John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #401
IMO a confrontation with China is more likely than not. Now would not be ideal, in 5-10 years, much worse.
New Coronavirus threat
- Thread starter John Fedup
- Start date
Of course the UN Food and Agriculture cannot get into China as this article in the very reputable NZ political insiders blog Point of View mentions.
pointofordernz.wordpress.com
This is an interesting statement:
"One small example: in the Solomon Islands, which recently switched from Taiwan to China, Cabinet ministers turned out to “welcome” a small consignment of aid from Beijing. In sharp contrast, no one greets the millions of ODA flooding in from Wellington and Canberra."
The reason for that is the Stadium for the 2023 Pacific Games in Honiara has been built by China. Maybe it is about time the All Blacks and Socceroo's each paid a visit to play there against a combined Pasifika side. More soft power engagement via that than Ping Pong!
Peters goes hard on China – now let’s see if NZ falls prey to Beijing’s intimidating pack of “wolf warriors”
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has been challenged over his robust approach to China. First, he disclosed this week that Beijing’s foreign minister had tried to talk him out of NZ’s coronavirus lo…
pointofordernz.wordpress.com
This is an interesting statement:
"One small example: in the Solomon Islands, which recently switched from Taiwan to China, Cabinet ministers turned out to “welcome” a small consignment of aid from Beijing. In sharp contrast, no one greets the millions of ODA flooding in from Wellington and Canberra."
The reason for that is the Stadium for the 2023 Pacific Games in Honiara has been built by China. Maybe it is about time the All Blacks and Socceroo's each paid a visit to play there against a combined Pasifika side. More soft power engagement via that than Ping Pong!
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #403
Who would have ever thought Hollywood asking the pornography studios for advice on how to make movies.
Lessons from porn industry could help Hollywood adapt to coronavirus
Lessons from porn industry could help Hollywood adapt to coronavirus
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
As a follow up, it appears that the condition temporarily named pediatric inflammatory multi-system syndrome (PIMS) or sometimes PIMS-TS for Temporarily associated with SARS-CoV-2, does not start to show symptoms until several weeks after the pediatric is infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. One of the 'interesting' things about this, is that at the point the PCR test is no longer a useful diagnostic tool, though anti-body testing can be. I am uncertain at present based off the information I have been able to find, but I suspect that it might be due to the PCR testing for active infection, specifically in the nasopharynx. If the syndrome does occur several weeks after first infection, then the patient's immune system would usually have fought off the infection. At present, it seems like PIMS might be caused by, or a side effect of, a severe immune system overreaction.
A bit more information here and here.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #405
This article discusses some ideas for restoring passenger confidence for air travel. One aspect that doesn’t receive as much attention as aircraft cabins is the airport environment itself. As the article mentions, just queuing up for boarding a wide body jet is pretty demanding on maintaining a proper social distance. Same issue at the baggage claim area although most passengers now will likely only do carry on. I cringe at the thought of all the oversized bags and the resulting chaos of fitting them into the overhead bins. As a frequent flyer, the only positives I can see are more comfortable seats and fewer people on board. This will not be much inducement when one sees the higher seat prices and minimal virus protection.https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/...ports-airplanes-sanitation-security-1.5574177
Sydney is sort of open for business again but with limits of 12 passengers per bus and 32 for a train carriage, this clearly won't work. The extra 400,000 or more cars on the road isn't really helping either. Even when you get to work you need to queue in the foyer because of a two-person limit per lift.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #407
Yes, there is a transit problem in Toronto with ridership down 80%. The system is losing $90 million a month. Roads here very congested before COVID and without a transit recovery our roads will be chaos if people use their cars for the daily commute.
As of 23 May 2020, 12pm, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has confirmed 642 new cases of COVID-19 infection in Singapore. Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said on that economic activities that do not pose a high risk of transmission will restart first on 2 Jun 2020 — with a phased withdrawal of circuit breaker measures. Schools will reopen but only a portion of students will attend school, while some cohorts will alternate between home-based learning and returning to school for lessons. All pre- school staff will undergo a one-time swab test for Covid-19 starting from Friday (May 15) before centres reopen.
Among the 31,068 COVID-19 cases from the start of this pandemic, there are currently:
927 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. To date, 13,882 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities.
Most of the 711 confirmed cases who are still in hospital are stable or improving. 8 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.
16,452 cases who have mild symptoms, or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19 are isolated and cared for at community facilities.
23 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection with an estimated death rate of 0.06% (or 6 deaths per 10,000 infected).
Among the 31,068 COVID-19 cases from the start of this pandemic, there are currently:
- Imported cases: 0
- Cases in the community: 11 (6 Singaporeans/PRs, 3 Work Pass holders, 2 Work Permit holders)
- Cases residing in dormitories: 631
927 more cases of COVID-19 infection have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities. To date, 13,882 have fully recovered from the infection and have been discharged from hospitals or community isolation facilities.
Most of the 711 confirmed cases who are still in hospital are stable or improving. 8 are in critical condition in the intensive care unit.
16,452 cases who have mild symptoms, or are clinically well but still test positive for COVID-19 are isolated and cared for at community facilities.
