Current Events > By the end of next week, NZ will have its first day of >100 covid cases.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sphyx posted...

Delta changed the game once. It's very possible another variant could change it again.

Probably best we don't presume to project how the virus will work long-term.

I mean - that's kind of on the same level as "a completely new disease altogether, could appear tomorrow". By no means false, but it's also probably not something we should be locking ourselves down over. Especially given that the chance of it arising locally is near zero (and we do genomic sequencing on almost all local cases, so would notice new variants showing up here very quickly), and we're still using MIQ for cases from overseas.

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Yeah, but do you think there's any chance they're not gonna lock you down when it hits 100?

JimmyFraska posted...

Yeah, but do you think there's any chance they're not gonna lock you down when it hits 100?

Auckland - which is where the overwhelming majority of the cases are - is already lockdown, as are the two neighboring regions Northland and Waikato. Not the strictest lockdown that exists under our framework, but still a stricter lockdown than most of the world (apart from China and parts of Australia) would've seen during covid.

Auckland in particular has been in non-stop lockdown since mid-August, though it was downgraded from the stricter Level 4 lockdown to the weaker Level 3 - which is still stricter than most of the lockdowns in the world have been - one about 5 weeks into it. Waikato and Northland have only recently gone into lockdown, but the situation is very different from Auckland; Waikato is recording only 2 or 3 cases most days, and even zero on some; while Northland actually hasn't registered a single case and is just being locked down because we "might" have cases (despite that these cases we "might" have seem to be taking an awfully long time to reveal themself, including no wastewater results or reports of symptomatic people who are refusing tests).

EDIT: Actually to clarify - only about half of Waikato is in lockdown.

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NZ Herald (which does have a reputation for being a bit clickbaity, to be fair) seems to be predicting we'll see "a new record" today. It's unclear whether they mean an all time new record (ie: more than 89) or just a new record for this outbreak (ie: more than 83).

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No clickbait "are we going to beat our case number records" stuff out there today. If it stays under 100 today and tomorrow, my prediction was wrong (though experts seem to think it won't be much longer until we hit those numbers). Probably because they're putting on a HUGE vaccination drive today and media are all focused on that.

Case numbers for today are due out nominally in 3 minutes but in practice could be any time within the next hour.

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Theres still time for it to all go horribly wrong.

Keep the faith.

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My county of 180k people was getting 450+ cases a day at the peak...

Sphyx posted...

Theres still time for it to all go horribly wrong.

Keep the faith.

I mean - the numbers are gonna go high sooner or later. The important matter is what vaccine coverage gets to before that happens; and on that front, it's looking promising. :)

Also, contrary to my really good accuracy near the start - including correctly predicting when we'd have our first community transmission and our first death back last year - it seems these days, the universe is determined to prove my predictions wrong. This is a strong incentive to make doom-and-gloom predictions. :P

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Wow. There's talk - from actual officials involved in the response - of possibly putting Auckland back to level 4 as a "circuit breaker".

I honestly can't see that going down well. Vaccination rates are climbing ever-higher and people are pretty much fed up with being locked down at this point. It's basically only anti-vaxx morons, and under 12s (who are similar risk to fully-vaccinated adults anyway), left at this point. I could honestly see the initial sparks of riots happening if they decide to tighten up Auckland's lockdown and/or extend Northland's - they can probably justify extending (at the same level of restrictions) Waikato's, though I'd be surprised if they can keep it going much longer either.

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Not in the triple-digits yet, but we've now broken our previous record of 89.

https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-releases/94-community-cases-covid-19-5-new-border-cases-89-percent-aucklanders-receive-one-vaccine-dose

Despite the repeated insistince that it's "not on the table" and "wouldn't achieve anything", if I were in Auckland - or even Waikato, to be honest - I'd be preparing for a return to Level 4 within the next couple of weeks, or at least back to the full version of Level 3.

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Australia isn't even bad

*laughs in QLD*

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TreyFlowers posted...

Australia isn't even bad

*laughs in QLD*

Learn from NZ's mistakes. Don't wait until the virus reaches you to go hard on vaccinations.

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We're trying. And anyway, we're opening up on December 17, vaccination rates be damned (although that's the date we're expected to be 80% double vaxxed)

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TreyFlowers posted...

And anyway, we're opening up on December 17, vaccination rates be damned (although that's the date we're expected to be 80% double vaxxed)

Yeah, fair enough. Can't really be letting anti-vaxxers hold things back. The main issues raised with such an approach are that spread among the unvaccinated might still overwhelm healthcare (easily resolved by denying covid-related healthcare to those who could receive the vaccine but choose not to, as it's their own fault - they'll inevitably claim "we're being falsely diagnosed with covid as an excuse to not treat "their" enemies!" but as with most stuff anti-vaxxers do, the best response is to ignore them) and the possible impact on those in age groups that cannot yet receive the vaccine (but stats from NZ's outbreak suggest that their risk is comparable to that of fully-vaccinated adults anyway, so this isn't the big deal some make it out to be).

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Oof. We broke the 100 mark today.

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Trumble posted...

Oof. We broke the 100 mark today.

And there it is.

Congrats.

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Sphyx posted...

And there it is.

Congrats.

Not looking good. Waikato's cases are rising, we've got those two Northland ones near Kaikohe, and I'm hearing rumors through the grapevine that there's some cases connected to a nursing home in Kaitaia as well (take this with a huge grain of salt as I can't find any trustworthy source on this one).

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