Covid-19 #16: Not Waving, Loop-de-Looping

[The Anti-Targ]

13 minutes ago, ithanos said:

If I was to be cynical, then a 5 day lock down would encompass the weekend - and for this weekend, specifically the 16th, there's a sold out sporting fixture at Eden Park where 40-45 thousand people could congregate. A 3 day lock down gives authorities a glimmer of time to find out if the new cluster can be in fact traced to a source and clamp all contacts into managed isolation, and then lift the lock down for the weekend - again, if I was thinking cynically about it. My current thinking is they'll realise by Friday there's too much of a risk and extend the lock down through the weekend.

I don't think that is cynical at all. It's really the only explanation for not making the minimum lockdown period include the weekend. New Zealand's favourite pink haired scientist Dr Siouxise Wells has just been quoted in the media saying she expects lockdown to go longer than 3 days. So people will already be making plans to not to go to the Rugby, or they're mad if they haven't. Pity the hundreds of fans planning to fly from the South Island to go to the game.

I guess it's not unreasonable to hold off on forcing cancellation of the game until as late as possible. But really, the situation right now makes the chances of Auckland dropping to level 2 on Saturday vanishingly negligible.

[Free Northman Reborn]

There are signs that the UK might be approaching herd immunity as well.

 

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

10 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

There are signs that the UK might be approaching herd immunity as well.

 

 

What signs

[Makk]

Bugger. We can only hope this is traced as quickly as possible and is not too widespread, and then look at closing whatever holes we can to prevent this from happening again. I think making sure every passenger that comes in passes a test before they board the plane (does happen in some countries), air crews being forced to use full ppe, no duty free shopping, no horse groomer exemptions, all workers with any exposure on the front lines having at least a weekly test would be a good start.

[Wall Flower]

8 hours ago, karaddin said:

Declaring herd immunity when we haven't even been able to confirm surviving an infection conveys even medium-long term immunity, let alone lifetime immunity, is quite the claim to make. Especially when even if it does they haven't had near enough cases for herd immunity - even if we're generous and take the actual cases as 10x the confirmed cases that's still under 10%.

I'm getting whiplash from people that normally would decry everything about the Eurocommie Swedes suddenly holding them up as exemplars.

Even if long term immunity were viable, people talking about herd immunity from contracting the disease seem to imagine that the 60 % plus of the population are being sick in some other dimension while life and the economy carry on as normal. A large percentage of the population being sick with a disease we don't yet fully understand the effects of is still going to have a massive impact on any country's life, economy and health system.

[The Anti-Targ]

36 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

What signs

Most new cases in a single day since 26 June, obviously. If that's not a sign I don't know what is.

The UK true prevalence, assuming an IFR of 0.5% is ~9.5 million, assuming the official death count is roughly accurate. So let's say 10 million. The UK to be safely assured of herd immunity needs 44 million people to have been infected and recovered, which means probably closer to 50 million actually getting infected by the time the 44th million person recovers. 10 million is just shy of 25% of the way to herd immunity. To get to herd immunity by infection the UK can expect a minimum of double the number of deaths it has already accumulated. If the UK doesn't protect the vulnerable achieving herd immunity would be predicted to cost 200,000 - 250,000 lives, and who knows how many people with long term health consequences?

The Sweden situation is interesting. I've largely stopped following it, but a quick Google of Stockholm stats suggests the prevalence in Stockholm is nearly 50% of the city's population. So Stockholm is getting very close to herd immunity. But it still needs about another 150K people to get infected to confidently reach herd immunity. The rest of the country is quite a way off. Herd immunity in Stockholm will cost the lives of about 2,500 of the city's residents. Stockholm is about 10% of Sweden's population. So a crude estimate would put the cost in deaths to achieve herd immunity in Sweden at about 25,000 lives lost.

