Covid-19 update

[mardigras]

13 minutes ago, Hesi said:

So that stuffs the hospitality, tourism and airline industries, unless they come up with some real lateral thinking.

The international arm of airline industry is pretty well screwed for a long time imo. If NZ and Australia get to a point where they could be a collective bubble, you might get trans-tasman routes opening up a little. If I wanted to go to Europe, I'd say there would be little to no chance before September - and probably longer. Many will have big reserves - but they're going to need them.

The gov is not going to simply open up routes until a vaccine is out (jmo). We don't have the infrastructure to provide controlled quarantining of arrivals. So tourism - time to see NZ for those that have the residual funds. I had a trip planned to the Catlins and Stewart Island for right now. So when things are back up and running internally, I will be doing that trip. Stewart Island is a great little place.

As for the restaurants and other forms of hospitality - it's probably a bit like the NZ racing industry - bigger than needed and some simply won't survive.

And again, people won't learn - and there will be heaps that continue to operate day to day, week to week without thinking there is any need to do anything differently. Now some of that is through little choice, but a lot of it, is by choice.

[Maximus]

2 hours ago, Hesi said:

The above was not a serious post

but would be seriously considered in China and North Korea

Edited April 14, 2020 by Maximus

[Maximus]

I liked a lot of the comments made by Rod Drury yesterday ...but not his point that our construction industry is underpinned by tourism and that  it will be the next to fall. I do like the view that we have an opportunity to 'reset' New Zealand and should capitalise on the advantages of isolation/remoteness, whatever they are. We have always had an export-led economy - apart from food and wine, what can we export that the world needs? We have a very clever and innovative IT sector; we can move more quickly to electricity-fuelled transportation and energy supplies;  we can invest heavily and quickly in WATER MANAGEMENT and stop giving away water bottling rights; we can employ people on infrastructure /civic and highway beautification projects; we can ramp up domestic and Australasian tourism

There are no doubt many more. I'd like to see the government call some kind of all-in Think And Do Tank to implement the best of the ideas tabled. It should be a 10-20 year vision for NZ.

And our racing industry has a brilliant opportunity to go to Government with a case based on our export earnings history and potential; wagering history and potential; employment history and potential.

MM

[mardigras]

5 minutes ago, Maximus said:

And our racing industry has a brilliant opportunity to go to Government with a case based on our export earnings history and potential; wagering history and potential; employment history and potential.

MM

With a case? A case of export wine perhaps? I guess a bribe is as good a way as any.

The breeding industry exports would be worth largely as much as it is now, without any racing.

Edited April 14, 2020 by mardigras

[Hesi]

22 minutes ago, Maximus said:

but would be seriously considered in China and North Korea

In North Korea, the barcodes would be tattooed!

[mardigras]

30 minutes ago, Hesi said:

In North Korea, the barcodes would be tattooed!

Nothing wrong with that. My dog got a ID tattoo - seemed to work OK. 🙂 

Edited April 14, 2020 by mardigras

[Maximus]

15 hours ago, mardigras said:

With a case? A case of export wine perhaps? I guess a bribe is as good a way as any.

The breeding industry exports would be worth largely as much as it is now, without any racing.

I am not saying that going cap in hand to Govt is ideal - I am saying that these extraordinary circumstances give our cause an unparalleled opportunity to get the industry reset we need, with the kind of help we would ever usually get from government. The help was needed before Covid (and legislation due to be enacted by 30 June, I believe). I hope lovely (?) RITA is 'all over it' 

MM

[mardigras]

2 minutes ago, Maximus said:

I am not saying that going cap in hand to Govt is ideal - I am saying that these extraordinary circumstances give our cause an unparalleled opportunity to get the industry reset we need, with the kind of help we would ever usually get from government. The help was needed before Covid (and legislation due to be enacted by 30 June, I believe). I hope lovely (?) RITA is 'all over it' 

MM

Isn't the government already doing quite a lot for the industry during these extraordinary circumstances (relative to other industries)? Wage subsidies etc, a TAB still able to profit from events not even being run in NZ. NZTR (even if the TAB reduced original level of funding), should be flush with funds - since no racing to allocate it to. The longer the shutdown, the more reserves the codes should have built up.

Some might say the industry is in better shape now than before the lockdown. I know there are some that are unhappy that the TAB can operate as an online business selling services that are clearly not essential. But that's another matter.

The industry needs a shake-up, but the types of changes it needs were not included in any of the items put forward for legislative change. More taxes is simply not going to do it.

You've clearly got more confidence in what RITA is doing than I do.

