Covid-19 update

[curious]

It's a copy and paste.

 

[mardigras]

With more than 2000 more cases and another 74 deaths overnight in Sweden, along with an economy suffering the same as the rest, I'm surprised it took him this long to realise.

Norway and Denmark say they will open up tourism between their two countries from 15 June but will maintain restrictions for Swedes.

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/we-got-it-wrong-says-man-behind-swedish-virus-plan/ar-BB14XPis

Sweden's controversial decision not to impose a strict lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic led to too many deaths, the man behind the policy, Anders Tegnell, has acknowledged.

Sweden has seen a far higher mortality rate than its nearest neighbours and its nationals are being barred from crossing their borders.

Mr Tegnell told Swedish radio more should have been done early on.

"There is quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done."

Sweden has counted 4,468 deaths and 38,589 infections in a population of 10 million, while Denmark, Norway and Finland have imposed lockdowns and seen far lower rates.

Denmark has seen 580 deaths, Norway has had 237 deaths and Finland 320.

How Tegnell's views have changed

Mr Tegnell, who is Sweden's state epidemiologist and in charge of the country's response to Covid-19, told BBC News in April that the high death toll was mainly because homes for the elderly had been unable to keep the disease out, although he emphasised that "does not disqualify our strategy as a whole".

Now he has told Swedish public radio: "If we were to encounter the same disease again, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would settle on doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."

When asked if too many people had died too soon, Mr Tegnell said, "Yes, absolutely."

[Hesi]

10 hours ago, curious said:

It's a copy and paste.

 

So much for that then, it is still very well put though

[craigos1]

On 6/1/2020 at 1:22 PM, barryb said:

10 days now Jacinda.

Level 1 from Thursday or even looney lefties like Craig and Hesi will desert you.

A looney lefty I can live with.............................far better than than A ridiculous righty

[Maximus]

On 6/1/2020 at 5:27 PM, Hesi said:

"The move to Alert Level 1 will be considered no later than June 22"

She's not stupid, she will be listening to the science, the public health advice, the modelling and forecasts on the economy from Treasury, and very much also, public opinion, there is an election coming.  So on that basis, I'm picking Cabinet discussion and approval later this week, for a move to Level 1 sometime in the w/c 8 June

..all the time entrenching the view that normal daily life needs her say-so. Kiwis are going to be very very tired of this socialist state / attitude by the Spring.

[Maximus]

1 hour ago, mardigras said:

With more than 2000 more cases and another 74 deaths overnight in Sweden, along with an economy suffering the same as the rest, I'm surprised it took him this long to realise.

Norway and Denmark say they will open up tourism between their two countries from 15 June but will maintain restrictions for Swedes.

https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/we-got-it-wrong-says-man-behind-swedish-virus-plan/ar-BB14XPis

Sweden's controversial decision not to impose a strict lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic led to too many deaths, the man behind the policy, Anders Tegnell, has acknowledged.

Sweden has seen a far higher mortality rate than its nearest neighbours and its nationals are being barred from crossing their borders.

Mr Tegnell told Swedish radio more should have been done early on.

"There is quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done."

Sweden has counted 4,468 deaths and 38,589 infections in a population of 10 million, while Denmark, Norway and Finland have imposed lockdowns and seen far lower rates.

Denmark has seen 580 deaths, Norway has had 237 deaths and Finland 320.

How Tegnell's views have changed

Mr Tegnell, who is Sweden's state epidemiologist and in charge of the country's response to Covid-19, told BBC News in April that the high death toll was mainly because homes for the elderly had been unable to keep the disease out, although he emphasised that "does not disqualify our strategy as a whole".

Now he has told Swedish public radio: "If we were to encounter the same disease again, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would settle on doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done."

When asked if too many people had died too soon, Mr Tegnell said, "Yes, absolutely."

well, I take my hat off to Mr Tegnell, who at least has the integrity to admit he was wrong. Clearly not a politician.

[Maximus]

1 hour ago, Hesi said:

So much for that then, it is still very well put though

Actually, a little Mustelid Research goes a long way. 

