New Zealand concentration camps

[Electric Skeptic]

Adequate leadership would consist of providing accurate information, and adequate resources, so that states could do what was needed. I doubt that most states would have chosen to let so many people die.

I would say that adequate leadership would start - but not end - with providing Americans with accurate information. And Trump has already admitted that at that, the very first hurdle in dealing with Covid, he balked by lying. He started out handling it badly and got worse.

[Maranatha]

Adequate leadership would consist of providing accurate information, and adequate resources, so that states could do what was needed. I doubt that most states would have chosen to let so many people die.

States did what the did, including the pathetic New York govenor.

[mikewhitney]

Even so, they wouldn't have died if not for the pandemic. This is easy to see by comparing the total number of dead people in the US in 2020 to the total number of dead people in previous years in the US. The death rates have gone way up this year and the pandemic is the obvious cause.

The PCR test is very good at determining the presence or absence of the virus.

No, the PCR test doesn't give false positives to any degree worth discussing. Looking at the research data reported in my link, most of those PCR tests if done in triplicate would produce a false positive less than one time in ten million. Given the US has performed 140 million covid tests, I would estimate the number of false positives in the US over the entire pandemic at less than 14.

PCR tests are considered one of the best tests in biology. They have been widely used commercially in all sorts of health settings for decades.

The statement that they should only be used for "research" is nonsensical. As a researcher I want data that's as accurate as it's possible to get. And for health tests I want data that's as accurate as it's possible to get. So obviously I would use the same test in both instances because in both cases I want the most accurate method. So I use PCR tests because they're the most accurate.

I was a video on the PCR process. it was pretty interesting. I forget the terms but the video described how the strand under test was to be matched up with genes(??) that would only be probable of joining to the strand under test. Plus there was a gene(??) that would attach to cause florescence. So, the availability of the replicated matter would apparently glow bright enough to see the sufficient presence/replication of the RNA to verify its existence "visually."

[Starlight]

Kudos to New Zealand then, for being able to keep their healthcare system from being overwhelmed without having to resort to periodic lockdowns.

I'm very glad that lockdowns here achieved full elimination of the virus and that we do not have to go back into periodic lockdowns to keep the virus under control.

I am puzzled though as to why lockdowns don't seem to work as well in other countries. Australia (well, most of its states) seems to be the only other Western country where lockdowns have achieved elimination, and it really struggled with them. NZ the lockdowns worked like a charm both times the virus entered the country. People I've talked to have suggested that they thought the cause was probably lower compliance levels in other countries? Which is kinda funny cos the NZ government is notorious lax at bothering with enforcement and instead tends to assume everyone will follow the rules if asked nicely enough, and during the lockdowns was an example of this - the Australian govt was busy issuing severe fines to their citizens that broke lockdown, and the NZ police were like "we're taking an educational approach rather than an enforcement approach, and so we've been chatting the issue through with a view rules-violators, but in general everyone's been amazingly good about it".

I do feel though like the government did an amazing job on messaging, and they certainly deserve credit for bringing the public along with them with regard to everyone understanding what was being done and why, and what was expected of everyone, and what it was expected to accomplish. One of my scientific colleagues complains that the Prime Minister sounds like a pre-school teacher talking to 4 year olds, and he doesn't like that, but I tend to feel that under the circumstances it's what the country needed - for a message to reach everyone in society it has to be comprehendible to people who don't have my colleague's level of education.

[Starlight]

Domestic violence increased under lockdowns, even in New Zealand

Yes, total rates of domestic violence go up when people are stuck together.

As, I'm sure, do rates of pregnancy.

Pros and cons.

Overall, despite the increases in domestic violence incidents, the average reported well-being went up in surveys. Also physical health appeared to improve across the board, and death rates dropped.

NZ has one of the highest rates of sexual and domestic violence in developed countries...

That'll be one of those stats that's hard to quantify, because every country will have slightly different standards for how it reports it and what it reports it for.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be totally surprised if it were true. We have a dark-skinned minority ethnic group who are disproportionately represented in crime statistics and a bit stereotypically famous for domestic violence. I imagine that sounds familiar to US readers. It's an ongoing topic of struggle for the government as to how often it should take their kids off them because of that, and what if anything much, the government can do to try and reduce domestic violence in their communities in general.

