nCoV 2019

[Ab]

https://twitter.com/AOance/status/1444155694832259072

[Nich]

Compare island nations, and nations with good sun / vit D exposure and maybe there's a fair comparison.

Poland and it's people probably know a thing or two about how totalitarian regimes look and behave. I'm no fool to believe this all ends when COVID ends. It's the new "War on [insert bad thing] tm". We're going to get fucked for our safety.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by Nich

Poland and it's people probably know a thing or two about how totalitarian regimes look and behave.

You'd think, right? You might want to check out what's been going down in Poland lately.

[blynk]

Oh please, for the love of God, let covid rip through the people at this event.

One or two in particular

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/healt...st-in-auckland

[Lightspeed]

I mean, we need to hope none of them were infected.

If an idiot like Tamaki is a person people feel they need to turn to, surely we can do so much better.

But yeah, nah I suppose. Let Tamaki have 'em.

[Ab]

There’s a mob just waiting to be wielded. Who’s going to pick it up?

[Nich]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

You'd think, right? You might want to check out what's been going down in Poland lately.

Hmm, looks like Australia and Poland have a bit in common when it comes to refugees.

[blynk]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

I mean, we need to hope none of them were infected.

Thats a hard one. Yes, hopefully, because if it spread there then Auckland is going to be fucked for weeks to come.
But on the otherhand, it would show the fucking dickheads the reason why we have been in lockdown.

And we all know that a large majority of that group are the ones that fall into the unvaccinated.

I wonder if anyone thought to rock up with some vaccination vans to try and get a few.

[fixed_truth]

Looking forward to some sort of vaccination passport to keep these idiots out of people's businesses, concerts & public transport etc. Fuck them.

[Nich]

Who actually thinks it'll be safe to go to concerts vaccine or no just because a politician has announced "mission accomplished" ? The virus doesn't watch the news and doesn't share whatever sentiment we are feeling.

Arguably worse to attend a concert vaccinated, untested, with no symptoms (just a sniffle, lets party!) than unvaccinated but tested with symptoms (I'm sick as hell, stay home)

[Lightspeed]

I would listen to working health care professionals in positions of responsibility, rather than politicians.

If they tell me that at x% of the population being vaccinated we can live freely with managed risk, and indeed we've reached that level of vaccination, I would accept that.

[Nich]

Yes, this is the smart thing to do. Compared to politicians / news media daily briefings it also takes a bit more effort, and more effort still to determine if the healthcare person is not just saying something to be politically supportive or contrarian.

I'm going to assume most people get their information on COVID from politicians and their news media enablers. Ask no further questions. These people care less about what the virus wants, and more about when someone will arbitrarily decide lockdowns begin or end.

Back in February 2020 I called a family meeting to discuss how we can prepare and support eachother through this pandemic. Plans for what to do if any of us got sick, we still had N95 masks from the bushfires, deep pantry, hand sanitiser, home gardens etc. They were polite to hear me out but my concerns were dismissed. It was only when the 6pm news said to worry did they start to worry. No doubt when the 6pm news says not to worry will they declare the pandemic over.

[Lightspeed]

Yeah, it's gotta be hard trying to parse out Murdoch and his goons.

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by Nich

Who actually thinks it'll be safe to go to concerts vaccine or no just because a politician has announced "mission accomplished" ? The virus doesn't watch the news and doesn't share whatever sentiment we are feeling.

Arguably worse to attend a concert vaccinated, untested, with no symptoms (just a sniffle, lets party!) than unvaccinated but tested with symptoms (I'm sick as hell, stay home)

If testing gets to the stage where that's feasible then yeah add that to the mix. The point is that's not a long term solution.

[Nich]

at home testing has been available for more than a year and Australia (NZ too) have banned them at a time when we needed them. They’ve changed their tune in Aus and they will be available next month.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/o...sts-covid.html

[fixed_truth]

How can a business verify a customers rapid test?

[Nich]

That's none of their business. Almost everyone wants to do the right thing, almost everyone wants to be safe from the virus, and almost everyone would feel terrible if they infected others. Trust in this, give everyone the tools to be informed on their own infectivity, stop the surveillance, stop the coersion.

