Coronavirus...post your thoughts here...

[Colin_T]

Go Hard, Go Fast New Zealand is in Level 4 lock down for the first time in a year. That means full lock down nobody goes anywhere.

Is it the delta strain in NZ now?
If yes, then it's good to go full lock down as soon as it is found, otherwise it spreads and governments are busy trying to chase it down.

 

[itiwhetu]

Is it the delta strain in NZ now?
If yes, then it's good to go full lock down as soon as it is found, otherwise it spreads and governments are busy trying to chase it down.

The government seems to think it's the Delta strain

 

[Colin_T]

The government seems to think it's the Delta strain

Let's hope you lot get it under control.

It's running amuck in Australia and is in most states now just from 1 person bringing it in. And people over east are being idiots and socialising even though they are in lockdown.

 

[itiwhetu]

The whole of New Zealand is in lock down for at least a week as we have 30 cases of Covid in the community

 

[itiwhetu]

The government is saying that through their close contact tracing they have 10000 people of interest. There are now 51 cases.

 

[Colin_T]

Bloody delta strain of covid19 is nastier than the earlier strains and spreads before you show symptoms. Any country that has it needs to do a complete lock down for at least 2 weeks to get it under control. Unfortunately that is really hard to do when you have idiots running around deliberately spreading it.

 

[snailaquarium]

I feel sorry for these guys, mind you I have not applied for a so call vacine passport, I hope if I ever need to it will work because on both occasions I went for a jab they had issues find me on the system on my booking number, but they found me on my address.




COVID-19 vaccine trial volunteers say they're being punished by coronavirus passport schemes

"People taking part in coronavirus vaccine trials tell Sky News they have been unable to get COVID passes and face difficulties travelling in Europe because the jabs they received are not recognised."

COVID-19 vaccine trial volunteers say they're being punished by coronavirus passport schemes

People taking part in coronavirus vaccine trials tell Sky News they have been unable to get COVID passes and face difficulties travelling in Europe because the jabs they received are not recognised.

news.sky.com

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Probably an unpopular opinion here but here goes...

The last pandemic was just over 100 years ago, long before all of us (inc dinosaur politicians) were even thought of. So this pandemic is something very new and I personally feel that although politicians have inevitably made errors along the way, I won't pour scorn onto them or the decisions that they made...and still make.

Nobody...not even the scientific boffins...knew anything about the origin, transmission or longevity of the virus and they still don't. People accused them and the politicians of "making it up as they went along", well yes they did, they had no choice. None had been through this sort of outbreak before, no real records or methods had been kept during the Spanish Influenza pandemic and anyway technology and medical science has changed massively since then.

I feel that the constant critical bashing of the scientists and politicians was seriously counterproductive. They truly did not know what exactly they were expected to do or how to handle this invisible menace and its origin country proved to be extremely unhelpful in discovering what it was capable of.

It is always very easy for those of us at home to be critical but had we been in any one of those scientists or politicians shoes, would we honestly have done any better?

I think not.

This virus is something that we all need to get used to, just as we have other diseases within our lifetimes. It is indiscriminate, insideous and devastating to those who sucumb to it. I lost no less than 15 neighbours in its early days and as someone with health problems I had to shield for several months. I have no family who could run errands for me, so it was difficult both physically and mentally.

So I tend to be a little more tolerant of the errors made, and yes there is no doubt errors were made. But when you consider that this virus pandemic was something totally new and unexpected and spread so fast and took so many lives. I feel, as do the families of my neighbours who lost their lives, that we can forgive the errors made and that by pulling together as communities we can beat this or at the very least learn to live with it in our midst. There is no room for the blame game, just room to reflect, to learn and to live with it.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Perhaps too many, through inadequate schooling, have the belief that they're opinion is as valid as anyone elses. These are also the people who believe that they have 'rights' and feck everyone else. They cannot abide being told what to do, in spite of lacking the intellect to make useful decisions.
Usually, they did badly at school, (although I'm sure their teachers told them that they were wonderful, when everyone's a winner) and distrust anyone who knows what they're talking about and choosing to believe anything bar reality, simply because it's different from what The Man says and we all know that The Man cannot be trusted.

I have a distant and dumb section of my family, who fitted these descriptions to a 'T'. They were the first to hoard toilet paper and pasta, etc.. They were amongst the first to do whatever they could to break any lockdown rules, congratulating themselves on their 'skill, wit and intelligence, unlike sheeple', (direct quote).