Suicides and suicidal tendencies increased in many places under lockdowns:

You do appear to get a small number of suicides from them. I looked into those statistics a few months back because the Americans right-wingers were all "bUt wHaT AbOuT tHe SUicIdEs?!?", and turns out the increased rate of suicide is pretty negligible. Maybe if you did a lockdown for 30 years or so you'd start to see suicides at the same rates as the number of coronavirus deaths the lockdown was preventing. For the few-month lockdowns that are being discussed, the numbers of increased suicides are tiny, and are smaller than reduction in road-toll deaths, and vastly lower than the reduction in Covid-deaths.

[Starlight]

I don't think it had to be that way. New Zealand has avoided it.

Sadly, the entire world could have avoided it, if we'd all locked our borders with China the moment it was clear there was a clearly contagious new disease there. We could have then let China eliminate all cases of the virus, and thus eradicate Covid from the globe.

Sadly, I don't know what any of us will do now. I was talking to two biochemists at work today and both were pessimistic regarding vaccine candidates and covid antibodies - they were saying the data is implying that humans don't develop permanent immunity to this and that we could potentially expect to re-catch covid every few years which in turn makes vaccines unlikely to work. In which case, I don't honestly know what the planet does. One possibility, I suppose, is that all countries try for elimination, and increase the size of the NZ non-covid zone to gradually include more and more countries as they individually eliminate it within their borders. The other option is we all just die of it on an irregular basis and it just goes in waves around the world for the rest of time, perhaps causing occasional lockdowns sporadically. In that scenario, at some point NZ will have to re-open its borders just for practical purposes as it will cost too much to have them shut for a decade. It's a bit depressing. I sure hope one of these vaccines works.

[MaxVel]

Sadly, the entire world could have avoided it, if we'd all locked our borders with China the moment it was clear there was a clearly contagious new disease there. We could have then let China eliminate all cases of the virus, and thus eradicate Covid from the globe.

Sadly, I don't know what any of us will do now. I was talking to two biochemists at work today and both were pessimistic regarding vaccine candidates and covid antibodies - they were saying the data is implying that humans don't develop permanent immunity to this and that we could potentially expect to re-catch covid every few years which in turn makes vaccines unlikely to work. In which case, I don't honestly know what the planet does. One possibility, I suppose, is that all countries try for elimination, and increase the size of the NZ non-covid zone to gradually include more and more countries as they individually eliminate it within their borders. The other option is we all just die of it on an irregular basis and it just goes in waves around the world for the rest of time, perhaps causing occasional lockdowns sporadically. In that scenario, at some point NZ will have to re-open its borders just for practical purposes as it will cost too much to have them shut for a decade. It's a bit depressing. I sure hope one of these vaccines works.

Yeah, that's been my big concern in all this. What is the actual end-game for Covid going to be? A vaccine that is used worldwide seems unlikely for all sorts of reasons, even apart from whether it's possible to make such a vaccine at all. Herd immunity seems less promising if people don't maintain their immunity over time. Elimination seems unlikely as well. So maybe eventually we just learn to live with it.

Given all that, I wonder if many of the decisions being made about lockdowns etc are based on short-term thinking, and IF we can never resolve Covid entirely, then perhaps the other costs of a lockdown (economical, social, opportunity costs in healthcare etc) may outweigh the benefits.

IOW, If lockdowns are only ever going to be a temporary delay in an inevitable Covid mortality, then are they worth doing? Is something like the Swedish approach a better one? Are lockdowns being pushed by politicians who want to be seen to be doing something?

[Starlight]

So maybe eventually we just learn to live with it.

Or die from it, as the case may be.

Given all that, I wonder if many of the decisions being made about lockdowns etc are based on short-term thinking, and IF we can never resolve Covid entirely, then perhaps the other costs of a lockdown (economical, social, opportunity costs in healthcare etc) may outweigh the benefits.

It's possible we'll all just have to just cope with covid without lockdowns. It seems extremely rational though to have tried lockdowns first, because saving lives in the short term is a good option to try initially. If it becomes clear that's not going to be a good long-term strategy then so be it. But worse would have been to have not bothered to save lives in the short tit would be bad to have lost lives in the short term only to find out that, opps, we've now got a vaccine and can't un-kill the people we let die in the short term. Taking a conservative approach to saving lives seems sensible.

IOW, If lockdowns are only ever going to be a temporary delay in an inevitable Covid mortality, then are they worth doing?

A reasonable assumption at this stage is that if a lockdown prevents a death, then that is a death prevented. It is not a 'temporary delay' in that person's death and we have no particular reason to expect that person would be killed in a subsequent covid outbreak.

