New Zealand Covid-19 Delta outbreak spreading rapidly as cases jump | Hacker News Reader

New Zealand Covid-19 Delta outbreak spreading rapidly as cases jump

reuters.com

51 pointslsllc40 comments

It's surprising they couldn't vaccinate more given such small population. May be earlier successes created false security like post Indian first wave (and all the world thought their second wave was due to pure incompetence while in reality its due to Delta).

there wasn't much of a push to vaccinate people, and also not much incentive for people to get one- especially when the country had no COVID cases in the community and life was normal.

Supply chain logistics. US, UK & EU need 2x population doses because they're killing 100,000+ people.

NZ has one decent lockdown and 26 deaths total - and successfully keeps the plague out for 14months.... which rather reduces our govt's negotiating power when trying to source the 10million doses we need. We simply didn't have supply of sufficient vaccines until July-2021.

Don't worry, what passes for right-wing rabid press is tireless in its search for evidence of govt incompetence; so far without success.

The current outbreak and lockdown has concentrated minds and we're managing >60,000 vaccinations per day... At which rate we will run out of supply in late Sept and have to suspend operations until the October shipment arrives. Gotta loved JustInTime logistics.

Vaccination doesn't stop the spread of the delta variant, so I'm not sure how that would have helped enough to prevent an outbreak.

Vaccination likely dramatically slows the spread. Even with the most pessimistic non-peer-reviewed numbers, Delta in a vaccinated (Pfizer or Moderna) population will spread no faster than original Covid in an unvaccinated population, and the death (and presumably long-term disability) toll will be substantially reduced.

As a non-expert, IMO the most pessimistic numbers are likely to be more pessimistic than warranted.

I do not see that. Compare Iceland or Israel or Netherlands to India. It spread very quickly in either case.

It's almost a myth that Israel is highly vaccinated, and the vaccine is far more effective in Israel than first meets the eye.

A significant % of Israel's entire population is currently too young to be eligible for vaccination.

There are two commonly reported %s: percent of population and percent of eligible population. That distinction matters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel#Structu...

https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/israeli-data-how-can-...

No it doesnt. But they tell you it does...

If your hospitals aren’t overwhelmed with the dying, an outbreak is a much more minor consequence.

Okay, sure, but doesn't that remove my personal responsibility for vaccination? If it's only about my personal disease risk, I can make whatever choice I please.

How does this breakthrough even happen in a self-isolating country? Business travel? Animal reservoirs?

Travel was open with Australia until the recent outbreak there. Using virus genome sequencing, this outbreak has been traced to a New Zealander who caught the virus in Sydney, and spent 2 weeks in a quarantine centre in Auckland.

It's not yet known how the virus escaped the quarantine centre. None of the quarantine centre staff have tested positive, despite being tested multiple times.

It's suspected that the transmission occurred by somebody walking near the hotel while the initial case was arriving, or in a fenced off outdoor exercise area.

6 people walked by on CCTV at this point. 4 have been contacted, but 2 haven't been identified.

Also worth noting, the border isn't completely closed. There is a steady stream of returning New Zealanders, and also exceptions for some workers. Everyone does a 2 week quarantine stay on entering the country. Some of these people test positive for Corona, but so far it hasn't escaped a quarantine centre. Looks like Delta is harder to contain.

Authoritarians always lose because they have the burden of accurately predicting the future, a fools' errand. It may take additional time but the heavy handed response by the NZ government will go down as a tyrannical mistake, one which will not stop the spread of the disease through their population and will have introduced great psychological harm by isolating people for so long.

There’s no authoritarianism going in here.

The New Zealand government did what you should expect of a government: they governed.

They made a tough decision and explained their reasons why.

Public support for the lock down is high as are compliance levels with the restrictions.

Well, they do raise a lot of sheep in NZ, I can see how that translates over into the behavior of NZ 'subjects'.

Lol you wot m8? That “heavy handed response” has been NZ living a basically normal life for the past year while the rest of the world goes in an out of restrictions and mask mandates and watches the death toll climb ever higher.

The vast majority of the NZ population supports the current level 4 lockdown because of that.

Good slave, take your pills

470 days without a lockdown. Lowest death toll per capita along with China. I can see how that equates to a #NZhellhole [1] in some people's minds.

[1] https://twitter.com/hashtag/NZHellhole?f=image

Ah you’re one of those. I hope you get the help you need before you hurt yourself or someone else.

Projection

The 'tyrannical mistake' is to buy us time... We're only at 26% completely vaccinated... Once we've got to >80% vaccinated - around Xmas at current rates - We will have more choices.

We are not trying to stop spread of the disease - we're trying to buy time so can open our country back up on our own terms without killing thousands.

Losing a parent or child to the virus would've done greater psychological harm. Besides, hindsight is...

In other news, China seems to have contained delta, with 0 new active cases today. It does seem to be possible to tame delta, even with a population of 1.4 billion people.

In other news, 8964 cases of noodles were reported to be standing in the middle of the road in the Xinjiang rollercoaster theme park.

> Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended the strict level 4 national lockdown to Aug. 27

> Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said elimination cannot be pursued forever [...] The way through is to get to those 70% and 80% (vaccination) marks, open safely

~34% of the population in New Zealand has received at least one vaccine dose [1], ~20% is fully vaccinated [2]. The rate of new cases jumped slightly at the same time last year [3].

New Zealand would definitely benefit from an increased vaccination rate, and strict non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are undoubtedly helping slow the spread of the virus while preventing hospitals from being overwhelmed.

