Jacinda Ardern

[Nerula 1,400]

What a bunch of wimps the populace is. Living in fear, frightened of what may happen and the odds are against that. There's other contagions like Meningitis TB, VD etc etc. People eat fat and dont fear for their arteries. Smoke tobacco and weed, use drugs and dont care for their lives. But Jac and Ash have them scared of what might happen with a bug that knocks a few old off here, that already have one foot in the grave. Totally illogical.

We are being conned with the most cynical politics I ever have seen. Total bullshit. If you go for it you are pitiable. Rant over - and out.

[Ohokaman 5,824]

[rdytdy 5,341]

12 hours ago, Nerula said:

What a bunch of wimps the populace is. Living in fear, frightened of what may happen and the odds are against that. There's other contagions like Meningitis TB, VD etc etc. People eat fat and dont fear for their arteries. Smoke tobacco and weed, use drugs and dont care for their lives. But Jac and Ash have them scared of what might happen with a bug that knocks a few old off here, that already have one foot in the grave. Totally illogical.

We are being conned with the most cynical politics I ever have seen. Total bullshit. If you go for it you are pitiable. Rant over - and out.

According to a Swedish doctor Sebastian Rushworth, COVID kills fewer people than seasonal flu. He says COVID has disappeared from the emergency room of the large hospital in Stockholm after four months burning through the Swedish population. Sweden took a non-aggressive approach to the pandemic.

“Non-essential businesses have remained open, people have continued to go to cafés and restaurants, children have remained in school, and very few people have bothered with face masks in public.”

With life continuing pretty much as normal, the Swedish economy is understandably in very good shape. Businesses didn’t lay off employees, education was uninterrupted and the Swedish government is not propping up the unemployed.

 

“Covid hit Stockholm like a storm in mid-March. One day I was seeing people with appendicitis and kidney stones, the usual things you see in the emergency room. The next day all those patients were gone and the only thing coming in to the hospital was covid. Practically everyone who was tested had covid, regardless of what the presenting symtom was. People came in with a nose bleed and they had covid. They came in with stomach pain and they had covid.Then, after a few months, all the covid patients disappeared. It is now four months since the start of the pandemic, and I haven’t seen a single covid patient in over a month.”

The Swedes are still testing but the tests return negative and oddly, antibody tests return negative too, but Rushworth has a theory about that.

“The reason we test for antibodies is because it is easy and cheap. Antibodies are in fact not the body’s main defence against virus infections. T-cells are. But T-cells are harder to measure than antibodies, so we don’t really do it clinically. It is quite possible to have T-cells that are specific for covid and thereby make you immune to the disease, without having any antibodies.”

Of course Swedes died.

“In total covid has killed under 6,000 people in a country of ten million. A country with an annual death rate of around 100,000 people. Considering that 70% of those who have died of covid are over 80 years old, quite a few of those 6,000 would have died this year anyway. That makes covid a mere blip in terms of its effect on mortality.”

Rushworth says trying to avoid the virus merely delays its inevitable spread.

“I am willing to bet that the countries that have shut down completely will see rates spike when they open up.

If that is the case, then there won’t have been any point in shutting down in the first place, because all those countries are going to end up with the same number of dead at the end of the day anyway.

Shutting down completely in order to decrease the total number of deaths only makes sense if you are willing to stay shut down until a vaccine is available. That could take years. No country is willing to wait that long.”

The direction we are heading puts us in and out of lockdown for years to come but Ardern’s government will be loath to admit failure when their election campaign rests on the premise that they successfully handled the pandemic.

[TurnyTom 1,534]

More nonsense from the pair

[Uriah Heap 481]

14 minutes ago, rdytdy said:

 

Of course Swedes died.

“In total covid has killed under 6,000 people in a country of ten million. A country with an annual death rate of around 100,000 people. Considering that 70% of those who have died of covid are over 80 years old, quite a few of those 6,000 would have died this year anyway. That makes covid a mere blip in terms of its effect on mortality.”

 

And this is the key fact. New Zealand has a population of 5 million, so, following the Swedish model, we can assume Covid-19 would have killed 3000 in NZ. With the media reporting on each death in minute detail what political party in NZ was going to say "That's Ok, we can wear that for the sake of the economy." The answer is none. National, NZ First and The Greens all agreed to Lockdown the country in late March..

What you are saying rdytdy is that the "over 80's are "expendable". You need to be honest and come right out and say that.

[Nukkledragga 229]

What are the numbers of other diseases like influenza, std's and hepatitis etc, that are spread by contact with infected people?With the covid related distancing and restrictions surely there are other  health benefits for years to come, short term pain for long term gain.Just as covid has died out have any flu strains withered away?under lockdown std's would have no chance of spreading any further, have we as a country used this crisis in a positive way to beat a host of ailments or wasted it with a blinkered focus on covid?