In five minutes of online research I have discovered that the 'Stop Saying You Researched It' piece is attributed to one Linda Gamble Spadoro, a Florida-based psychologist. I am not saying she is the originator of the piece, though. Interestingly, both 'posts' here - by Archer and r/copy/pasta are incomplete - both fail to acknowledge Linda Spadoro ...and Archer's version omits the final word  (ie:  'Scary.')

https://fountainpsychological.com/about-us

Edited June 3, 2020 by Maximus

[Globederby19]

On 6/2/2020 at 5:37 AM, barryb said:

I just googled moral compass &  faith,  didn’t seem to go together at all.

Checked back through history and it kept getting worse.

Dear dear, I might have given you more credit than relying on Google to support your argument Barry. You could have popped down to your local Church and I'm sure they could have explained, as could any Christian in the street that Gods moral law and Faith are synonomous.

You probably read Googles secular answer where well meaning people of Faith  in the name of God did terrible things , and quite contrary to Gods moral law. That's our human nature Barry. Much to your delight I can tell you they will be judged for their actions. 

Thanks to Gods moral law, Western society can enjoy such institutions as Hospitals, Universitys, Schools, etc etc. Why?. Because we are asked to Love your neighbor as yourself, which spawned an outpouring of love for the humanity.

 

[VC!]

I see NZ will be officially Covid19 free come June 15th

I’m guessing it will be

”Meeting Arderned”

[Sandpiper]

NZ was dealt a pat hand and played it accordingly. I think we (collectively, not NZ) may owe a debt of gratitude to Sweden for taking a nonstandard approach because there was some doubt about the best approach for more infected nations and in that case a mixed strategy amongst similar nations (those with reliable reporting) allows for better analysis after the fact. JMO

[mardigras]

Pretty obvious I would have thought.

Unlike most countries, Sweden never locked down during the coronavirus pandemic, largely keeping businesses operating, but the economy appears to be taking a hard hit nonetheless.

Whatever hope there may have been that this policy would soften the economic blow now seems dashed.

"As in most of the world, there will be a record decline for the Swedish economy in Q2," SEB bank economist Olle Holmgren said.

In April, the government predicted GDP would contract by four percent in 2020, compared to its January forecast of 1.1 percent growth.

While the European Commission has forecast a Swedish contraction of 6.1 percent (compared to -6.5 percent for Germany and -7.7 percent for the eurozone), the outlook presented by the Swedish central bank is even more dire -- it anticipates a GDP decline of up to 10 percent.

[Hesi]

Listening to talkback on the radio, callers, commentators and hosts.  There is still this a view held by many, that the severe lockdown in NZ, has caused the serious economic downturn that everyone is expecting, that probably will not be as bad as the 'experts' are predicting

Clearly as you have alluded to, countries that did not lockdown, anywhere near as severely, are suffering the same economic downturn.

The difference being in NZ, Covid has had very little impact on our lives, healthwise.

 

[mardigras]

3 minutes ago, Hesi said:

Listening to talkback on the radio, callers, commentators and hosts.  There is still this a view held by many, that the severe lockdown in NZ, has caused the serious economic downturn that everyone is expecting, that probably will not be as bad as the 'experts' are predicting

Clearly as you have alluded to, countries that did not lockdown, anywhere near as severely, are suffering the same economic downturn.

The difference being in NZ, Covid has had very little impact on our lives, healthwise.

 

Two problems I see there Hesi.

1. You listen to talkback radio

2. Without being rude, there are few that can grasp multiple things at the same time and understand things like cause and effect. They just look at what appears obvious to them, largely fed by the likes of the articles the Chief puts up from people like Simon Thornley.

[Hesi]

3 minutes ago, mardigras said:

Two problems I see there Hesi.

1. You listen to talkback radio

2. Without being rude, there are few that can grasp multiple things at the same time and understand things like cause and effect. They just look at what appears obvious to them, largely fed by the likes of the articles the Chief puts up from people like Simon Thornley.