[Ab]

How popular is the intersection of horse people and law people right now?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-...kes-bay-races/

[fixed_truth]

Originally Posted by Nich

That's none of their business. Almost everyone wants to do the right thing, almost everyone wants to be safe from the virus, and almost everyone would feel terrible if they infected others. Trust in this, give everyone the tools to be informed on their own infectivity, stop the surveillance, stop the coersion.

So we're supposed to trust people to self test before leaving the house every day for how long? Also to trust the people who didn't follow lockdown rules for the good of society to have a change of heart? Vaccinated people are less likely to spread the virus even if they become infected. So unless you somehow get covid from a family member at home & test yourself before leaving the house then you're out in society with covid unrestricted & more contagious than you could be. Not to mention now you're more of a burden on the health system due to having more serious symptoms. Of which vaccination is effective at reducing.

[Nich]

Trust in eachother is better than fear and suspicion of eachother.

I'm willing to bet that many of the COVIDIOTS are behaving as such purely to spite the politicians. Don't underestimate the joy some people get in watching their ideological / political opposites in an indignant rage. Not easy to put the genie back in the bottle, but if we could somehow make COVID more about the virus and less about politics I think you'd see more people on board.

[Lightspeed]

I'm not sure about anyone else, but attempts to make COVID political in NZ have largely fallen flat from what I've seen.

Tamaki has had the most success in this regard.

Pretty sure anyone infected or in contact with someone known to be infected get lumped with the serious expectations right now. That's not about anything but our effort to protect the community.

Where New Zealand could be doing better is support for those who would struggle the most with social isolation. "Marginalised communities" I think Dr Bloomfield said.

[StN]

Originally Posted by Ab

How popular is the intersection of horse people and law people right now?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-...kes-bay-races/

Apparently so tight that article got pulled!

[crocos]

Originally Posted by StN

Apparently so tight that article got pulled!

Nah, just doesn't work without the random letter salad on the end indicating your session.

Herald site -> Auckland -> ctrl-f -> attending Hawke's bay

[Lightspeed]

https://twitter.com/mentalhealthnz/s...92874353483776

Today we had a media outlet on the phone encouraging us to speak out and say lockdown needed to end, suggesting we say it should end because of the toll they felt it was taking on people’s mental health. We declined.

Lockdowns are undoubtedly difficult. Aucklanders are having a really hard time. But uncontained COVID is also hard on mental health. Watching loved ones suffer and die is hard on mental health. Caring for patients in hospitals overrun w COVID is terrible for mental health.

Not only that, but having COVID-19 may increase the risk of developing mental health problems (see https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...084-5/fulltext for example).

Based on the evidence we have available to us from here and around the world, the ravages of an uncontrolled pandemic are worse for mental health than the disruptions of lockdown.

That is not to say people’s mental health is not affected by lockdown. Just that the alternative is measurably worse. And, in some ways, the benefits of lockdown have been protective - giving us something to unite us and work on together.

We appreciate the many journalists in NZ who seek out expert advice and report based on what they learn. We are concerned when journalists and outlets come up with an editorial position (e.g. lockdowns must end) and then seek out anyone will agree with them to back them up.

We are seeing this happen more frequently, mental health and suicide being dragged into political conversations about lockdown. It is not okay, especially when the evidence does not support it. We encourage audiences to approach these discussions with scepticism.

[Nich]

Kudos to them. News media is the gaslighting cancer of our age.

I'm sure short sharp lockdowns work, and remind everyone to be vigilant. But sustained lockdowns like VIC / Melbourne have failed.

[DrTiTus]

Watching loved ones test positive and 99% of them recover, not even knowing they were sick in the first place, is truly heart breaking. A few middle aged suicides is the unavoidable cost of making sure we do not lose one sick old person. One life is too many. Suicides are not reported widely, ergo, stay in lockdown bitches.

[Nich]

If it was about stopping deaths the speed limit would be 20km/h. The catastrophising centers around very sick people who aren't dead clogging up the hospitals, THEN the pain starts so the story goes.

I was thoroughly convinced after seeing the videos of people collapsing in the streets of China (r/WhyWereTheyFilming), and videos from Iran and Italy showing hospitals and morgues overflowing. Those videos abruptly stopped and I feel a bit silly for being so easily swayed by what I thought I was witnessing.