The human population is not divided into two groups, one of which will die if they catch the virus even once, and one of which will survive even if they catch the virus repeatedly. While we have reason to believe that there are some small genetic differences that can raise or lower individual people's risk of death from covid, that's not the same thing as immunity, and not the same thing as them being safely able to catch the virus repeatedly.

Is something like the Swedish approach a better one?

The data seems to clearly say their approach has totally failed. Their fatalities are way higher, and their economic damage is the same. There doesn't seem to be a metric on which they could be labelled successful.

[Mountain Man]

IOW, If lockdowns are only ever going to be a temporary delay in an inevitable Covid mortality, then are they worth doing? Is something like the Swedish approach a better one? Are lockdowns being pushed by politicians who want to be seen to be doing something?

Remember, the whole goal, initially, was to "flatten the curve" and prevent the medical system from being overwhelmed. We've done that in the US to the point that hospitals were laying off staff due to a lack of patients, and field hospitals setup to handle the overflow were eventually dismantled without seeing a single case. The problem now is that we have nuts like Fauci changing their tune and calling for complete elimination, using the dangerous philosophy that if a policy has the potential to save even one life, then it's worth it, suggesting that lockdowns and worthless masks may be a way of life for the next few years.

[Mountain Man]

You really should educate yourself.

I'm familiar with that as well, and the fact remains, there is no definitive evidence that paper drug store masks or bandanas can stop the China flu. You need a good quality (meaning expensive) hospital grade N95 mask to do the job, and even then it only offers limited protection in a non-sterile, uncontrolled environment. You see, in a medical setting, the mask is only one part of the puzzle. Medical staff also use rubber gloves, face protection like goggles or face shields, special suits to protect their bodies, protocols for cleaning before and after, etc. And again, this is in a sterile controlled environment. In an uncontrolled setting, a mask alone isn't going to cut it. Never mind the fact that asymptomatic spread of the China flu is extremely rare.

[Stoic]

I'm familiar with that as well, and the fact remains, there is no definitive evidence that paper drug store masks or bandanas can stop the China flu. You need a good quality (meaning expensive) hospital grade N95 mask to do the job, and even then it only offers limited protection in a non-sterile, uncontrolled environment. You see, in a medical setting, the mask is only one part of the puzzle. Medical staff also use rubber gloves, face protection like goggles or face shields, special suits to protect their bodies, protocols for cleaning before and after, etc. And again, this is in a sterile controlled environment. In an uncontrolled setting, a mask alone isn't going to cut it. Never mind the fact that asymptomatic spread of the China flu is extremely rare.

Asymptomatic spread may or may not be rare, but presymptomatic spread is definitely not rare, and masks (plus hand washing and maintaining distance) are the best way to deal with it. Masks do not provide 100% protection, but they don't need to. All they need to do is reduce the risk of infection enough so that one infected person on average infects less than one other person. Then the number of infected people will steadily decrease, and eventually it will reach the point where contact tracing and quarantine can stomp it out.

[Sparko]

How do you identify the "few who don't"? Are you monitoring everyone, thus violating their right to privacy? Are you deploying huge police resources to sit outside their homes to make sure they don't walk out their front door? What then happens if they climb over their back fence?

Your statement assumes the impossible - namely that the government could magically know who was violating the voluntary quarantine and putting others at risk. The government here learned right at the start of the pandemic that asking people to voluntarily quarantine absolutely didn't work because many people just ignored it. The very first rule the government brought in was to ask everyone entering the country to quarantine themselves for 2 weeks once they got here. Tourists said "oh, yes, of course I will totally follow that law" and then proceeded with their pre-planned holidays and infected people with covid.

And since then, repeatedly, every time the government tried to make exceptions for people, and allow potentially-infected people a bit of freedom (e.g. compassionate exemptions for people in inbound-quarantine to be released for a day to attend a funeral or see a dying relative in hospital), it would get burned by those people regularly failing to act as they had agreed to with regard to the safety of the rest of the populace. And then there were the cases of people in quarantine who climbed through the fences (it's temporary fencing cos these are hotels, so a 10 year old or above can climb through/over it) to go to the liquor store because they totally needed more alcohol in their hotel room than the bottle a day they were being provided, etc and the government would have to deploy the police to find them, or try to locate and test for covid every single person they had encountered while AWOL.