Only because Radio Trackside no longer exists, and it makes a change from music all the time, but for the reasons you allude to, I usually turn it off after 15 minutes

[ngakonui grass]

1 hour ago, mardigras said:

Two problems I see there Hesi.

1. You listen to talkback radio

2. Without being rude, there are few that can grasp multiple things at the same time and understand things like cause and effect. They just look at what appears obvious to them, largely fed by the likes of the articles the Chief puts up from people like Simon Thornley.

Alex Trebek of Jeopardy asks.......Who is Simon Thornley  ?

[mardigras]

56 minutes ago, ngakonui grass said:

Alex Trebek of Jeopardy asks.......Who is Simon Thornley  ?

I thought that would be the 'question' to the answer 'Writer of unintelligent crap'

[mardigras]

On 6/8/2020 at 11:44 AM, ngakonui grass said:

Alex Trebek of Jeopardy asks.......Who is Simon Thornley  ?

I'd expect he is someone that would find this riveting? A study coming out of the Imperial College of London, looking at 11 countries in Europe. (I haven't considered whether the study has merit - and I expect it would be highly questionable - as are the reports from the above mentioned individual which have zero relationship with economy impact).

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by mardigras

[pete]

This may have been written by a National MP as an introduction to a book he's written about the lockdown but it does present an alternative view to the incessant self congratulation of our 'ruler'.

You can disagree with it. I happen to agree with it. All good, we are intelligent, rational people on this site (apart from Hesi 😁).

“Flattening the Country: the real story of Labour’s lockdown”

 

CHRIS PENK·THURSDAY, JUNE 11, 2020·READING TIME: 9 MINUTES

 

“It was only supposed to be the curve that got flattened, not the whole country.

This is the real story of Labour’s lockdown: how poor preparation then panic set them on a course that none of us could avoid.

And so, as history will record, they promptly set about destroying the village that is New Zealand in order to save it. Before we get into all that, however, I should be clear about a few things.

Was a lockdown necessary? Yes. Was the timing of New Zealand going into lockdown roughly right? Yes. Was it inevitable that our tourism industry would be decimated by the coronavirus? Yes. Was a considerable amount of economic disruption more generally also inevitable? Yes. And are there some countries whose covid-19 results have been worse than ours (as well as some whose are better)? Yes, definitely yes.

Now, having acknowledged all that upfront, it’s also important that we turn to some other evidence-based home truths.

By the way, relatively few of the points that you’re about to read are original to me. That’s a good thing, as I’ve naturally been keener to rely on the judgement of experts in various fields than my own, particularly when it comes to specialised knowledge or experience on the ground. (Naturally I’ve provided footnotes and acknowledged sources throughout to ensure I fall on the right side of the research/plagiarism divide.) Complaints about the lack of flu vaccines, for example, are credible for having been made most loudly by the health professionals expected to administer them.

What you are about to read is, however, a unique compilation of the difficulties and dangers experienced by New Zealand throughout the crisis that was our government’s response to the coronavirus. It’s by compiling that we see patterns played out. These patterns exists across different aspects of the government’s actions and across a timeline of several months.

So, how did we do?

In health terms, our current situation is better than it could have been in some ways but worse in others. There is a huge cost to life and limb that we’ve only just begun to pay.

So while it’s true that New Zealand’s losses could easily have been higher, government inaction created the conditions in which we’re even having that conversation now.

Simply stated, our government’s initial reaction to news of this global pandemic was shockingly slack. They told us that they were “alert but not alarmed”, when “conscious but incompetent” would have been closer to the truth.

In this book we’ll look at a collection of inter-connected issues, starting with a couple of international comparisons in the name of introducing some balance to the debate.

As a nation, our day of economic reckoning grows ever nearer. The seeds of decades’ worth of soul-destroying debt have been sown.

In attempting to pick winners, the government gambled and lost on behalf of us all. The Ardern administration did not merely attempt to make educated guesses about which sectors of the economy could succeed. Instead, it dictated that certain categories of human endeavour were entirely expendable. Whole industries have been led like so many lambs to a no-longer-non-essential slaughterhouse.

