centres (even for 48 hours) because they weren't set up as covid secure to begin with (meaning any outbreak that occurred could take out that vaccination station and make it more likely to be a site where transmission has occurred).

I don't know how its going to pan out in NZ but if things do go badly, I think its very possible that we will see further cracks and oversights because everything politically was invested into a zero covid strategy. And at that point you might get a bigger backlash within NZ starting to play out.

At the moment there's nothing that isn't untraceable so thats good, but the longer it takes for numbers to drop the more disquiet will kick in, especially with this talk of even stricter restrictions. Even non-fatigued community minded NZ won't tolerate it for long. There has to be a tangible feeling of shared success for people to support whats being done.

Level 3 restrictions elsewhere and a 'border' south of Auckland will also help fuel any unrest that kicks in if problems arise there with managing that. Regional restrictions did not play out well at all in the UK - NZ can monitor these borders much better due to the road network lending itself to it being possible, but it will add to grumblings if things become more prolonged.

Its very much on a knife edge at this point.

I think its easy to manage when you are 'winning', but as things start to unravel and you step into crisis management it become much much harder. And one crisis tends to trigger others and spiral into a very difficult situation very quickly if preparations aren't impeccable.

Yes it’s terrible planning that even nurses haven’t been fit tested for their masks yet. That’s very very basic planning and yes takes around 15 mins per nurse and so important to get right as the masks fit much worse on smaller nurses with smaller heads!
Where I work all nurses whatever their specialism were trained to be “ICU ready” and could then be redeployed to ICU with little notice ( volunteers were redeployed first) Our Head of Nursing has said it was so successful that it’s going to be ongoing training.
We had admin staff redeployed as bed buddies or HCA’s or even ward cleaners. Volunteers from other teams helped with lunches etc.
All this takes time to set up and organise though plus reassure redeployed staff too ( who maybe anxious about it all).

A covid modeller, albeit an economist rather than an epidemiologist, has now uttered the E word.

i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300393669/covid19-end-is-not-in-sight-as-delta-outbreak-case-numbers-continue-to-grow

Ardern is also readying plans to maintain the cracking pace of the country's vaccine rollout, which has jabbed about 90,000 people a day the past two days.

The Government is concerned that supplies of the vaccine might not be able to satisfy demand, and is readying plans to import more vaccines.

The Herald revealed this morning this could included changing vaccination schedules or using non-Pfizer jabs.

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-coronavirus-delta-borrowing-vaccines-moving-away-from-pfizer-on-table-in-government-jabs-plan/JMBJ4GJ5DAISV2M7KBWRHFZYXE/
Covid 19 coronavirus Delta: Borrowing vaccines, moving away from Pfizer on table in Government jabs plan

The Government might "swap" vaccines with other countries or request early shipments from Pfizer as part of a plan to keep the vaccination rollout running through a possible shortage of supply next month.

Hmm

Borrowed? Borrowed from where? How do you borrow a vaccine?

Yes, it's going to an interesting week seeing where cases numbers go. It feels like it could go either way at this stage. I am personally very glad we locked down straight away though. I dread to think how many cases there would be by now if we hadn't.

@FourTeaFallOut

Borrowed? Borrowed from where? How do you borrow a vaccine?

They'll ask other governments if NZ may have those governments' next shipments now, in exchange for NZ's shipments which are due later. Presumably.

Who would that be favourable for? Borrowed just sounds so casual, like a book swap. But you would be 'jumping the queue' to expedite your schedule by 'taking' vaccines from other people who are otherwise left vulnerable.

When we did this - and we are no angels, we are bloody sods for this - it was called 'stealing' not 'borrowing'.

It can be a sensible policy to swap doses with other countries say if their doses are soon to expire and they aren’t likely to use them. I think Aus got doses recently from Poland and we of course got doses from India. We then return them later out of a future supply.
NZ have made a massive error in going all in with pfzier and bigging this decision up publicly (thereby suggesting to the public that Pfizer is the best vaccine) so they’ll need Pfzier stocks. They might find another country willing to loan or sell them Pfzier doses for September to keep them going. They don’t need that many.
They could also extend dose gap further to 12 weeks to eek available stocks out and could delay opening to everyone even teens in September so doses are concentrated in higher priority groups.

NZ also has purchase agreements with AstraZeneca and Jansen so we have those options too. Pfizer was just the first to receive approval from Medsafe. I think AstraZeneca might be a tough sell for many people now though, especially, as you point out, our government has touted Pfizer as the preferred option. Perhaps they haven't literally said this but I think this is probably how most people have interpreted the messaging.

We were so lucky not to have had the negative press for AZ in the same way here! Its the same in Oz isnt it with vaccine preference.

www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018810138/dr-richard-webby-we-ll-all-catch-covid-19-eventually

Example of pivot article.

Even contains this paragraph

“What about New Zealand's strategy of attempting to flatten the curve, trying to even out the case numbers long-term so medical resources can cope with the caseloads?”

Eh? That’s not NZ’s strategy at all.
It’s the UK’s / Europe’s which NZ has repeatedly said they are not going to do
Living with Covid means Dying with Covid etc etc

Actually it was NZs initial strategy, we went into level 4 lockdown in March 2020 with the mantra "flatten the curve" so we wouldn't overwhelm the health system. It only changed to elimination after that lockdown was far more successful than predicted and it looked like we could. Even then it was eliminate it until there's a vaccine. At the time that was thought to be a number of years away. It's easy to critique with hindsight, but you have to remember all of us were working with limited info. We also have our highly vulnerable Pacific neighbors to think of - we are a main gateway and covid there would be / now is a disaster (see Fiji), so that also has informed our strategy.

Delta is a game changer, to the point it may as well be a new virus, so yes our strategy may change in response. We may not be able to eliminate it. There's been talk since the beginning of the year, and especially watching Australia, that elimination may change to management in light of delta. It's not a brand new idea and if we pivot it's simply back to our original strategy.

I don't get the sneering attitude to us trying to eliminate it though, other than perhaps other countries are so traumatized that a lockdown strategy succeeding somewhere keeps that option alive which is understandably an unacceptable thought to many. I also think there's an element of needing people to stop fighting covid, other than vaccinating, because that then means the world can go back to normal and declare the pandemic over. Which is a bit of a false hope because we have no idea if delta is the end of it, or the worst it will get. I hope so, but it's naive to think just because you choose to "live with it" that this thing is somehow over, that you are now post-pandemic. I can understand holding onto that though.