Edit: And the news gets worse, as expected. One of the family members who have the disease traveled outside of Auckland to another city while they were symptomatic to visit friends. She traveled on Saturday before anyone in the family got tested. So I'm not going to criticise the decision to travel, this person had no reason to suspect she had anything other than a cold. Thankfully this timing means whoever she came into contact with on her journey is not likely to have become infectious until very recently. So, rounding up those contacts and the contacts of those contacts for self-isolation should keep the infection contained in that city.

[ithanos]

It's a shame, but it was always inevitable Covid-19 would resurface in NZ. It could never have hermetically sealed its borders. Not realistically anyway - too many obligations to keep the border porous for essential trade and movement of returning citizens. And given the numbers* arriving into the country from active regions of the world, multiplied by the human factor at the border (comprehensiveness of border measures & the honesty/reliability of travellers' information) it was always a matter of time.     
 
*In respect to those numbers. If we take that there was no virus in the country 100 days or so ago (start of May), then I count about 71 confirmed cases identified at the border since then, from an overall total of 96 since the first wave, of which 22 are currently active and in managed isolation or quarantine. This is coming from an arrivals across the border total of 27,514, from 1st May to 11 Aug. 26,579 of these came in through Auckland (Christchurch and Wellington arrivals were 904 and 31 respectively for the same period).

That NZ held out for 102 days was admirable - and that the border measures only found 71 out of 27,514 arrivals to have harboured Covid-19 was either through good management or great fortunate. I suspect its both. I don't envy the tracing team. If the new community cluster cannot be traced back to one of the 5452 arrivals in the two weeks prior to the 11th Aug then it means it was seeded in the community earlier than that.

[The Marquis de Leech]

4 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

Alas, looks like NZ wasn't serious enough when controlling who they let in and how to handle them (though to be fair, NZ still did better than any other "Western" country so far). And here, by "let in", I don't mean tourists put into quarantine like in early July, but most probably airport security measures when dealing with incoming flights, probably trading goods. Either you have enough people who already got the virus and who can work without extreme security measures, or you have to pretty much isolate people coming from outside, even when they only stay at the airport to deliver or pick up stuff (after all, it wouldn't be realistic to quarantine them for 2 weeks).

To clarify, our borders have been closed to tourists since March. The people coming in are returning New Zealanders from overseas. They are being put into vacated Hotels for two weeks, for Quarantine. Goods are still coming in too, but they're not the worry.

Basically, the two potential problems: the people in Quarantine are occasionally managing to get out (idiots), or (in this case) it's likely derived from someone working adjacent to the Airport or the Hotels. Melbourne's infamous outbreak was started when Quarantine staffers caught it.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

To clarify, our borders have been closed to tourists since March. The people coming in are returning New Zealanders from overseas. They are being put into vacated Hotels for two weeks, for Quarantine. Goods are still coming in too, but they're not the worry.

Basically, the two potential problems: the people in Quarantine are occasionally managing to get out (idiots), or (in this case) it's likely derived from someone working adjacent to the Airport or the Hotels. Melbourne's infamous outbreak was started when Quarantine staffers caught it.

Wellllllll.... https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12356040 

Quote

Covid 19 coronavirus: Freight investigated as possible source of community transmission

Surfaces in a coolstore workplace are being tested to see whether international freight may have been the origin of the new cases.

One of the people who has tested positive for Covid-19 is an employee at an Americold coolstore in Mt Wellington, one of four people who tested positive on Tuesday.

The man had been off work on sick leave for nine days.

Americold NZ Managing Director Richard Winnall told the Herald the company was notified an employee was suspected of having Covid-19 late yesterday and that the Mt Wellington branch needed to close for 48 hours.

There is still a high degree of confidence that food and direct food packaging aren't a risk because of the hygienic environment in which they are processed and handled. But transportation outers are less hygienically handled and could be contaminated by coolstore, port and shipping workers.

There is also reasonable evidence to show that the virus lasts for ony a very short time on wood and cardboard packaging *which is the usual transport outer for food products. But on other surfaces the virus could remain viable when airfreighted, and maybe even when making the journey by sea.

Transmission by packaging surfaces is only going to be a very minor contributor of spread, but when you are in a place that has zero of the usual sources of spread the minor sources that go uncontrolled become the major risks for re-entry.

