There’s an interesting story from NPR on the New Zealand government’s determination to learn how new cases of COVID-19 managed to emerge there:
After more than three months without any known community spread of the coronavirus in New Zealand, a new outbreak in Auckland has upset the fragile normalcy that had returned in the nation.
It was just Tuesday that the government said it had its first cases from an unknown source in 102 days, all within one family. By Friday, the outbreak had grown to 30 cases, including in other cities where members of the household had traveled.
Now, a hunt is on to find the source of the outbreak — a search that shows how difficult it is to stamp out the virus, even on an island nation that has taken quick and decisive steps to eliminate it.
The theories being considered include via surface contagion of shipments coming into the country and an incoming traveler breaking quarantine. However, the theory I suspect is most likely is that the virus has actually been circulating quietly in New Zealand all along, with those contracting it showing no symptoms. Here are some interesting piece of the puzzle: all of the new cases are occurring within a single family and the strain of the virus they have contracted appears to be different from strains previously detected in New Zealand.
If a containment strategy cannot be maintained in New Zealand, it could not have been maintained anywhere. There is nowhere in the world isolated enough, detached enough, or perfect enough to maintain the strategy long enough. Its use was as a delaying tactic rather than a mitigation strategy.
“Its use was as a delaying tactic rather than a mitigation strategy.â€
My concurrence with this should be well known. And yet mitigation strategies aka fools errands still are all the rage. See:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/forced-isolation-may-be-the-only-way-to-stop-resurgence-of-virus/ar-BB17VSNH?ocid=uxbndlbing
“However, the theory I suspect is most likely is that the virus has actually been circulating quietly in New Zealand all along, with those contracting it showing no symptoms.â€
You combine this with inevitable non-compliance and you have all you need to know about typical “stopping the virus†pabulum so popular in media and with politicians.
Save the onslaught to economies or civil liberties for the Andromeda Strain, not COVID.
The notion that we’re going to engage in involuntary quarantines at the scale required is laughable. Just try to get city political leaders to subscribe to this statement: “I am willing to lock blacks up to slow the spread of COVID-19”. It’s absurd on its face. We had more than enough proof of that when city after city refused to break up BLM protests.
Here in Gov. Newsom land we continue to maintain masking everywhere, strict business guidelines – both carrying fines or other forms of punishment for those failing to comply. State public health officials have started resigning, after a “glitch†was owned, throwing COVID case numbers in question – first it was said they counted cases twice, then it was changed to undercounting case numbers. These stats, nonetheless, are the foundation for making policy here. And, even though they are in disarray, the restrictions remain. To the best of my knowledge hospitalizations and deaths are not soaring, but actually diminishing. Some hospitals are pulling back staff hours. The now discredited case numbers, though, continue to be the basis for our state of emergency mandates, along with our endless lockdown environment.
In the meantime, I recently was in touch with a friend of mine – a free-spirited woman in her forties. Growing tired of lockdowns she spent July 4th @ Block Island, RI, where she partied with thousands of maskless people sharing food and drink with them for a week. She also used mass transit, traveling by plane, train, bus, boat in getting around. The only prophylactic measures taken were: 1000 mg vit C, oregano P73, antiviral oils for the hands, and garlic. And, anybody she knew who got sick, had a mild week-long case. When she got back to the west coast, she has continued to meet with large gatherings of friends, this time camping in the woods, grilling food together, playing music, basically living life rather than hiding from it. Again, there have not been any untoward repercussions for not coloring within the lines of crushing governmental protocols.
For those of us who do follow these ridiculous rules, driven by oftentimes questionable or flawed data, I see few advantages in staying the course.
Like a horse with blinders on, little has been discussed regarding the incalculable damage being done to other equally important life-sustaining functions, because of the intense scrutiny on daily numbers and “hot spots.†Lost in our overviews are the mental, physical lapses caused by such a hyper focus on this virus. Needless business closures, bankruptcies, spiking deaths by suicide, overdoses, deferred medical treatments are profound, and yet missing in the calculus of what is needed to lessen the country’s suffering. Remote education is tanking for many students, especially in the under funded, underprivileged classes. It has been quoted we are down 25% in reading/English, and over 50% in math. Basically, there is a staggering amount of rubble accumulating in the wake of our 5-month standoff with COVID, and I simply don’t see the logic in continuing along this same destructive path….
