I’ll post details of the daily Covid update here as they become available, but there may be a series of newsworthy things happening through the afternoon:
1.00 pm – Dr Ashley Bloomfield daily update
1:30 pm – PM Jacinda Ardern’s post-Cabinet media conference
2:00 pm – Ministerial statements at the restart of Parliament
2:45 pm – Question Time in Parliament
Dr Ashley Bloomfield:
3 new cases today (2 confirmed and 2 probable) – total now 1,472
The Ministry of health has achieved their Level 4 goal of ‘elimination’, but it is an ongoing effort under Level 3. This isn’t eradication.
“We are by no means in the clear. Elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort to keep it out and stamp it out over many months.”
Definition: a small number of cases, knowings exactly where the cases come from, and can quickly contact trace all the cases.
“Keep it out, stamp it out”.
No more deaths – total remains at 18.
Physical distancing remains very important and it’s imperative to maintain it through Level 3.
“Data from the public health units … showed that they were contacting and tracing 80 percent of close contacts within 48 hours, and the benchmark there is actually 72 hours.”
| Total | Change in last 24 hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of confirmed cases in New Zealand | 1,124 | 2 |
| Number of probable cases | 348 | 1 |
| Number of confirmed and probable cases | 1,472 | 3 |
| Number of cases currently in hospital | 9 | 2 |
| Number of recovered cases | 1,214 | 34 |
| Number of deaths | 19 | 0 |
I only half listened to Ardern’s speech at her media conference, there wasn’t anything new or of of any any great importance.
Your NZ 
Conspiratoor
/ 28th April 2020Has jacinda got the messaging right. Heres a definition supported by who…
…a reduction to zero of the incidence of disease or infection in a defined geographical area
Zero new cases? Methinks too early
David in aus
/ 28th April 2020Why be limited by definitions. When you are writing your own narrative you can change as you see fit. Trump is good at that also, but unfortunately for him there is more push back.
Imagine if she used the same definitions as everybody else, then there will be fewer syncophantic articles. She is a PR pro.
duperez
/ 28th April 2020Quite possibly the pushback for Trump is because the population is 328 million. There might be 120 million who think he’s God but there are a few who don’t.
And maybe what needs to be ‘pushed back’ from him is incessant, compulsive and massive.
Of course he has biased, distorting media against him with all sorts of fake news too. Like this article today including a video.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/presidents-intelligence-briefing-book-repeatedly-cited-virus-threat/2020/04/27/ca66949a-8885-11ea-ac8a-fe9b8088e101_story.html
Duker
/ 28th April 2020The story about the DPB shows Trump was in informed in detail but chose to ignore most if early
David in aus
/ 28th April 2020In some Australian states there has been zero new cases for several days. However, in contrast to NZ there are calling it suppression and advisers do not think elimination is not possible without a vaccine.
If you have elimination, do not need social distancing or other measures, except border control. The song and dance about elimination was to hit the disease harder, compared to Australia, so you lift restrictions earlier. Short term pain for longer term gain. It hasn’t worked out to be a better strategy.
Gezza
/ 28th April 2020Not happy about these word games being played.
To most people if you eliminate something you’ve got rid of it. We haven’t.
Should’ve come up with a better term instead of trying to redefine eliminate to mean something fuzzy that doesnt mean we’ve got rid of it.
Conspiratoor
/ 28th April 2020G, you’ve been around long enough to know politics wouldn’t be politics without word games. The trick is to never take a politician at their word and see the fuckery for what it is
Gezza
/ 28th April 2020Well whoever came up with “elimination” to describe where we’re at at the moment is a feckin eejit. Because to any normal person with even a basic vocabulary, as long as we have cases being detected, we obviously haven’t eliminated it.
They’ve dropped a clanger. It’s like setting Jacinda up to claim that black is white. Only the educationally sub-optimal will think this is a good idea. This is the kind of cudgel to beat opponents with that smart politicians sell their souls for.
oldlaker
/ 28th April 2020It’s clear that if elimination has indeed been achieved, we should be at Level 2 or lower immediately.
It is also clear that SMEs are going to make their displeasure with the govt known… not least because of Ardern’s patronising “thank you” to the sector.
It’s as daft as the jingoism of Anzac Day when we remember the “sacrifice” young men made by dying… many of them, of course, conscripted, with absolutely no say in the matter.
Duker
/ 28th April 2020Yes. Their sacrifice for our freedoms -by invading Turkey. Churchills brainwaves, even the Greeks at the time wanted to be neutral
Duker
/ 28th April 2020Diddims.