[Uriah Heap 481]

1 hour ago, Nukkledragga said:

, short term pain for long term gain.

Here's another one who won't say it. It's easy to blah blah on like that Nuckles, but to be totally honest you gotta come out and say the words.

 "Short term pain" =  3000 people, mostly over 80 years old must die."

[Nukkledragga 229]

1 hour ago, Uriah Heap said:

Here's another one who won't say it. It's easy to blah blah on like that Nuckles, but to be totally honest you gotta come out and say the words.

 "Short term pain" =  3000 people, mostly over 80 years old must die."

I will put it in plain english for you, the short term pain is referring to the lockdown and the economy/ jobs etc. The long term gain is better health across the board as far as infectious diseases are concerned, IF the govt/ health pros havent wasted the opportunity.In NZ we could, as crazy as it sounds ,actually LOWER the overall death rate because of covid restrictions reducing all infectious diseases in the population.That is what I meant from the start , never would I ever suggest killing people just for expediency( unless you include rita, riu tab......)

[tripple alliance 1,024]

1 hour ago, Uriah Heap said:

Here's another one who won't say it. It's easy to blah blah on like that Nuckles, but to be totally honest you gotta come out and say the words.

 "Short term pain" =  3000 people, mostly over 80 years old must die."

Well the pension isn't sustainable anyway so big savings there , just look  what could be done with that money .

The record number of homeless might get a roof over their heads and child poverty might get some help , it's doubled under comrade cindys reign when she personally pledged to eradicate it and of course food emergency parcels are up 175% according to the poverty action group .

And then the rental crisis made much worse by comrade cindy , her govts attacks on land lords have driven small time landlords to sell making the rental crisis much worse and of course cindy wasn't going to sell state houses but she seems to have forgotten that pledge , she has sold $30 million worth , at least the nats sold to established housing providers , the salvation army etc ensuring the less well off had a chance .

Make no mistake the less well off are MUCH worse off today than when comrade cindy was appointed , winne is  about to get hammered for his treachery , good riddance  

[tripple alliance 1,024]

3 hours ago, Uriah Heap said:

Here's another one who won't say it. It's easy to blah blah on like that Nuckles, but to be totally honest you gotta come out and say the words.

 "Short term pain" =  3000 people, mostly over 80 years old must die."

Uriah try thinking a little , your equation is garbage what must happen is the elderly must be properly fully  protected , doing that would be far cheaper than destroying our economy .

Look what the labor government in Victoria has done it's a disgrace . This is what happened , The PM  Scott Morrison offered the Vic premier Andrews troops to control the quarantine buildings , YES thanks said  Andrews then the trade union put the squeeze on Andrews , come on brother give us the work and Andrews who is being supported by the unions cancelled the troops and let the unionists run the quarantine . We all no how that worked out , once again a labor government has made everything much worse than it should have been .

Labor there Labour here failure every where .

[Uriah Heap 481]

19 hours ago, tripple alliance said:

Uriah try thinking a little , your equation is garbage what must happen is the elderly must be properly fully  protected , doing that would be far cheaper than destroying our economy .

 

My equation came in  response to rdytdy putting forward Sweden as a model that New Zealand should follow. rdytdy made no mention of the elderly being "properly fully protected". In fact they were not "properly fully protected" in Sweden and this has been acknowledged by the Swedes.

[tripple alliance 1,024]

52 minutes ago, Uriah Heap said:

My equation came in  response to rdytdy putting forward Sweden as a model that New Zealand should follow. rdytdy made no mention of the elderly being "properly fully protected". In fact they were not "properly fully protected" in Sweden and this has been acknowledged by the Swedes.

 

All country's have failed on that score but all are learning and now succeeding , only the Labor government in VICTORIA  has let the team down . 

Reading this article  it points to the herd immunity being a real possibility which means there is hope for the USA and potential disaster for NZ , TIME will Tell .

One day ago .

" Britain is finally BEATING coronavirus: Doctors declare huge successes in fight with virus

BRITAIN is finally defeating the coronavirus thanks to improved treatments, a top medic said yesterday.  More of the sickest patients are now surviving as doctors gain more knowledge about the virus. The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has fallen by 96 per cent since the peak of the ­epidemic in April. And one consultant even declared: “We’re almost reaching herd immunity.” Patients have a much better chance of recovering thanks to new treatments and fewer vulnerable people falling ill. . sufferers dying after admission to intensive care has halved since mid-April.  Analysis of data from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre found severely ill patients were now significantly more likely to survive than in the early weeks of the outbreak ."

 

 

[Idolmite 2,527]

Herd immunity will only be "a thing" if people cannot contract the virus more than once. Hopefully that does turn out to be the case, but that's far from known at this point in time. I doubt the UK is remotely close to herd immunity, despite what one person may say. 

[rdytdy 5,341]

What Is New Zealand’s Coronavirus End Game?