Amen, Jan. I think we both know why the policies persist.
The most likely source is a failure of infection control protocols in quarantine. Remember, we can’t even get doctors and nurses in hospitals to follow hand washing procedures 100%, yet we expect cops and soldiers guarding hotels to do better on more complex protocols.
I definitely agree with your final conclusion. But NZ (and several Australian states) seem to be doubling down on an exclusion strategy. Apart from being impossible, it just means when you do get the inevitable outbreak it spreads like wildfire because 1. there’s so little immunity in the population and 2. everyone has gone back to pre-COVID behavior.
If it gets OMB out of office, it will have been worth it. That seems to be the calculation. Secondary is there are a lot of pompous fools who too afraid to admit they were fooled (and also don’t want to get blamed for anything), so it’s that better that hordes of people suffer and die from other causes (that still happens, you know) than acknowledge that. Shows you how much the ruling class really care about ordinary people. Gotta circle the wagons and protect the elite from those who are pointing out that they have no clothes on! And punish them too for disputing the narrative!
‘Save the onslaught to economies or civil liberties for the Andromeda Strain, not COVID.’
No, it’s worse than the Andromeda Strain. The only reason there hasn’t been 100% fatality is the stringent measures the heroic experts have been exhorting everybody to follow. And if you dispute that you’re a denier or worse. Do I need a sarc tag for that?
Here’s a good article from Aus railing against the stupidity of it all and the incredible damage it’s doing:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/coronavirus-were-paying-for-an-epidemic-of-stupidity/news-story/b403b6fa3b30879654a80d8e5c7aa6f0
And guess who benefits most from all this? The Han Empire. Who screwed up the initial response, hid the data and the bodies, and now are using the cover of COVID panic to assert themselves against the rest of the world.
Looks to me like the NZ approach has been a success if your goal is to minimize loss of life. At their very low level of disease quibbling over whether it is mitigation or a delaying tactic is just quibbling. Despite what you call it they have been successful. If we could have a policy where we went 102 days without a case that was not sourced we would celebrate that as success.
“If it gets OMB out of office, it will have been worth it.”
“Amen, Jan. I think we both know why the policies persist.”
Then I guess the counterargument is that you guys dont care how many people die as long as Trump gets re-elected. I will have to say that in my world about half of the people are Trump supporters and half are not. People who work directly with Covid who therefore tend to be more knowledgeable, would prefer that we continue masking, distancing and holding off on large gatherings, especially indoors. Those who dont work with it are more likely to oppose masking, etc.
Steve
I think that predicting that New Zealand will never have a major outbreak of COVID-19 is a risky bet.
I suspect that New Zealand’s success to date is some combination of policy, social cohesion, normal social practices, location, geography, timing, genetics (both that of the virus and the population), and luck. Beyond that I’d hesitate to guess.
Drew,
I was listening to democratic strategist Mark Penn this morning. His overarching opinion, on what was driving the numbers against Trump, was the virus, and the failure to get infection case numbers down. The 24/7 news coverage, injecting peopleâ€s minds with nothing but dismal stories of erratic case numbers (as testing also increases), does nothing but guarantee we will probably be locked into place until Nov 3rd, and those COVID news stories will continue to get top billing, drowning everything relevant to policy, candidate’s records etc. out Consequently, we, might very well be stuck on hold, encased in fear, capitulating to all the demands that are sucking the life out of life as we await the almost mythical arrival of a vaccine. Recently, though, even that lifesaving promise is looking less promising, as some are now positing a vaccine might only give people 3 months of immunity. Adding even more illusion to “virus science,†is the stark reality that the smallpox vaccine is the only vaccine that ever successfully extinguished a virus. And, it is this shot-in-the-dark vaccine goal that we have a return-to-economical-societal-normalcy riding on?
Like you implied, the virus responses do feel more and more like a cruel political ruse in order for the Dems to take the WH.
The “Han Empire” has used contact tracing to rapidly and greatly expand it’s surveillance state, ensnaring the co-operation of U.S. monopolies along the way. This should be the hot topic this election year, but, crickets.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/china-ai-surveillance/614197/