23 have passed away from complications due to COVID-19 infection with an estimated death rate of 0.06% (or 6 deaths per 10,000 infected).
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We're down to daily totals of 0 new infections or 1 or maybe 2, but all they come from known clusters. The recovery rate is sitting at 97% and we have about 50 active cases at moment. Our schools, pubs, clubs, businesses are now open but social distancing is still in force and for pubs, clubs, restaurants, cafes, churches etc., are limited to a maximum of 100 people on the premises and groups are not allowed to contain more than 10 people. So that excludes wedding celebrations, funeral wakes, conferences etc. What we are really concerned about is the possibility that a second wave will occur, because the evidence from overseas has shown the long tail of the virus.
EDIT: According to the evening TV news it's 23 active cases now.
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Good job in demonstrating competence in management of the virus in NZ.
Intelligent local observers in Singapore of the pandemic have shared a hypothesis — the real root cause for the foreign dorm infections was the humongous number of asymptomatic cases. To be fair, Singapore always had this suspicion that there could be a small number of asymptomatic carriers. That the proportion could be up to 96% was not apparent until after the circuit breaker measures was imposed. By then, it was too late.
Well, South Korea had it's first case the same day the US did - SK topped off at 300 or so deaths and seems to have held stable. Japan has similar numbers - about 750 deaths last I checked with a population of 120 million. They managed that without the government even having the legal power to enforce lock down, so this was achieved at personal and individual space.
Better to look at the countries who did well and see what can be learned from their successful examples I think. Germany is a good example of an EU country with a heavily urbanised population who seem to have achieved very good results from testing in combination with isolation.
The consistent message you can pick up here is that isolation can help but testing and tracing have much better results when combined with various distancing methods.
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #412
In addition to distancing and good tracing, what do SK, Japan, and to a large extent Germany have in common? I think the answer is disciplined populations. As an island nation like Japan, the UK had a partial advantage over land connected EU nations but intense quarantine measures require testing and tracing. The UK and US aren’t the only states stuffing this up.
How various countries deal with this does say a lot about their culture. With the US is seems there is a battle going on between personal freedom and the common good. Countries like Japan, China, SK and Germany do indeed have a lot more discipline than many other countries. That the rather more relaxed cultures like Italy and Spain have done so badly probably shouldn't be a surprise. Not sure why Australia and NZ are doing so well. Perhaps we are far more disciplined than I thought we were.
I don't think Australia and NZ are more disciplined than others, in fact we're the opposite because we have a reputation for giving the one fingered salute to authority, and we do have a more relaxed easy going nature than the poms, yanks etc. I would suggest that it's more about mateship and doing what's right, more than anything else. You'll notice that everytime there's a disaster etc., both our peoples dig in and help mates out, even mates we didn't know 5 minutes ago. I think it's part of our heritage from 2 centuries ago when all of our peoples had to do that to survive in the bush on both sides of the ditch. It's something that's been passed down from one generation to the next.
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
Yes although I do think we also benefited from the fact that the messaging from our leadership was more consistent with the information coming out of the scientific community as the crisis unfolded. The US has been able to rally in response to crises before (9/11 springs to mind) but I fear the mixed messages emanating from Washington culminated in a situation where the opportunity to implement effective lockdown measures was missed, which squandered the opportunity to create a galvanised nationwide response.
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Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I suspect you are being too kind with regards to US leadership during the current pandemic. What I find disconcerting is the news that the US CDC, as well as at least the state of Georgia, is combining the number of diagnostic and serology tests performed when they post test results. This co-mingling of test numbers concerns me because it impacts the validity of the testing results data which is being used to justify easing restrictions on containment efforts. As it is, no US state has really met the criteria the CDC set out to start a phased easing of containment efforts. If it turns out that the data was/is overly rosy, then both the citizens and policymakers have been operating with a false sense of security. Now I am not one for conspiracy theories, but given some of the information which has come out from different states as well as the Federal gov't, I have to question whether or not the statistics have been massaged in order to support policy, as opposed to policy being driven by data.
Ananda
The Bunker Group
Culture discipline I believe still matter, when you don't have authoritarian government like China or Vietnam that can push dicipline toward population for control.
The amount of testing also important if your government is not that capable of putting total control for population movement.
I put an example of daily graph on COVID 19 cases from Java 6 provinces. The left side shown number of Provinces Banten, West Java and East Java which still continue increase, and the right side shown the number of Provinces Jakarta/DKI, Central Java and Jogjakarta that begin to stabilize.
Now Indonesian government whether the Central Government and in Provinces are not 'really' efficient on implementation of field control. There are cases of population lack dicipline that happen continuously. Especially right now after end of Ramadhan, which mostly festive mood for Moeslem population that make 90% (especially in Java).
However culturally people in Central Java and Jogjakarta are more obeying regulations, compare to other provinces in Java. This seems factor in why their number begin to stabilize.
