This article presents a situation that is likely to worsen as days progress.
This article presents a situation that is likely to worsen as days progress.
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Just from a quick read of the article, it sound like you’re “screwed” when it comes to this virus.
Whereas in this country we have a jackass in charge that downplays the dangers, your country doesn’t seem to be equipped to handle it.
What a freakin’ mess we’re all in (except the New Zealanders!).
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Oh yes, we are totally screwed.
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Of course the question is can we keep the virus out? It’s been 95 days since the last community transmission, but there’s a steady stream of overseas arrivals being detected with the virus in the isolation facilities.
And of course the reporting of those cases (currently 1 or 2 per day) is taken by some overseas opponents of lockdowns as evidence that we have not eradicated the virus. What they conveniently ignore is that although we report them, they are not our infections, but those from other parts of the world caught at the border.
The authorities are very concerned that there’s not enough testing being carried out. The current testing rate is half that deemed necessary to ensure early detection of an outbreak. The problem is that the test is not exactly pleasant, and as there is no community transmission, the public are declining tests when it’s offered. A good reason to develop a less invasive test perhaps.
When I look at examples such as Australia, Europe, and especially the USA, it seems that restrictions were relaxed too soon. Here lockdown wasn’t relaxed until there was no community transmission evident. A total of seven weeks in various stages of lockdown. I’m sure that long term, those seven weeks will have less impact on the economy than partial lockdowns going on for 6 to 12 months, possibly longer. The over-repeated claim of “Short term pain for long term gain” comes to mind.
If it wasn’t for the fact that foreign tourists and foreign students make up a significant part of our economy (25% 0f our foreign exchange, 20 % of our GDP and 8% of employment) we’d be in very good shape indeed. Unfortunately I don’t see either the tourist or education sectors recovering any time soon.
But the authorities are optimistic. Although the idea of a NZ-Australia bubble is out of the question for some time, our international airports are being reconfigured in anticipation of the day when some parts of the world are virus free. In the case of our biggest international airport, it’s being divided in two. One area for arrivals from covid free countries and another for those places where the virus persists. Travellers from virus free areas will be able to enter without being quarantined, while others will be detained in quarantine facilities for 14 days before being allowed out. At smaller airports where there are isolation facilities nearby different days will be assigned to arrivals from infected and non-infected regions.
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I think we left the cat out of the bag too soon knowing we don’t have the infrastructure to handle a pandemic of this magnitude.
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Frightening enough, without total incompetents in the authority seats.
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Incompetent and thieves
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Corruption at it’s best.
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I think it should be corruption at its worst
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Well we can only hope you have fewer beach loving, bar hopping, restaurant imbibing, religious attending, sports loving, school loving, freedom infringed (I’d rather die than wear a mask! types, and they may well.) dadblamed morons than we have here.
Every day it gets worse and worse. A vaccine may be mankinds only hope with this one. Herd immunity is a long ways off, and we don’t even know if it’s achievable… Regarding the longevity of antibodies once the virus is survived.
Stay safe Mak.
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And there’s growing evidence that COVID-19 can cause damage to many internal organs other than just the lungs. It appears that the damage can occur even when a person is asymptomatic. What the long term ramifications will be is unknown at this stage.
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There are so many unknowns it is scary
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Bars have been closed. As to church going, those are many though I think some have taken to watching church on TV.
A vaccine may not come. Let’s hope this thing disappears as it came.
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I was hoping that Africa might dodge the COVID bullet, but apparently my offerings to the gods were either insufficient of not pleasing enough. For this I apologise.
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I think they were insufficient. Did you sacrifice a black ram, mixed the blood with the egg of a black snake and feathers of a white ostrich?
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That’s the problem. I couldn’t find a black snake egg. In fact I couldn’t find a snake of any colour. Then the wife reminded me that there are no snakes in this country, and no snake eggs, not even in zoos. They’re prohibited items, so I substituted a tuatara egg. The black ram was no problem, but the ostrich feathers came from wife’s can-can stage costume. I assume they were ostrich but they might have been emu.
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Those were many shortfalls to appease the gods here. Next time I will send you these things by penguin express
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I wish I had been born in 1925…Iād already be dead and never would have known how stupid, ignorant, racist, anti science, religious nutcases and horrible many many people truly are. Now I see humanity for what it is. The epitome of self destruction.
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We would not have had the pleasure to enjoy your presence.
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Ah, Mary. Birth in 1925 would have meant living during your prime during WWII. š¦ I still prefer today.
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Me too.
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From commenter at The Friendly Atheist:
There is a general assumption that a vaccine will be found. Much of this is highly speculative and could be used primarily to avoid global panic and offer false hope. The reality is that many deadly viral infections are still without vaccines. More than 35 years after scientists isolated HIV, we have no vaccine. The dengue fever virus was identified in 1943, but the first vaccine was approved…only last year, and even then amid concerns it made the infection worse in some people. The fastest vaccine ever developed in history was for mumps. It took… four years. Scientists have worked on corona-virus vaccines before, so are not starting from scratch. Two corona-viruses have caused lethal outbreaks before, namely SARS and MERS, and vaccine research went ahead for both. But none have been licensed, partly because Sars fizzled out and Mers is so far a regional to the Middle East. The lessons learned may help scientists create a vaccine for Sars-CoV-2, but there is still an awful lot to learn about the virus. A chief concern is that corona-viruses do not tend to trigger long-lasting immunity. About a quarter of common colds are caused by human corona-viruses, but the immune response fades so rapidly that people can become reinfected the next year. Just a few hours ago the World Health Organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the emergencies chief, Mike Ryan, exhorted nations to rigorously enforce health measures such as mask-wearing, social distancing, hand-washing and testing on the account that there may never be a “silver bullet” in a form of a “perfect vaccine” for Covid. We don’t even yet fully understand how this sucker mutates so at this point all the billions taxpayer money thrown at various pharma labs may end up producing ways to avoid death at best, as opposed to a true prevention solution.
So what then, folks?
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So what then folks?
To be resigned to our fate. Avoid getting infected and if you are, hope that your country has a hospital bed for you.
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This is really good! I hope LOTS of people read it. Unfortunately, since it appeared on an atheist’s site, the ones that NEED to read it most likely never will since they would never (gasp!) visit an atheist’s website.
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I won’t read it on principle. Can’t trust a bloody godless heathen like Mak!
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This is wise. You will go to heaven straight
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And talking of corruption ….
You know the sale of alcohol is banned down here, yes?
Last week a member of the ANC was caught selling booze!
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Money must be made, legally or otherwise. I am not surprised at all.
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