Sweden got fucked by the virus apparently, no videos of their collapsing medical system.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

Watching loved ones test positive and 99% of them recover, not even knowing they were sick in the first place, is truly heart breaking. A few middle aged suicides is the unavoidable cost of making sure we do not lose one sick old person. One life is too many. Suicides are not reported widely, ergo, stay in lockdown bitches.

Way to reveal how narrow your information bubble is. I mean, not that it wasn't already obvious, but this is some stark ignorance.

The reports and accounts I've seen and heard have been consistent the whole time. The pandemic is not the absolute catastrophe some were suggesting at the start of this thread, at least not yet. But it's still a very serious event with dramatic impact the world over, whatever actions we choose in response.

Suicides are consistently tracked, we know, more or less, how many people die of suicide. In New Zealand at least, that's trending downwards for the time being.

But we don't care about suicide. People crying about suicides aren't all of a sudden concerned about the wellbeing of their neighbours. They're entitled children angry that it's them for once who have to endure a burden for the sake of society. Children used to expecting others (the brown, the poor, the disabled, the foreign) to bear this burden.

And of course those who are hypnotised by the wealthy chanting from their platforms.

[DrTiTus]

Lock your doors kids, stay inside. The virus is gone getcha.

[DrTiTus]

Why do so many still buy into the narrative?

[Lightspeed]

Why you gotta project your fear onto the rest of us DrTitus?

I don't wear my seatbelt cause I'm afraid.

[Native]

I'm inclined to agree with Lightspeed (insert appropriate clique joke here).

While I'm supportive of the first lockdown last year, and I'm not averse to the current lockdown in principle - what I'm disgusted about is the lack of planning/preparedness for the Delta breakout.

We had almost a year to expand ICU and hospital capacity, recruit/retain talent in our health care services, plan and expand our bandwidth for our border controls, proactively drive vaccinations in the general population and prepare clear lockdown plans and communication.

None of these were done (in wages and salaries in our health services were constrained).

Financially & economically we pay or we pay so I don't take the cost element as an excuse here. The government has a super-majority, so politically I don't accept that either. While the government is not incompetent (looking at the US, UK or AU by comparison), they are woefully ineffective.

But we don't have a viable alternative either.

Lots of thoughts above - I think I'm just expressing my frustration.

[crocos]

Originally Posted by Native

We had almost a year to expand ICU and hospital capacity, recruit/retain talent in our health care services

Retaining talent is happening - NZ has a remarkably low turn-over. However recruiting quality people takes time - not helped by NZ's very narrow definition of acceptable medical staff when recruiting from overseas. EG: I know an experienced podiatric (feet/ankle etc) surgeon that - because he was trained, and practiced, in Iran and had moved to NZ. Was not allowed to practice without basically two additional years "training". He ended up moving to Aussie as they recognized his qualifications.
Don't then get me started on the hoops required by Immigration NZ.

And of course training new medical staff is a multi-year thing that's not easy to burst capacity for.

Expanding ICUs and hospital capacity -
The physical equipment side is easy. The additional rooms/buildings is semi-easy. However capacity is more defined by the staffing, and that's where we've got the shortage.

"Almost a year" - or even if we say 18 months to go back to March last year - is not necessarily an adequate timeframe.

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Why you gotta project your fear onto the rest of us DrTitus?

Did you bother to watch the video?

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

Did you bother to watch the video?

I checked to see what references and information were in the description. What I found was promotional material.

I'm not interested in spending an hour watching a psychologist looking to make bank telling people what they want to hear.

[DrTiTus]

Way to reveal how narrow your information bubble is. I mean, not that it wasn't already obvious, but this is some stark ignorance.

[Lightspeed]

That's cute, but do you really think it fits? A diverse diet isn't eating everything that happens upon your plate. Is it?

Give me something with references, broad support from an academic community.

[DrTiTus]

Originally Posted by Lightspeed

Give me something with references, broad support from an academic community.

There are references in his words. He mentions the other academics by name, it's not a fucking PDF.

[Ab]

Well I'm 100% vaxxed as of today and my 5G throughput hasn't changed, ripped off.

[Lightspeed]

Originally Posted by DrTiTus

There are references in his words. He mentions the other academics by name, it's not a fucking PDF.

References are the opportunity for others to validate what is being presented. Someone confident of what they're presenting makes those references easy to access.

What do we find in the video you linked? Pleas to join a fucking cause.

If you want to convince me, do better. But... I think you're only interested in convincing yourself.