Today’s update as usual from MoH’s Director General Dr Ashley Bloomfield:
78 new cases (73 confirmed, 5 probable) – quite a jump to a total of 283.
Summary
| Total to date | New in last 24 hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand | 262 | 73 |
| Number of probable cases | 21 | 5 |
| Number of confirmed and probable cases | 283 | 78 |
| Number of cases in hospital | 7 | 2 |
| Number of recovered cases | 27 | 5 |
Tests yesterday 2,417 and total tests 12,683 – average per day over the last week 1,400 which may partially explain the jump in number of cases.
Most cases are still linked to overseas travel, but there are also ‘clusters’ – a Wellington group were at a wedding. They are still dealing with cases related to the Ruby Princess cruise ship when it was in Napier.
From Pharmac – there has been some stockpiling so from tonight all funded prescriptions will be limited to one month’s supply (3 months for contraceptives). There is no shortage, they just need to control supply chains.
How many cases? “It may get into the thousands”.
And also Police Commissioner Mike Bush.
He first refers to the guilty plea of the Christchurch mosque murderer.
Day 1 about how the police go about responding to level 4. The majority of new Zealanders are complying.
Initially police will use their discretion and educate people when finding people way from their homes. Some will be essential workers, some will have legitimate health or food shopping reasons for travel. Some stopped by the police say they knew nothing about the lockdown.
He said that those returning to NZ from overseas today without a plan for isolation have been met by numerous officials (customs, police etc) and then triaged to locations for self isolation.
360 arrived at Auckland Airport this morning, 8 were deemed to have symptoms and a risk. 160 had no plans and also needed ‘facilitated’ with being put somewhere safe.
RNZ Live:
Marist College in Auckland says there are now 11 cases of Covid-19 at the school and more are expected tomorrow.
In a statement, the board chair Stephen Dallow, says seven teachers and four students have tested positive.
He says the principal, Raechelle Taulu, is among those who tested positive today.
The entire school of about 750 students, as well as staff, is classed as close contacts and Mr Dallow asked them to ensure strict isolation rules.
That shows how quickly and widely it can spread.
Your NZ 
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020“Tests yesterday 2,417 and total tests 12,683 – average per day over the last week 1,400 which may partially explain the jump in number of cases.”
Isn’t testing occurring at an exponential rate? The testing appears to be increasing at doubling per day rate.
Call me Ishmael...
/ 26th March 2020The more testing the better, but it’s a dependent variable. Increased testing isn’t driving the spread of the virus.
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020Currently there is no measure for the spread of the virus. We are only seeing a narrow data set. Until you baseline its meaningless. If it’s already there, the more you look the more you find. To interpret that as spreading is a misjudgment until you can validate that it was not present in the first place.
Are they ahead of the wave, or a long way behind it? If it’s the latter, there entire strategy is flawed.
Call me Ishmael...
/ 26th March 2020Good onyer Pink David, you keep thinking happy thoughts about the growth in numbers of tests.
In the meantime diagnosed cases are doubling every 3 days, and that is the only number that actually matters.
Duker
/ 26th March 2020Got caught spreading phony US death numbers , from a dubious website
CDC is the only reliable site and they are updated daily
That happens when you live in a fake news bubble
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020“In the meantime diagnosed cases are doubling every 3 days, and that is the only number that actually matters.”
We will know very shortly now won’t we. Let’s revisit then and compare thoughts.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 26th March 2020Diagnosed cases is the most unreliable number being dependent on testing. Hospitalisations and deaths are more reliable though dependent on distinctions from patients’ other diseases.
David
/ 26th March 2020Shut the border.
We are doing a load of testing which is great.
Gezza
/ 26th March 2020Yes, I had a scheduled follow up appointment at Kenepuru Community Hospital yesterday. There were orderlies at a road block, directing where you must park, & exit, & checking whether you had an appointment & who with. Staff in PPE inside the main entrance (the only access allowed) making you go through a Covid-19 questions checklist before proceeding.
Counter staff were insistent on your keeping your distance from them, even further back than the cones & barrier – & once you sat down they insisted you stay there until medicos came for you. 2/3rds of the chairs had been removed from the waiting room I was in, ensuring the 2 m separation distance.
Covid-19 testing was being done in booths outside the main entrance.
David
/ 26th March 2020Sounds good, hope you are well Gezza
Gezza
/ 26th March 2020Yes, so far good anyway thank s David. One of those counter staff called out to ask me something. She had an accent & I didn’t hear her properly, so got up out my chair to go up to the barrier. She freaked out. “No, stay there. You have to stay there!”. I realised immediately the stress some of them must be feeling, she seemed really panicky. The medicos were fine.
David
/ 26th March 2020Good to hear. My sister in law who runs ENT at an NHS hospital has half her staff self isolating including specialists which is putting enormous pressure on but she hasnt seen a surge of Covid 19 patients. Bit stressful for and she is usually quite unflappable, she spends a lot of her day retrieving objects from toddlers noses and ears.
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020Here’s the real storm coming….