So, mask-less, they paid a price and took up way too much valuable hospital staff time and used up limited resources. Current tally is three dead, one still in intensive care and three with acute 'long covid'. (It could've been five, but they were angling for more benefit monies, until someone presented solid evidence of their good health. For them I feel nothing but disdain, for their children, I feel some pity, but as they are also self-entitled little s**ts, I won't feel it for long. For the many people who they came into contact with and spread the virus, I grieve.

The hardest part of my work has been counselling such survivors. Normally, guilt is a natural, albeit uncalled for, componant part of the grieving process. For many I've been working with, that guilt has been all too well deserved.
Another hard task I've been engaged in has been counselling and supporting frontline health care staff, from health care assistants, all the way up to senior consultants. All are true saints and heroes and all are fatigued, not by the work, but by the stupidity of those creating the work...and it never ends.

Sadly, in spite of the media attempting to say otherwise, as a people we seem dominated by the ignorant and selfish and are now bearing the costs.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Perhaps too many, through inadequate schooling, have the belief that they're opinion is as valid as anyone elses. These are also the people who believe that they have 'rights' and feck everyone else. They cannot abide being told what to do, in spite of lacking the intellect to make useful decisions.
Usually, they did badly at school, (although I'm sure their teachers told them that they were wonderful, when everyone's a winner) and distrust anyone who knows what they're talking about and choosing to believe anything bar reality, simply because it's different from what The Man says and we all know that The Man cannot be trusted.

I have a distant and dumb section of my family, who fitted these descriptions to a 'T'. They were the first to hoard toilet paper and pasta, etc.. They were amongst the first to do whatever they could to break any lockdown rules, congratulating themselves on their 'skill, wit and intelligence, unlike sheeple', (direct quote).

So, mask-less, they paid a price and took up way too much valuable hospital staff time and used up limited resources. Current tally is three dead, one still in intensive care and three with acute 'long covid'. (It could've been five, but they were angling for more benefit monies, until someone presented solid evidence of their good health. For them I feel nothing but disdain, for their children, I feel some pity, but as they are also self-entitled little s**ts, I won't feel it for long. For the many people who they came into contact with and spread the virus, I grieve.

The hardest part of my work has been counselling such survivors. Normally, guilt is a natural, albeit uncalled for, componant part of the grieving process. For many I've been working with, that guilt has been all too well deserved.
Another hard task I've been engaged in has been counselling and supporting frontline health care staff, from health care assistants, all the way up to senior consultants. All are true saints and heroes and all are fatigued, not by the work, but by the stupidity of those creating the work...and it never ends.

Sadly, in spite of the media attempting to say otherwise, as a people we seem dominated by the ignorant and selfish and are now bearing the costs.

Some people will never listen or be told......right up til their last breath on this earth.

Everyone has the right to their opinion and to choose what is best for them....even if that choice and opinion does give the rest of us nightmares and a sharp intake of breath, we as humans have long been taught to respect those choices and opinions even when they fly in the face of our own.

Trouble is that the naysayers have been allowed to become more virulent than the virus itself. The virus has cost lives and livelihoods, most of which intruth could not have been avoided given the initial circumstances of dealing with the largely unknown and invisible menace that fell upon all of us. However those who lose their lives and livelihoods now after so much has been done and is still being done to prevent deaths is imho a dishonour to those who passed away or lost everything they had worked for beforehand, if that makes sense.

 

[Bruce Leyland-Jones]

Some people will never listen or be told......right up til their last breath on this earth.

Everyone has the right to their opinion and to choose what is best for them....even if that choice and opinion does give the rest of us nightmares and a sharp intake of breath, we as humans have long been taught to respect those choices and opinions even when they fly in the face of our own.

Sorry, but I believe what you just said is a major part of the problem. Opinions are fine...PROVIDED they don't affect anyone else and, as opinions create actions, some opinions are downright dangerous and, at the very least, unhelpful.

I remember I came across a nasty road traffic accident and had begun to secure the area, when a Doctor joined me. Together, we began our work, surrounded by an increasingly large crowd of rubber-neckers. The good Doctor politely asked a member of the crowd to do something to ensure the area was made safer from ongoing traffic. The person he asked decided that he wasn't going to be told what to do and made his opinion known about the treatment the casualties should be receiving. His opinion was absolute gonads, but he insisted that his opinion was as good as anyone elses. It was my good fortune that the Doc was a consultant, working within a local A&E department, but even after having been informed of this, said idiot still insisted this his opinion was as valid.
On my last day of Junior school, before moving onto Big School, aged 10, the Headmaster gathered us all together for his big farewell speech. He was a good man, in all senses of the word and had earned our love and respect. He told us that, as we were now well on our way to becoming grown-ups, he gave us his permission to do whatever we wanted.
Most of us kids gasped at the joy of that.
And then he added...'PROVIDED what you do doesn't affect anyone else.'