That’s the big picture on the economic front. It’s not as though a detailed examination makes for any more pleasant viewing, however, as we’ll see.

For one thing, placing almost all the business-backing eggs in the basket of wage subsidies betrayed alarming ignorance.

While locking down the nation was necessary at some level, as I’ve already acknowledged, the emphasis was entirely misplaced.

Those in the Beehive who thought they knew better than the rest of us created an artificial distinction between “essential” and “non-essential”. This distinction damned a huge number of services, employment and even people.

Instead the line in the sand should have been drawn to keep clear the “safe” from the “unsafe” from the very first day of Alert Level 4. This was belatedly acknowledged, in effect, by the government in its adoption of that distinction for the Alert Level 3 phase. No-one in New Zealand’s government – from the Prime Minister down – ever mustered the intellectual honesty to admit that the basis of Level 3 should have been the basis of Level 4 all those weeks prior.

As we will discuss, the eventual arrival of Level 3 was like a lifeline thrown to a drowned man. The government had maintained restrictions for far too long in the face of mounting evidence that these should be relaxed or at least re-worked. Not only did the lockdown endure at Level 4 for days longer than necessary, it had remained for all the wrong reasons.

During the lockdown a fatuous fiefdom was brought into being by a government that, for some reason, believed that supermarkets could never become cluttered, crowded or cruddy. That seemed to be their assessment of small local retail businesses such as butchers and greengrocers, however, as these were denied any opportunity to implement equivalent safety measures.

For some reason, precautions that were entirely acceptable in supermarkets could not possibly work in smaller outfits. Whereas dairies were (quite rightly) able to remain open on the basis that they would allow customer presence on a one-in-one-out basis, the butchers, bakers and any remaining candlestick makers of the realm were not trusted in the same way.

Other crass distinctions were also created and this was no more stark anywhere than in the media sector. Let’s go there.

Migrant misery is now multiplying as the government’s ineptitude has seen thousands of lives disrupted for much longer than necessary due to its failure to process visa applications during the lockdown.

Teachers were told – along with all other Kiwis – to act as though they had covid-19. Fair enough. Teachers were also told, however – unlike most other Kiwis – to go back to work during Level 3 lockdown in environments where the chance of maintaining physical distancing was so laughably remote as to be practically non-existent.

Listening to lectures daily at 1pm you could have been forgiven for thinking that, as a nation, we had gone hard and gone early. If only the “early” bit were true.

Repeated refusals by ministers to contemplate even basic protections for this country at our border doomed us to the destruction that will follow, as surely as night does day. It did not have to be like this.

Almost as frustrating to hear was the baseless and graceless chorus of self-congratulation from Cabinet. New Zealand’s story was one of an open stable door through which relatively few horses bolted. It was good luck, in other words, as much as good management in the early days.

To be lucky in a global pandemic, you want three things.

First, you want home to be more a thousand miles from the next nearest human. Check.

Second, you want to have a really low population density. Compare Broadway in Newmarket, Auckland with Broadway in New York, America. Check.

Third, you want the pandemic to have the good grace to emerge at least a few months prior to the start of your winter flu season. Check.

Despite all these natural advantages, our government managed to allow the virus to import itself to these shores.

To compound its error, the Beehive then blithely blustered through shortages of testing capacity, personal protective equipment (PPE), contact tracing, flu vaccines and any meaningful monitoring of “self-isolation”.

So what have we to look forward to?

We’ve emerged blinking into the sunlight of relative freedom, unsure even what that looks like now. Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant but can it cleanse our national character? For a while there it seemed – through facebook frenzies and twitter tirades – that every man jack of us had been transformed into either a reckless rule-breaker or a tiresome tattle-tale.

Fortunately, social media is nothing like real life but it’s easy to forget that when the virtual lynch mobs are gathering in groups of much more than ten online. And of course social media is only rarely “social” and never “media” (in any reasonable use of that word) but that’s another story for another day.