However, such strict NPI policies are also preventing a significant portion of the population - people who are healthy and would likely be asymptomatic - from acquiring immunity through natural infection [12][13]. Paradoxically, this phenomenon may be prolonging and worsening the situation, because a significant portion of people will lack effective immunity against variants. Consequently, infections and cases may spike rapidly and uncontrollably, especially with variants demonstrating increasing transmissibility like delta. Moreover, strict NPIs are likely to create very bad winters in terms of endemic illnesses such as influenza and RSV, threatening to put even more strain on limited healthcare resources [11].

So while vaccination is definitely part of the solution here, it can also be complemented with other strategies such as early treatment using a multi-drug regime [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. People who are particularly vulnerable - ie elderly with co-morbidities - should certainly quarantine until they've been fully vaccinated, but the tradeoffs involved in keeping everyone else locked down are not quite as obvious or simple to reason about.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/new-zealand#w...

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/new-zealand#w...

[3] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/new-zealand#w...

[4] Multifaceted highly targeted sequential multidrug treatment of early ambulatory high-risk SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...

[5] Clinical outcomes after early ambulatory multidrug therapy for high-risk SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) infection https://rcm.imrpress.com/EN/article/downloadArticleFile.do?a...

[6] Early multidrug treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19) and reduced mortality among nursing home (or outpatient/ambulatory) residents https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069...

[7] Multidrug treatment for COVID-19 https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ddt/advpub/0/advpub_202...

[8] Ivermectin in combination with doxycycline for treating COVID-19 symptoms: a randomized trial https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33983065/

[9] Fluvoxamine: A Review of Its Mechanism of Action and Its Role in COVID-19 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2021.6526...

[10] Baricitinib plus Remdesivir for Hospitalized Adults with Covid-19 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33306283/

[11] The impact of COVID-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions on the future dynamics of endemic infections https://www.pnas.org/content/117/48/30547

[12] Longitudinal analysis shows durable and broad immune memory after SARS-CoV-2 infection with persisting antibody responses and memory B and T cells https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...

[13] SARS-CoV-2 infection rates of antibody-positive compared with antibody-negative health-care workers in England: a large, multicentre, prospective cohort study (SIREN) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33844963/

It's all about getting more control over people at this point.

Society is reactive rather than proactive - I'm just wondering when the proverbial bear will be poked one too many times before people finally say 'enough is enough'.

People will actually never say enough is enough. That's the sad truth of it. Humanity as a race has training from early age to follow authority, and no training how to recognize propaganda or how to deal with an authority trying to force you into something.

The hour is close.

If vaccines are the thing that finally breaks the camel's back I'm going to be extremely disappointed and annoyed.

This us what happens when you let up on lockdowns -- and why Australia is deploying the armed forces to enforce anti-COVID measures.

I would not want anybody to have their rights forcefully restricted under penalty of being locked up for an indefinite amount of time.

I would also not want the military to tell it's own citizens to stay in their houses and not be able to live their life because of a virus.

My neighbor is a FedEx pilot - outside of Europe and North America, they are effectively incarcerated between flights.

Armed military escorts, hazmat suits, hotel windows locked shut, people spraying your footprints with disinfectant, etc. It's insanely absurd.

But by God, we will NOT stop the global economic engine.

Locking down a population is as violent as letting people die from the disease. Enough is enough, jackboots!

The fact that any educated person would have this view of public health and compliance is more troubling than the lions share of American politics. Please think deeply whether you'd really like to live in a literal police state.

looks around

Are you sure it's not a police state already?

I think you're just concerned it's starting to be noticable to folks in the middle class too, cause the poor have been well aware of the fact that we live in a police state.

Evidence: US prison population compared to, well, any other country in the world, even the ones you know to be police states already. Whether you look at total population, or per capita, it's the same answer, #1 in the world at locking up it's own residents.

American politics has shown that you literally have to point a gun at people's heads to get them to comply with public safety measures that will slow or prevent the spread of COVID -- because "muh freedom". Unfortunately, this is one thing American political philosophy got wrong: All freedom is contingent. And the realpolitik of "the right to swing my fist ends at the other person's face" is, if stepping outside jeopardizes public health then you stay the fuck indoors on pain of being arrested or shot.

Yes—martial law is always the wisest solution! /s

This same story is popping up among the countries who were successful in limiting the spread last year - New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea.

They basically got cocky. They gambled that their prior infection controls could keep them safe until they could acquire vaccines on their own terms.

Now many of those countries are finding out that what worked last year doesn’t work for the Delta variant. When other developed countries are talking about boosters these countries are scrambling to fully vaccinate their population and because they are so late to the game they’re likely 6-12 months behind.

Now if we don’t get yet another variant that requires a different vaccine/booster they might be fine. But they might also find out that by the time they’ve vaccinated for the original strain the vaccine is no longer effective.

> they basically got cocky. They gambled that their prior infection controls could keep them safe...

And why are we so late to the game? Global supply-chain logistics. NZ govt probably made a choice we would wait 'a little longer' to get Pfizer as it had best efficacy rates at the time of decisions.

We didn't have sufficient supplies of Pfizer until July-2021. Yes we gambled - and we may yet get away without mass illness & deaths. But calling us cocky hints at your lack of understanding how small countries in the world have to take what they're given and say thank you nicely.

Rapid "spread" != hospitalization and death. This should also be an indicator that the negative economics of lockdowns long-term, especially during the transition into "endemic" phases of a disease don't really pan out. To be clear, I got my vaccine, I'm planning on getting any necessary boosters and I wear a mask. However, managing negative health outcomes is far more important than just reporting on cases at this point.

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