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/120580784/coronavirus-auckland-airport-suspends-second-runway-and-other-major-projects
Blazer
/ 26th March 2020much more of this is needed…
‘Littlewood, who last year earned a base salary of $1.3m, has already agreed to reduce his salary by 20 per cent, as has his leadership team and the airport’s board of directors.
So now he has to get by on only $20,000 a WEEK.
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020How much of a pay cut are you taking Blazer?
Blazer
/ 26th March 2020a substantial one,but I don’t mind lockdown…have a number of books I want to read.
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020Does that mean you will be spending less for the foreseeable future?
Blazer
/ 26th March 2020I get by on very little regardless.Am not an aspirational…hamster.
oldlaker
/ 26th March 2020The 283 is only the tip of the iceberg. The testing criteria are still very narrow… even if you have severe symptoms but haven’t travelled recently or been in contact with a known case you won’t get tested.
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020Yes. Until there is some base line work done with random sampling, there is zero value in the numbers they are publishing. What is not seen is where the important data is.
Put a chart of the number of tests against the number of positives and you start to see more.
lurcher1948
/ 26th March 2020Gezza
/ 26th March 2020Worth a smile, that one – except that – as Duker recently pointed out to me – Covid-19 symptoms don’t include runny nose (rare).
The three to watch for are:
1 Persistent dry cough
2 Fever
3 Breathlessness
Kitty Catkin
/ 26th March 2020If drinking their beer makes someone vomit, crave takeaways and be so drunk that one will have sex with an unappealing stranger and not remember it, it’s a good reason to avoid it.
Gezza
/ 26th March 2020I still remember one work colleague from my younger days doing that. He woke up after a night on the turps, at a nearby pub, after work, in bed, at her place, with a female work colleague he could never stand & found completely unattractive. I was still sober when they left the bar together, arm in arm, & had thought it odd, even though they were both obviously smashed. God knows what he was drinking.
Kitty Catkin
/ 26th March 2020Corona, from the sound ot it.
Gezza
/ 26th March 2020Actually I think it might’ve been tequila, with lemon wedges & salt.
Duker
/ 26th March 2020Only number that matters is 7
The people in hospital , and they are doing fine, thats from the experts.
duperez
/ 26th March 2020Another view for the sceptics to denounce or ignore:
“Virus could kill 80,000 without NZ lockdown
Analysis: New modelling from the University of Auckland indicates Covid-19 could kill 80,000 New Zealanders if we took no action to stop it, Marc Daalder reports.”
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/03/26/1101871/covid-19-could-kill-80000-new-zealanders
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020“The modelling reflects the findings of a groundbreaking paper published by academics at the Imperial College London”
I hope you realise that ICL has totalyl backtracked on that paper.
Professor Neil Ferguson is the guy who wrote it.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/25/two-thirds-patients-die-coronavirus-would-have-died-year-anyway/
duperez
/ 26th March 2020The important thing isn’t the exact numbers. Some people seem to think that Jacinda Ardern sits down and on a whim makes decisions.
Some think officials just go by the seat of their pants in the same way. They have no idea that ‘backroom boffins’, sometimes in total disagreement with each about things, spend their lives studying and having years of experience which end in them to make considered judgements and contributing to discussions and decisions.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and everyone’s opinion should be heard but ‘expert’ opinion is worth more.
Pink David
/ 26th March 2020“Everyone is entitled to their opinion and everyone’s opinion should be heard but ‘expert’ opinion is worth more.”
The purpose of science is to free us from the tyranny of experts. They are making bad decisions, based on bad data.
Kitty Catkin
/ 26th March 2020With the current survival rate, the 80,000 would mean that more people would catch it here than live here; it’s not credible that every man, woman and child in NZ would have it.
How many died in China with about 1,600,000,000 people?
This panicmongering is inexcusable.
Kitty Catkin
/ 26th March 2020China lost under 3000, are we likely to have 27 times their rate ?
If the per capitas were the same as the 80,000 ‘predicted’ here, they’d have lost 2,160,000.
Pete George
/ 26th March 2020The reported Chinese toll is over 3200 now. They stopped the spread by shutting down the city of Wuhan, people weren’t allowed to leave often tiny apartments, food was delivered.
But it isn’t over yet. China is getting the virus brought back into the country. Without a vaccine it’s likely to keep being a problem for months if not years.
Kitty Catkin
/ 26th March 20203200 out of 160,000,000 and people are saying that we could lose 80,000 out of 5,000,000 ?
11 have died in Massachussetts; it has 6,900,000.We’d have to have more than 4x the number that we have now to be the same per capita as there.
oldlaker
/ 26th March 2020But which experts is the big question. The experts at Oxford University have a different take and they make clear “the necessity of having the proper scale of testing, so that governments can make policy determinations that reflect the actual rates of infection and hospitalization”.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/oxford-study-coronavirus-may-have-infected-half-of-u-k.html
David
/ 26th March 2020Its been a huge turnaround by Professor Ferguson, he made outlandish claims and he has gone from 250k deaths to 20k and says it could now be lower.
The UK is not in lockdown either by any stretch of the imagination, they are at our level3 at most.