Decisions were made in a way that was not only undemocratic but actively anti-democratic. Some of the loudest howls of outrage were reserved for the Leader of the Opposition going the extra mile to perform his constitutionally crucial role. You’ll recall that it was partly that he’d had the temerity to turn up to his place of work to, you know, work.

The government drew from a bottomless well of top-down decision making throughout, grudgingly allowing Parliament to resume eventually, on a skeleton staff basis right up to the week of the Budget.

Who among us was surprised at the first-week farce that was the erroneous passing of a law enabling hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to be loaned? It was a moment to make last year’s botched Budget look well executed. And executed is exactly what those responsible for such an error would surely have been in centuries past.

They promised Keynesian capacity. They delivered Keystone cops.

All in all, it’s almost been enough to make one think unkind thoughts. But of course the mantra “be kind” was soon elevated to the status of Confucian wisdom applied to Sun Tzu’s strategy.

Read and weep.”

 

Here's a link to the whole book if you're interested.

 

https://chrispenk.national.org.nz/flattening_the_country?fbclid=IwAR2bisXg_w3fTTGuCJKSCUdJwV2ubzyvO0Z5S56Vzz7hxlkVORR1pOuW0Ns

[mardigras]

Reads like a lot of politicising to me. No government would have got things totally correct. But I disagree the country has been flattened. My personal view is we are in better shape economically than I expected. And even what is forecast is less than I would have expected.

Sure, where money has been spent, whether something was done too soon or too late, heaps of things could have been done differently. I'm very surprised they think unemployment is only going to get to 10/11% or there abouts. I would have thought 15% without a lockdown and close enough to that with the lockdown. And GDP contracting 10%? That's very light to me, if the number relating to international tourism has any basis.

I'm firmly of the view that the lockdown job losses would have 'overall' been close to the same with or without lockdown. The lockdown gave some a lifeline that would have otherwise been gone, and for some others it delayed the inevitable. I'm talking overall, not one specific job versus another. 

Labour are historically crap when it comes to directing money appropriately - so this period of spend was no doubt ill directed. Ardern is nothing special outside of her ability to show empathy - something very few leaders know how to do. That is no doubt why she sits where she does in many people's thinking. This next period is where the other side of politics will become a focus to many - an area they haven't been great at in my view. You can back against Labour winning the next election. At around 1.10, they are too short for me so I'm considering laying that option.

As for the politics side of it, I'll wait until September before considering anything from any of them.

 

[Hesi]

It's biased based on his political position 

He describes Ardern's 1pm communiques as lectures, which reflects the lack of objectivity 

Also like the Chief, he is wise after the event, and has not put up what he would have done

Remember all of the decisions made, were done under relative urgency, with the weight of a nation's eyes watching

 

[pete]

35 minutes ago, Hesi said:

It's biased based on his political position 

He describes Ardern's 1pm communiques as lectures, which reflects the lack of objectivity 

Also like the Chief, he is wise after the event, and has not put up what he would have done

Remember all of the decisions made, were done under relative urgency, with the weight of a nation's eyes watching

 

True to a point but they were woefully slow in taking decisive action and then let it drag on way too long at the other end. 

And the natural advantages that NZ has in this instance seem to have been ignored in favour of being saved by Jacinda and Ashley from 80000 deaths. Quite what they did to effect this result by standing in front of a microphone every day has pretty much escaped me.

Of course, if you keep telling people that you went hard and early even if you actually didn't then they will start to believe the propaganda.

[mardigras]

5 hours ago, pete said:

True to a point but they were woefully slow in taking decisive action and then let it drag on way too long at the other end. 

I'd agree they were slow. And I'd disagree that they let it drag on. I say that because I doubt there was any cost to keeping it going a few extra days here or there. Many look at the numbers here and say, what was the point. But if you look at the rate of cases in NZ, we were tracking nearly identically with Sweden overall. I doubt many realise that. A day here or there, not a biggie for me and I seriously doubt another week or two would be the difference between the survival of a business or not. I think we have much bigger things to worry about compared to whether business could resume a week or so earlier.