A sound lesson that I have abided by since. Everything I do, everything, will affect someone else.

 

[ClownLurch]

I feel that the constant critical bashing of the scientists and politicians was seriously counterproductive.

It is always very easy for those of us at home to be critical but had we been in any one of those scientists or politicians shoes, would we honestly have done any better?

I think not.

I’ve heard no critical bashing of scientists involved with the C19 pandemic.

As for the politicians? Well Cameron oversaw the virtual dismantling of the body responsible for infectious disease research/control in the U.K.. so there’s one reason to bash a politician.

Want another? Johnson was informed by the WHO head and Mr Witty that the U.K. could expect 250,000 dead by Xmas 2020 if it didn’t lockdown immediately. Less than 24 hrs later Johnson was giving a press conference about a hospital visit that day in which he boasted about shaking hands with everyone in there he’d met. Also lying that C19 patients were present. They weren’t. Why would any responsible person do either of those things?

Mainland Europe was affected two weeks before the U.K. Nothing was done. Once the U.K. was infected still nothing was done until the Cheltenham Racing Festival in a Conservative voting area was over resulting in a massive spike. There’s another.

I could go on. There are hundreds of valid reasons to bash the political handling of this pandemic in the U.K. before even getting to riding roughshod over govt procurement regulations which they’ve already been found guilty of breaking in U.K. courts. None whatsoever to bash the scientific handling of it.

To ask “Could you have done any better?” is infantile debate at best. When a person puts themselves up for election they are implying a capacity for leadership, knowledge and an awareness of what’s best for society greater than us “at home”. If they don’t possess it then don’t stand for election.

This govt has failed the electorate. In 100yrs when the history books are written and this era mulled over, its stupidity, arrogance, law breaking and wilfull blindness will astonish those reading them.

 

[Colin_T]

We had people doing illegal protests in New South Wales and Victoria yesterday. Hundreds, possibly thousands of people attended and none wore masks. The cops were arresting and fining people left right and centre.

Most of the protestors were male aged between 18-40.

It's absolutely ridiculous. Their protesting and probably spreading of the virus simply extends the lock downs that are currently in force. If everyone just stayed home for 2 weeks, they could stop the virus and end the lock down, then get back on with their life.

On top of that, the New South Wales government still hasn't done a statewide lock down. They are trying to stop the delta strain by locking down suburbs that have infected people, but you can't control the delta strain that way.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Contentious subject warning

Watched a few programmes on Smithsonian last night.

History is definitely repeating itself. There have been epidemics and pandemics around every 100 to 150 years since 3000BC, the science boffins who have studied the cycle of epidemic and pandemic have come to the conclusion that its a form of natural selection, natures way of human population control. They also discovered that over the same amount of time the earth has suffered 4 or 5 species extinction episodes.

The easiest way to explain this is Mother Nature has decided there are too many humans, time to get rid of a few million in one go and the extinction episodes (not just the dinosaurs but it has happened to early humankind and other animals too) is Mother Nature effectively "cleaning house", such as the wiping out of an entire population in what we know now as Tunisia in 2300BC.

They also linked the cycle of epidemic and pandemic to other things... <cue contentious part >

For many decades the science boffins have studied the movements of the tectonic plates, volcanic activity and the temperature of the earth's core in relation to epidemic/pandemic/extinction cycles and changes in the climate. The earth core has been getting significantly hotter, which as with the epidemic/pandemic/extinction has through out history come in cycles....extreme temperature spikes in both directions.

Volcanic activity has increased significantly since the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens. Otherwise dormant or semi dormant volcanoes have been showing more activity....two in particular are causing considerable concern. Campi Flegri near Naples and Yellowstone. One or both if they erupted would potentially bring about an extinction of many species, including humankind.

So what these boffins were saying is that the political stances shown during this current pandemic have been no worse than previous pandemics...Spanish Influenza, Cholera, Black Death, Typhoid etc. Alot of people look towards their country's leadership for guidance in times of distress but since pandemics and epidemics happen once in 100 to 150 years, there are no "perfect scenario" and not set plan in place cos there simply cannot be a plan.

It is impossible to plan ahead.

Why?