In some ways I want this to be the source, because it means we actually have found patient zero for this wave and should be able to get on top of it quite quickly. There is even the outside chance that a 3 day lockdown will actually be enough (not likely though). But in other ways confirmed spread by goods packaging is problematic for international trade.

[lessthanluke]

6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

There are signs that the UK might be approaching herd immunity as well.

 

 

No there are not. 

[rotting sea cow]

For anyone interested in reading about the Russian "Sputnik V" vaccine

https://sputnikvaccine.com/newsroom/forbidden-op-ed-the-sputnik-vaccine-as-a-lifesaving-global-partnership-eng/

Interesting read, regardless of what you think. Treat it with the usual amount of salt.

There is a nice infographic in this page which should explain how vector vaccines work (e.g. Oxford, J&J, CanSino, etc)

[DireWolfSpirit]

14 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

There are signs that the UK might be approaching herd immunity as well.

 

 

You have been reported to Twitter and your tweet privileges are now suspended!

[Fragile Bird]

Lol, I just heard retired legendary US football coach Lou Holtz say "6 months is enough! When we invaded Normandy, we took casualties!"

The allies took 226,000 casualties, including 72,911 dead. I think the US has already done their Normandy...does the US want more Normandy?

[DireWolfSpirit]

Before were through one has to wonder whether we (the U.S.) will be looking at Spanish Flu level numbers? We are already approaching the halfway mark for deaths.

 

It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Before were through one has to wonder whether we (the U.S.) will be looking at Spanish Flu level numbers? We are already approaching the halfway mark for deaths.

 

It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war.

If ya go with the herd immunity thing, then a hell of a lot more will die.

 

Which is why herd immunity via infection not vaccination is such a silly idea.

[Fragile Bird]

A second high school in Georgia is shutting down after 14 students tested positive. More than 900 students and teachers are now in quarantine because of positive students and staff.

[Clueless Northman]

2 hours ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

Which is why herd immunity via infection not vaccination is such a silly idea.

Silly? It's criminal, it's actually murderous. I bloody hope every (democratic) government psychopathic enough to go for it will be sued by families of the dead.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Clueless Northman said:

Silly? It's criminal, it's actually murderous. I bloody hope every (democratic) government psychopathic enough to go for it will be sued by families of the dead.

Which is why it will only ever be an unspoken govt policy. The official policy will be: children need to get their education; we have to open up to support the economy; keeping people in social isolation is harmful to mental health.

There is of course truth in all of those statements, so it is easy to use them as a pretext to implement polices that are aimed at herd immunity by infection.

On a IFR of 0.5%, for the USA to reach herd immunity this would cost approx 1.1 million dead US citizens. on a IFR of 0.37% the cost goes down to 846,000.

Interestingly in a recent press briefing Trump claimed that there would already be 1.5 million deaths from COVID-19 if it wasn't for the measures that had been taken. So over-estimating the potential death toll is now a political tool. I certainly hope no reputable health adviser has put hat kind of number in front of Trump in the last month or so.

[The Anti-Targ]

US daily cases are down from its peak. This is good news, but still double the daily cases before things started to go tits up. And even at the lowest rate 20,000-ish cases per day is still not great and is a big enough daily number to allow for flare-ups without people taking the right protective measures.

I do think that at 20K/day nationally most places could look at opening schools on the basis of any students unable to access online education can go to school, and those doing online education can go to school 1 day a week for some (appropriately distanced) contact time.

[Zorral]

The long haul covid-19 patients -- months of it.

https://www.thecut.com/2020/08/what-are-covid-19-long-term-effects-long-haulers-explained.html#_ga=2.266530445.20012617.1597285594-752727787.1597285594

Quote

It remains unclear how long people with long-term COVID-19 will, on average, feel sick. We know, though, that there are people who fell sick in March and are still sick five months later. Further complicating the timeline is the fact that not all long-haulers have received positive coronavirus tests, and some, after receiving an initial positive, have since tested negative — but still feel sick.