They havent said its been ‘eradicated in NZ’…. its ‘epidemic elimination’ which is uncontrolled spread.
Dont give us your know it all word expertise when you dont know the specific terminology in this areas
https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal-articles/new-zealands-elimination-strategy-for-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-what-is-required-to-make-it-work
Gezza
/ 28th April 2020Doesn’t matter. The word has a common-usage accepted meaning & ordinary folk know that meaning. It’s fine for epidemiologists to use that term among themselves. Another to use it with ordinary folk.
Your trouble is you apparently think you’re above ordinary.
The word is diddums. So you’re not.
Duker
/ 28th April 2020So you are the self appointed proof reader of the government statements…. you could never let go of being someone ..once back in the Muldoon Lange era and now it passes you by
Thats the beauty of the English language we dont have politburo of pontificators who only allow changes in meaning.
Did you know that in the 1929-1930s , ‘Depression’ was first used by Hoover as a euphemism for ‘panic’ , the accepted term for financial collapse until then.
Gezza
/ 28th April 2020No, but I did 15+ years in communications & PR work including department-funded study in the field, & considered moving into it as I got merit passes, so I pay a lot of attention to communications with the public & particular audiences. It’s a field of expertise.
[Deleted]
Duker
/ 28th April 2020Moderator abuse warning
Gezza
/ 28th April 2020Thanks for the warning.
I would caution you most strongly about abusing the moderator.
Duker
/ 28th April 2020Snapped
Gezza
/ 28th April 2020Sorry I made you cry.
Kitty Catkin
/ 28th April 2020Jacinda’s like Humpty Dumpty in Alice, who said that words meant what he wanted them to mean.
If it’s eliminated, why are we still under house arrest ?
duperez
/ 28th April 2020It’s obviously a communist insider plot.
Duker
/ 28th April 2020Clearly you haven’t been out the door….what house arrest
Gezza
/ 29th April 2020It’s closer to home detention than house arrest, Kitty. We are permitted to leave the home property under condtions for certain specified activities.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 28th April 2020Updated my model and unsurprisingly no change in the parameters. FWIW predicting 2 more total cases and 2 more deaths. Note recently many “new” cases have been reclassifications and some old ones have been removed as classified not infected.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 28th April 2020On elimination, it means there are no unknown and uncontrolled infectious cases in the community. So they don’t think any more infections are occurring. That doesn’t preclude more getting off planes or previous infections being identified. There are still around 270 infected people here either in hospital or quarantine.
Duker
/ 28th April 2020Yes . Bloomfield is saying elimination hasnt occurred
“Elimination, as I say, is not a point in time. ”
In the context it was the elimination strategy that they followed. But the way things are done in storys in media who run away with bullet points and gotcha headlines.
Same with the 80,000 dead predicted, when I looked up the research they never used that number at all, but the Herald story did and now its cast in stone in some peoples minds ‘that Jacinda said it’
It was clearly a comparison of software runs over 400 days … we arent even at 40 days.
Its an old trusim the victors get to write history – with Churchills addendum – ‘because I intend to write it’ , and he did, as great communicators always do that too.
Pink David
/ 28th April 2020“Same with the 80,000 dead predicted, when I looked up the research they never used that number at all, but the Herald story did and now its cast in stone in some peoples minds ‘that Jacinda said it’
It was clearly a comparison of software runs over 400 days”
By that measure, that paper doesn’t indicate that anyone would die.
Duker
/ 28th April 2020Why wasn’t the lowest number given as well
Pink David
/ 28th April 2020There is no number
Duker
/ 28th April 2020The Herald seemed to think so….. Don’t they have data journalists
Duker
/ 28th April 2020https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8261591/Coronavirus-8-times-fatal-thought-kill-0-5-infected-people-NYC.html
More like hindcasts rather than predictions
Duker
/ 28th April 2020Guess what for those who think we aren’t doing as well as Australia
“New academic analysis shows the level 4 lockdown in New Zealand not only allowed the country to catch up to Australia, but surpass it in terms of per capita Covid-19 cases.
The daily case rate in New Zealand has been only 59 per cent that of Australia since the start of a 33-day lockdown, according to Otago University Associate Professor Brian Cox, a medically-trained epidemiologist and specialist in public health.
His analysis shows that New Zealand’s rate of confirmed cases per capita was far higher than Australia’s at the start of the lockdown, but drew level after about three and a half weeks and is now well below Australia’s.”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12327959
George
/ 28th April 2020What is the definition of “doing well” at managing this thing? I wonder if this is the same Otago crowd who used the predictive models that Jacinda based her policy on?