Due to the leangth of time in years, often over a century for epidemic/pandemic, each event is handled by an entirely new set of generations. There are scant if any survivors from the Spanish Influenza pandemic that killed over 50 million in 1918, so it is impossible to ask survivors "How was it handled, was there a plan?". The gap tween pandemics is so huge we only have what is found in the history and religious books to learn the how, the what and the eventual ending.

The bottom line insofar as the boffins from all over the world who have together studied this rock in space and its behaviour and the almost regular epidemic/pandemic/extinction cycles alongside the earth core temperature changes, the volcanic and tectonic plate activity is that no matter who is in charge of a country, no matter how well your forward planning might be...ultimately we have no control over what is naturally happening now or in the future. Humankind and all other living things on this rock are merely "passengers" on an ever changing, ever evolving hunk of rock. Campi Flegri and Yellowstone will go bang, another pandemic will happen...eventually. And as hard as you might try to plan ahead and have every scenario considered and planned for...we are mere passengers and have zero control or imput in what will come next.

History IS repeating itself.....with the current pandemic the cycle starts again, next one in 100 to 150 years long after everyone affected by this one has turned to dust. As for the rock we are sat on, its stewing away nicely from the core and not from the humankind part cos we are minicule compared to the core and the core has been heating up consistently. We know this is true thanks to the earth telling us through volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that are becoming ever stronger and ever more violent.

You can scream and protest as much as you want at the leadership of your country, makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

 

[itiwhetu]

Contentious subject warning

Watched a few programmes on Smithsonian last night.

History is definitely repeating itself. There have been epidemics and pandemics around every 100 to 150 years since 3000BC, the science boffins who have studied the cycle of epidemic and pandemic have come to the conclusion that its a form of natural selection, natures way of human population control. They also discovered that over the same amount of time the earth has suffered 4 or 5 species extinction episodes.

The easiest way to explain this is Mother Nature has decided there are too many humans, time to get rid of a few million in one go and the extinction episodes (not just the dinosaurs but it has happened to early humankind and other animals too) is Mother Nature effectively "cleaning house", such as the wiping out of an entire population in what we know now as Tunisia in 2300BC.

They also linked the cycle of epidemic and pandemic to other things... <cue contentious part >

For many decades the science boffins have studied the movements of the tectonic plates, volcanic activity and the temperature of the earth's core in relation to epidemic/pandemic/extinction cycles and changes in the climate. The earth core has been getting significantly hotter, which as with the epidemic/pandemic/extinction has through out history come in cycles....extreme temperature spikes in both directions.

Volcanic activity has increased significantly since the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens. Otherwise dormant or semi dormant volcanoes have been showing more activity....two in particular are causing considerable concern. Campi Flegri near Naples and Yellowstone. One or both if they erupted would potentially bring about an extinction of many species, including humankind.

So what these boffins were saying is that the political stances shown during this current pandemic have been no worse than previous pandemics...Spanish Influenza, Cholera, Black Death, Typhoid etc. Alot of people look towards their country's leadership for guidance in times of distress but since pandemics and epidemics happen once in 100 to 150 years, there are no "perfect scenario" and not set plan in place cos there simply cannot be a plan.

It is impossible to plan ahead.

Why?

Due to the leangth of time in years, often over a century for epidemic/pandemic, each event is handled by an entirely new set of generations. There are scant if any survivors from the Spanish Influenza pandemic that killed over 50 million in 1918, so it is impossible to ask survivors "How was it handled, was there a plan?". The gap tween pandemics is so huge we only have what is found in the history and religious books to learn the how, the what and the eventual ending.

The bottom line insofar as the boffins from all over the world who have together studied this rock in space and its behaviour and the almost regular epidemic/pandemic/extinction cycles alongside the earth core temperature changes, the volcanic and tectonic plate activity is that no matter who is in charge of a country, no matter how well your forward planning might be...ultimately we have no control over what is naturally happening now or in the future. Humankind and all other living things on this rock are merely "passengers" on an ever changing, ever evolving hunk of rock. Campi Flegri and Yellowstone will go bang, another pandemic will happen...eventually. And as hard as you might try to plan ahead and have every scenario considered and planned for...we are mere passengers and have zero control or imput in what will come next.

History IS repeating itself.....with the current pandemic the cycle starts again, next one in 100 to 150 years long after everyone affected by this one has turned to dust. As for the rock we are sat on, its stewing away nicely from the core and not from the humankind part cos we are minicule compared to the core and the core has been heating up consistently. We know this is true thanks to the earth telling us through volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that are becoming ever stronger and ever more violent.

You can scream and protest as much as you want at the leadership of your country, makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

This thread is meant to be about Covid-19