At every step of the way the government has tried to be a hands-off as possible, and at every step of the way different people have floated the recommendations and now it's got to the point where the government literally has to have the army patrolling the fences around the quarantine facilities (though they won't be armed, NZ doesn't do armed law enforcement). The government in general in NZ has a culture of assuming voluntary compliance and not bothering to put any effort into law enforcement, very much assuming that the vast majority of citizens will voluntarily follow the vast majority of laws. But on covid they have been burned and burned and burned for this over and over, and they have learned to their cost that in a situation like with covid where they need 100% compliance with the quarantine rules to stop infected people spreading it, that they have to do enforcement, they don't have the luxury of asking politely for voluntary compliance because there will be a small number who don't comply.

You said you only have a handful of cases. How hard would it be to check on them at their homes once in a while? Put a quarantine sign on their lawn. I am sure if any neighbors see them leaving they would call the police.

Before we had effective treatment, do you think we should have locked up people who had aids to insure they didn't have sex and spread the disease? Why not?

[Sparko]

Come on Sparko. Right here on these pages MM admits to trying to go into a place requiring mask wearing because he doesn't believe the science or respect their policies. Look at this President for who waltzed into the white house after getting out of the hospital without a mask on, or Pence who went off to do campaign work knowing he'd been exposed, or Rand Paul, who after GETTING A POSITIVE RESULT went a swam and worked out at the gym. For 30% of this country - these are their example, these are those whose behavior they model.

The reason not to trust people to do the right thing with respect to self-quarantine and this virus is on display at every single Trump rally, by the majority of Republican senators, and by at least half the people that post here every single day.

So do you think we should lock up people who have been exposed to covid here in the USA?

Personally, I am responsible for my own protection and I take the attitude that anyone I could come in contact with already has COVID. I maintain distance from them, and I wear an N95 mask and I carry around hand sanitizer everywhere I go. I wipe down anything I bring into my house that someone else might have touched. Including groceries.

I don't want everyone who is exposed to be locked up in some guarded facility just to keep me safe. And I am in a lot more danger if I catch it than most people. I have a weakened immune system and have several preexisting conditions.

[Sparko]

I'm very glad that lockdowns here achieved full elimination of the virus and that we do not have to go back into periodic lockdowns to keep the virus under control.

I am puzzled though as to why lockdowns don't seem to work as well in other countries. Australia (well, most of its states) seems to be the only other Western country where lockdowns have achieved elimination, and it really struggled with them. NZ the lockdowns worked like a charm both times the virus entered the country. People I've talked to have suggested that they thought the cause was probably lower compliance levels in other countries? Which is kinda funny cos the NZ government is notorious lax at bothering with enforcement and instead tends to assume everyone will follow the rules if asked nicely enough, and during the lockdowns was an example of this - the Australian govt was busy issuing severe fines to their citizens that broke lockdown, and the NZ police were like "we're taking an educational approach rather than an enforcement approach, and so we've been chatting the issue through with a view rules-violators, but in general everyone's been amazingly good about it".

I do feel though like the government did an amazing job on messaging, and they certainly deserve credit for bringing the public along with them with regard to everyone understanding what was being done and why, and what was expected of everyone, and what it was expected to accomplish. One of my scientific colleagues complains that the Prime Minister sounds like a pre-school teacher talking to 4 year olds, and he doesn't like that, but I tend to feel that under the circumstances it's what the country needed - for a message to reach everyone in society it has to be comprehendible to people who don't have my colleague's level of education.

You are on an island with a low population density.

[oxmixmudd]

So do you think we should lock up people who have been exposed to covid here in the USA?

Personally, I am responsible for my own protection and I take the attitude that anyone I could come in contact with already has COVID. I maintain distance from them, and I wear an N95 mask and I carry around hand sanitizer everywhere I go. I wipe down anything I bring into my house that someone else might have touched. Including groceries.

I don't want everyone who is exposed to be locked up in some guarded facility just to keep me safe. And I am in a lot more danger if I catch it than most people. I have a weakened immune system and have several preexisting conditions.

I think if a person has been exposed to covid they should be required to isolate themselves or face forced quarantine if they show themselves incapable of respecting the health and well being of others. Responsible people won't notice the law, they would do it anyway. The only people feeling its effect are those that would put those around themselves at risk for their personal convenience.

The only way proactive forced quaranteen would be necessary would be if a large percentage of the country actually behaves like donald trump.