[Hesi]

Interesting, that when it comes to crisis times like this, exactly how much can get done, and how quickly things move, the bureaucracy seems to evaporate, everyone pulls in the same direction.

Just look at how quickly the home school/TV channels with tech support/freebies for those more disadvantaged, was pulled together.

Let's hope Racing shows the same, 'all hands to the pump' mentality, instead of what we have seen for years and years, everyone pulling in their own direction for their own benefit.  I doubt it though, I see the same old criticisers coming out it force, lambasting those that don't fit their idea of what should be done

[mardigras]

11 minutes ago, Hesi said:

Let's hope Racing shows the same, 'all hands to the pump' mentality, instead of what we have seen for years and years, everyone pulling in their own direction for their own benefit.  I doubt it though, I see the same old criticisers coming out it force, lambasting those that don't fit their idea of what should be done

The issue for racing is, there is no cohesion. And those involved in the decisions are largely bureaucrats (Peters, Messara, RITA board), with no ability to unify.

Most of the decision making is very knee-jerk. This isn't working, let's try this. Oh, that didn't work, let's try this. No proper evaluation of the option(s). That's how you get to where we are now.

[Hesi]

You would have to say, that a lot of what you say, is also applicable to other areas eg, Health and Education, yet a lot of the territorial, bureaucrat stuff has just gone.

How difficult would it have been for the education sector to pull together the home school thing in normal times.......maybe 5 years later

And it looks like they are gearing up for 10 weeks, so schools will not re-open

What has been done in 3 weeks, could potentially be a quantum change in the way education operates in this country, especially for the less advantaged

That is the thing we are looking for in Racing, quantum change, not tinkering

[mardigras]

What has happened in the last few weeks will hopefully open the eyes of many business. Trusting staff to work from home etc (for those jobs that can). New Zealand was way behind many countries in that regard.

Well if you want quantum change for racing - this is what I would do in a nutshell

From the betting side

1. Get out of commingling

2. Get out of fixed odds on racing

3. Reduce offshore racing provisioning down to 20 - 30 races per week

4. Get legislation changed to allow fixed odds betting providers (let them start and clip the ticket)

5. Focus broadcasting/promotion heavily on NZ racing

6. Broadcast mostly on one channel NZ racing (all codes), but allow for split when the schedule demands - offshore on the 2nd channel when NZ racing is over (otherwise other channel could be for promotion items such as breeding/preview/review/international/what's happening/special interest)

i.e. make the industry about the NZ industry.

And I would probably do 7 and 8 as well.

7. Reduce take out rates to around 10% w/p 15% exotics. 

8. Split off the sports betting and pokies sides of the business (grandfather in some funding from those activities).

These things would hurt the income stream for some time. But NZ racing needs to have people interested in NZ racing, not table tennis from the Ukraine.

From the racing side

1. Reduce the racing to a single tier of class/rating based programming. Stakes align with class (like HK)

2. Change the handicapping model to rate on performance of each horse (allowing for further post race re-assessment)

3. Allow for maiden handicaps

4. Remove the female allowance (is catered for in a proper handicapping model anyway)

5. Reduce stakes at the high end to ultimately have a program that total stakes is affordable at 65%-70% of funding

6. Use other funding to introduce a program of cyclic track removal/maintenance

7. Reduce the schedule to around 1800-2000 races per year (gallops)

and obviously do other peripheral things around participant training/horse welfare. I'm sure there are other things I would do, but off the top of my head, this is where I would look to start - and seek discussion on from participants.

This may mean going to a model where maidens race for $10k and Group 1s are $70k. So be it. You have to keep within your limits, not present the façade of being in a better state than you are. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hesi]

5 minutes ago, mardigras said:

What has happened in the last few weeks will hopefully open the eyes of many business. Trusting staff to work from home etc (for those jobs that can). New Zealand was way behind many countries in that regard.

Well if you want quantum change for racing - this is what I would do in a nutshell

From the betting side

1. Get out of commingling

2. Get out of fixed odds on racing

3. Reduce offshore racing provisioning down to 20 - 30 races per week

4. Get legislation changed to allow fixed odds betting providers (let them start and clip the ticket)

5. Focus broadcasting/promotion heavily on NZ racing

6. Broadcast mostly on one channel NZ racing (all codes), but allow for split when the schedule demands - offshore on the 2nd channel when NZ racing is over (otherwise other channel could be for promotion items such as breeding/preview/review/international/what's happening/special interest)

i.e. make the industry about the NZ industry.

And I would probably do 7 and 8 as well.