While for Jakarta, like other big metropolitan in the world is melting pot. Thus the dicipline in not as high Central Java and Jogjakarta, but it's smaller area that the field control is more manageable plus even Indonesian Test Ratio still low, but Jakarta has much more test compared to other provinces. In fact Jakarta test ratio slightly better than Malaysia and Thailand on the rate of 55000 per million population (Indonesian overall number still only 1000+ per million population, in fact I don't think countries like India, Pakistan or Indonesia will ever have high test ratio Nationwide in the range of OECD). The higher testing ratio also means Jakarta Provincial authority can do better tracking compare to other provinces. This so far help begin to stabilize the number.
For that combination of Effective Government Control, Cultural trend of dicipline and level of testing ratio are the key to control this pandemic. You can only have two of that factor, but you will have problem if you only have one factor.
Case of Indonesia now will depend on the result of next two weeks. During this time, population control are having problem in some Provinces (compare to previous two-three weeks) due to people tend to move around during Moeslem Eid. Which Provinces that able relatively put better control, perhaps can begin to relax their 'semi' lock down by middle of June. The rest probably need to keep the measure until July or even early August.
This condition for some segment of population also bring memory at the time of Authoritarian Soeharto's rule. Some believe, we will have similar condition like Vietnam on handling this pandemic, if we still have Soeharto in reign. Say whatever on Soeharto, but he do keep the population dicipline in check. After this democracy era, that population dicipline is what lacking for us now.
The amount of testing also important if your government is not that capable of putting total control for population movement.
I put an example of daily graph on COVID 19 cases from Java 6 provinces. The left side shown number of Provinces Banten, West Java and East Java which still continue increase, and the right side shown the number of Provinces Jakarta/DKI, Central Java and Jogjakarta that begin to stabilize.
Now Indonesian government whether the Central Government and in Provinces are not 'really' efficient on implementation of field control. There are cases of population lack dicipline that happen continuously. Especially right now after end of Ramadhan, which mostly festive mood for Moeslem population that make 90% (especially in Java).
However culturally people in Central Java and Jogjakarta are more obeying regulations, compare to other provinces in Java. This seems factor in why their number begin to stabilize.
While for Jakarta, like other big metropolitan in the world is melting pot. Thus the dicipline in not as high Central Java and Jogjakarta, but it's smaller area that the field control is more manageable plus even Indonesian Test Ratio still low, but Jakarta has much more test compared to other provinces. In fact Jakarta test ratio slightly better than Malaysia and Thailand on the rate of 55000 per million population (Indonesian overall number still only 1000+ per million population, in fact I don't think countries like India, Pakistan or Indonesia will ever have high test ratio Nationwide in the range of OECD). The higher testing ratio also means Jakarta Provincial authority can do better tracking compare to other provinces. This so far help begin to stabilize the number.
For that combination of Effective Government Control, Cultural trend of dicipline and level of testing ratio are the key to control this pandemic. You can only have two of that factor, but you will have problem if you only have one factor.
Case of Indonesia now will depend on the result of next two weeks. During this time, population control are having problem in some Provinces (compare to previous two-three weeks) due to people tend to move around during Moeslem Eid. Which Provinces that able relatively put better control, perhaps can begin to relax their 'semi' lock down by middle of June. The rest probably need to keep the measure until July or even early August.
This condition for some segment of population also bring memory at the time of Authoritarian Soeharto's rule. Some believe, we will have similar condition like Vietnam on handling this pandemic, if we still have Soeharto in reign. Say whatever on Soeharto, but he do keep the population dicipline in check. After this democracy era, that population dicipline is what lacking for us now.
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Todjaeger
Potstirrer
As an update to the above, it has now come out that the testing numbers for at least 11 US states combined both the virology and serology test numbers, in addition to the numbers from the CDC.
Based off what I have read about this issue with the data so far, it appears that about half of the total reported number completed tests are actually the tests for those actively infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus/COVID-19. What I have not been able to determine is how many of the reportedly Confirmed, Recovered, or Active casts are from the serology tests, or from the virology tests.
Unfortunately, until the data is properly split out into the different types of tests, IMO it is now essentially impossible to extrapolate or interpret what the US data means. Both types of tests are needed, but they are needed for completely different reasons due to the different information they provide. By combining the two, the numbers can be manipulated to look like progress is being made, meanwhile the mixed data removes any connection between efforts made and 'actual' outputs.
cdxbow
Well-Known Member
Not just more disciplined populations but also good leadership, both sadly lacking in the UK and USA. Brazil is now suffering for the same reasons. It's not hard for governments to do the right thing during the start of a pandemic, just follow the advice of the experts. Reopening is harder as there are more uncertainties. You also don't want to have to reimpose significant nationwide restrictions, getting the cork back into the bottle can the difficult.
cdxbow
Well-Known Member
Many, many years ago, I spent a day with an American health academic who was responsible (and eventually failed) for Mr Clintons attempts to bring in a some form of universal healthcare in the US. In discussion why it failed, of which there were many, he said there was a fundamental difference between Americans and Australians in that Australians were more likely to try to reach a consensus about an issue and were more conciliatory than Americans. I would presume the same applies to Kiwis. Social consensus and conciliation are helpful for the 'common good' and the response to pandemics in democracies requires a sense of the 'common good'.