And I saw this question posed elsewhere. Which I have provided my answers to.

1,500 NZ'ers were infected with Covid-19. 
22 NZ'ers (aged in their 80's, had comorbidities and most had advanced dementia) died with the virus. 
200,000 NZ'ers get the Flu each year. 
500 will die with the Flu.  Again all have comorbidities that make them vulnerable. 
Largely those deaths occur in a younger cohort namely the 60 to 75 year old group. 
That's even with a publicly funded vaccine for vulnerable and essential workers. 
Question:  Should we have a 12 week lockdown every year to save the 500? 

Answer: If the policy is to save lives irrespective of doing what is best overall for the country from a health and wellbeing perspective, along with economic impacts and all the other things that make up a well functioning society, then my answer would be "Yes", since that means the only thing that matters is the lives. Which would be stupid.

If the question is - should we have a 12 week lockdown every year to save the 500, if that is to be answered based on considering the points above, then my answer would be "No". Because lives is not the only thing that matters.

If the question was asked in regards the current Virus in the news, then my answer would be "Yes" for that situation under both scenarios (or at least have a lockdown for the amount of time to be confident that the factors important to society are being appropriately considered and met). 12 weeks is nothing for what the global impact is. Longer than such a period, and at some point the lockdown would have had a more negative economic impact than what the global impact was always going to have (even without lockdown).

The best health outcomes and from the current evidence, the best economic outcomes. Win win. Who gives a toss which party did it. But I tend to use facts to base my answers on. (And as I've said, I'm not a Jacinda fan and I doubt there is any chance I will vote Labour at the next election since their policies tend to oppose my views overall).

Such as mentioned above, the fact that per capita, NZ was tracking near identically to Sweden in cases early on -  which only diverted away from Sweden's path 8 days AFTER lockdown 4 had been put in place. So at which point do you consider the pathway taken could be curtailed? Maybe they could have shortened it. Clearly the presence here was sufficient to grow cases in line with Sweden's growth rate. But would you want it to go wrong and with the current government, that may have meant a longer lockdown overall.

Here is the graph which clearly highlights just how much in line with Sweden we were. Now sure, we were going to take steps. But for me, the most obvious thing is that the business being affected now and in the future, are largely the same ones that would have been affected without lockdown. And they would have still required government action around wage subsidies etc. So nothing would be materially different whether we had lockdown or not - except that the recovery would be easier due to one critical factor - less fear.

 

[Hesi]

Exactly Mardi, less fear, and hindsight is wonderful thing.  Remember, there was a lot of fear of the unknown in NZ, in those early days, when we were reading of Italy hitting 1000 deaths per day, and that was before the US and UK went ballistic

There are a lot of people around with all the answers.....after the event, remind you of anyone

[pete]

25 minutes ago, Hesi said:

Exactly Mardi, less fear, and hindsight is wonderful thing.  Remember, there was a lot of fear of the unknown in NZ, in those early days, when we were reading of Italy hitting 1000 deaths per day, and that was before the US and UK went ballistic

There are a lot of people around with all the answers.....after the event, remind you of anyone

You could argue that there wasn't enough fear from the government. It took quite a while before they actually decided to close the borders.

Also I don't think hindsight should preclude some honesty about what was done wrongly otherwise no lessons will be learned. You can't just stick your head in the sand on this.

[Globederby19]

13 minutes ago, pete said:

You can't just stick your head in the sand on this.

Why not ?. I cant see the point in debating the issue of what should have been done and what shouldn't have been, ad infinitum. 

Live in the moment and get on with it. Would National with the flake leading them have done it better justice. Who the hell knows and who cares , its irrelevant.

Should we revisit Covid19, there is always the old adage that "the thing we learn most from History is that we learn nothing from it".

Politicians always rise to the level of their own incompetence, so normative incompetence will always reign in times of disaster.

Like Mardi, I am not a Labour supporter, but feel that a very young female Prime Minister deserves at least some recognition for her calmness in the face of another crises on her watch.