7. Reduce take out rates to around 10% w/p 15% exotics. 

8. Split off the sports betting and pokies sides of the business (grandfather in some funding from those activities).

These things would hurt the income stream for some time. But NZ racing needs to have people interested in NZ racing, not table tennis from the Ukraine.

From the racing side

1. Reduce the racing to a single tier of class/rating based programming. Stakes align with class (like HK)

2. Change the handicapping model to rate on performance of each horse (allowing for further post race re-assessment)

3. Allow for maiden handicaps

4. Remove the female allowance (is catered for in a proper handicapping model anyway)

5. Reduce stakes at the high end to ultimately have a program that total stakes is affordable at 65%-70% of funding

6. Use other funding to introduce a program of cyclic track removal/maintenance

7. Reduce the schedule to around 1800-2000 races per year (gallops)

and obviously do other peripheral things around participant training/horse welfare. I'm sure there are other things I would do, but off the top of my head, this is where I would look to start - and seek discussion on from participants.

This may mean going to a model where maidens race for $10k and Group 1s are $70k. So be it. You have to keep within your limits, not present the façade of being in a better state than you are. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the contentious part of the Messara report, sell off 20 courses to generate 190 mil to upgrade the 28 that remain??

Thanks by the way, for putting up such an extensive range of quantum measures

[mardigras]

3 minutes ago, Hesi said:

And the contentious part of the Messara report, sell off 20 courses to generate 190 mil to upgrade the 28 that remain??

Thanks by the way, for putting up such an extensive range of quantum measures

In my list, the other funding was the remaining 30-35% I didn't dish out to stakes. 

[ngakonui grass]

i'm picking that the closure of many factories will hasten investment into robotics.

 

[Hesi]

24 minutes ago, ngakonui grass said:

i'm picking that the closure of many factories will hasten investment into robotics.

 

C3PO, R2D2?

[Maximus]

2 hours ago, Hesi said:

You would have to say, that a lot of what you say, is also applicable to other areas eg, Health and Education, yet a lot of the territorial, bureaucrat stuff has just gone.

How difficult would it have been for the education sector to pull together the home school thing in normal times.......maybe 5 years later

And it looks like they are gearing up for 10 weeks, so schools will not re-open

What has been done in 3 weeks, could potentially be a quantum change in the way education operates in this country, especially for the less advantaged

That is the thing we are looking for in Racing, quantum change, not tinkering

exactly, Hesi...dramatic change - and we can start from the ground up in a way that would not have been possible before Covid --eg limited number of racetracks being used for the next 12+ months. (They'd have argued the toss forever over which tracks should miss out; now they HAVE TO DECIDE just to get the industry going, and using a different set of criteria - starting with public health/safety and nearness to horses/ horse people, not vested interest.)

MM

MM

[Hesi]

55 minutes ago, Hesi said:

C3PO, R2D2?

 

[Hesi]

Pretty good indication they will be dropping back to Level 3 next week, and that the cause for concern with ICU being deluged has passed.

Had my elective surgery scheduled back in for next Wed.

Pinhole in the back of the retina

[Hesi]

I hope you don't mind Mardi, but I have copied your post from another site, as it is the best and most objective commentary I have seen on the situation.

So many people now being wise after it appears we have come through this relatively unscathed, healthwise.....so far

Some of the nonsense being written by the usual suspects

Along what curious said. I think the NZ economy will recover a lot quicker than Australia's, even though a lot more business have remained open in Australia. They have lacked clear decision making which will have a longer impact on recovery imo.

And because of the clear decision making, I think our response is better in so far as the health and safety aspects.

You mentioned you think the cure could be worse than the disease. I definitely disagree. If you didn't try the cure, the disease would have a far greater impact on the economy. That is already evident on what was happening to the economies of those countries that didn't do anything for longer.

If you try the cure, and it doesn't work out, you'll just be in the same position as you would be without trying. In NZ, my view is the most important thing to do was ensure our health systems remained able to service the needs of the community. I think we will have done that, and our borders (outside of possibly Australia), won't be opening anytime soon, and unlikely before a vaccination - in order to limit the potential impact to our health system (and we simply don't have the infrastructure/facilities to quarantine the arrivals).

I've stated many times, the virus isn't the biggest problem. It is the individual countries ability to continue to provide the level of health service the country requires. If you break your health system, you are going to break your economy.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned. But societies will not learn them. Once this is all over and some form of normal life returns, people/business in countries like NZ will still continue to live week to week (even those that could do something to change that). For most, their behaviour will not change. 

[Maximus]

Very good points made by Mardi. I agree completely with his key point that we have been able to contain the virus well enough that our health system is not overwhelmed by serious cases (that end up infecting and killing healthcare workers, as seen in so many other countries). UT it wouldn't take much for that to change - just look at the Rosewood cluster to see how the fatalities can quickly rise. Our winter (flu) season is not far away. It also see a spike in severe asthma case and cardiopulmonary disease cases requiring hospitalisation.

So here's the question...if you're Jacinda, are you going to make the call next Monday to move to Level 3?  Hesi, why not run a poll on this?

For what it's worth, the Mustelid thinks Jacinda will extend the lockdown for 1 or 2 more weeks  - precisely because there is too much at stake to get it wrong...and Singapore is proving that not going hard enough for long enough can come back to bite ya.

 

[mardigras]

And on the other channel, I'd like to add a response to Bob Jones's article put up. 

I suggested the impact to our economy was going to be largely the same, with or without the lockdown.

And let's look at Sweden. A country with similar population density, not an island but still reasonably remote in European terms.

What's happening in Sweden where they took similar measures to what Bob suggests we should have. Social distancing/hygiene etc.

Well if we had simply mirrored their stats, we would have currently roughly 6000 cases and 650 deceased. And a further 500 serious/critical (which would be likely beyond our health system). And things are looking increasingly grim there and may have to now start similar things to what we have done. Sounds like a good idea so far.

And what of their economy? They were predicting two weeks back a 9% increase in unemployment. Rosy? No. Keeping things going was not going to change the impacts to many aspects of the economy. Many things are affected by what is going on outside your own country - a key one being tourism in this case. Another major impact was always going to be fear - and that will be increasingly so in a place like Sweden should things get out of control.

 

[Maximus]

Spot on, again Mardi ...a bloke on my local community's FB page was grizzling the other day that we should at least be able to gather at the end of our local beach car park for Friday 5pm drinkies while keeping our distance ...he quoted Sweden's approach, too.

An excellent article on the Swedish approach is here:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/can-you-beat-covid-19-without-a-lockdown-sweden-is-trying

 

[ngakonui grass]

Mum and Dad businesses will struggle to survive a longer shutdown especially those in the food industry.

It would appear Countdown,Foodstuffs,Mc Donalds,KFC etc are going to come out of this in good shape.

[Maximus]

an extract from the article about Sweden's approach ...

 ...the coronavirus is all over the world now, and, without a vaccine or a massive outbreak that brings about herd immunity, you won’t get rid of it. Even if you do what China did and lock down so hard that you eradicate the virus within your borders, it will return as soon as you allow any travel in and out of your country to resume. So Sweden has based its policies on two premises: (1) The coronavirus can only be managed, not suppressed. Short of going full Wuhan on the entire planet, we’ll have to live with it. (2) People won’t tolerate severe lockdown for more than a month or two, since boredom, isolation, and economic desperation will get overwhelming.

With these premises in mind, Sweden has pumped the brakes instead of slamming on them. You close school for older kids, but you keep grade school going, because evidence so far suggests that younger children are not a major cause of transmission for the novel coronavirus. (The opposite is true of influenza: Kids are the big spreaders.) You prohibit standing room and shoulder-to-shoulder seating in popular bars and restaurants, but you allow them to keep operating with greater space between tables and customers. You encourage people to keep a physical distance among one another, but you don’t command it.

The question, then, isn’t whether Sweden is going to see more deaths from the coronavirus in the short term than it would with a total lockdown. It obviously will. The question is whether it’s going to see exponentially more cases. So far, that hasn’t happened. With unchecked spreading of the virus, a country could expect to see a mortality rate that was 10 or 100 or 1,000 times higher than that of a country with strict controls in place. But Sweden has a mortality rate that’s only about twice as high as that of Denmark, which has a strict lockdown (about 0.0001% of the population dead versus about 0.00005% of the population dead), and only half that of France. Its hospitals are challenged but not overwhelmed. Between the unhappy poles of shutting down society entirely or eliminating COVID-19 deaths entirely, it may have found a balance it can live with.

An imperfect but useful analogy is to the highway speed limit. Set it to 10 miles per hour, and you might save a lot of lives, but at a huge cost to efficiency and sanity. Set it to something a bit higher, like 40 miles per hour, and you could still save three quarters of those lives but still allow a semblance of normal transit to continue. In this analogy, most of the world has lowered the speed limit to 10 miles per hour. It saves lives, but people won’t tolerate it for long. Sweden has lowered its limit to 40 miles per hour. That saves fewer lives, but people can live with it for a long time. It prevents carnage on one side and madness on the other. And you might save more lives overall