By GP

 

Jeremy Harris is a businessman and investor from Auckland, New Zealand

 

As we emerge bleary-eyed from hiding behind our couches and under our beds, into the level-1 sun (or rain), with the fear subsiding we are now able to appraise objectively where we find ourselves as a nation.

For many New Zealanders, the last couple of weeks of March were a panicked blur. I too heard the shocking statement from the WHO that the fatality rate from COVID-19 was 3.4%, i.e. fatal to 3.4 people in 100, and I knew this was almost one-third more than the 1918 pandemic flu. So why weren’t our borders closed and everyone on lockdown much sooner? What was the Government doing? I dashed around spending almost 50 hours in those last 3 days getting ready for level 4 (some toilet paper may have been bought).

The day before lockdown started, for the first time in my life I begged a man on my knees (I’ll spare you the details – but it wasn’t pretty). All of a sudden, boom, we were in level 4. I had lots of time to read, to think. As an exporter who is responsible for a number of families’ livelihoods, I decided to find out exactly how severely this virus was going to degrade the world’s health and wealth. What I learned in the first 24 hours in level 4, freely available to all who wanted to find out, shocked me to my core. As a country we had made a massive mistake, maybe the biggest in our peacetime history; and it was, sadly, obvious. Here is what we now know – and could deduce without too much effort then.

The infection fatality rate (IFR) for this novel virus (properly called SARS-2) turns out to be, so far, approximately 0.25%, not 3.4%. This is almost 14 times more benign than the WHO’s early projection that was reported with little contextualising. This figure is now obvious from the dozens of detailed PCR assays and serological surveys that have been done around the world.

The USA Centre for Disease Control (CDC) advises that the IFR for symptomatic cases is 0.4% and they estimate that 35% of cases are asymptomatic (however there is evidence to believe asymptomatic cases could be as high as 69%+).  This brings their IFR estimate down to a maximum of 0.26%. The Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University estimates that the IFR is in the range 0.41% – 0.1%, noting that in all epidemics the IFR trends downward as the epidemic progresses.  For context, the IFR of ‘regular’ flu is 0.1%. 

Furthermore, this risk is almost completely concentrated in those over 65 years of age and with serious underlying health conditions. If you are under 40 and healthy your chance of being killed by SARS-2 is approximately 4 in 100,000. That’s not a typo. The Telegraph newspaper in the UK recently reported that children are so naturally resistant to SARS-2 that they have a higher chance of being killed by lightning within the next year (if only they were allowed out of their houses). For many this will be hard to hear; how can this be true when the whole world has given up so much?  But it is. The reality is for those under 65 and healthy, life should always have gone on largely as normal; there should have been no lockdown and few if any closed borders.

You may also still be under the impression that we need 60% – 80% of the population to be infected to reach the unfortunately named herd immunity.  However, this too is incorrect.  Professor Michael Levitt (Nobel Laureate) and Professor Karl Friston (a most eminent statistician) have both calculated from the case data that there seems to be some form of “immunological dark matter”, some natural immunity in the population, which slows SARS-2’s exponential growth as soon as it starts spreading, and brings down the required herd immunity by 50% – 80%.  We now have a number of studies giving a possible mechanism for how this works, perhaps by unexpected T-cell response and localised immunity in the mucosal glands. More studies are sure to follow.

The facts as they stand are on the whole pleasant relief from the menacing images that impelled severe shutdowns; indeed, we have cause for celebration, and good reasons for markedly decreasing the political restrictions required to control this new virus, since the threat is at least 28 times smaller than we initially feared. 

As a country, we urgently need a conversation about how realistic it is to expect a safe vaccine within a year or two. The 10% -15% of our economy that relies on open borders has already been severely damaged and the longer we wait, the smaller the chance of recovery.

The collapse of firms and of sole traders will kill people too, conceivably thousands of people over the next 50 years if we wait even a year. How likely is a vaccine?  The Common Cold Research Unit in the UK, pioneers of coronavirus research, for 43 years sought a vaccine for the common cold (including the 4 cold-causing coronaviruses).  They gave up, emphasising the enormous size of their task versus the prospective benefit. No vaccine has been developed against SARS which caused the 2003 coronavirus epidemic, despite 17 years of research effort and a shocking IFR, 10%.  Similarly for MERS with a plague-like 35% IFR. All of this should be strong evidence that the 12 to 18-month timeline given for the development of a vaccine is wishful thinking by those who either do not understand the process of developing safe vaccines or who feel public pressure to downplay how hard it is to do safely and quickly, especially for a type of virus which has no existing vaccine. To hold out ill-founded hopes of protection is cruel.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the SARS-2 pandemic is likely to wane over the next few months and lapse into a less important status, e.g. the 5th cold-causing coronavirus. The final global death tolls are probably not going to end up significantly worse than a very bad seasonal-flu year.  Let us ask ourselves what is our country’s endgame?  How long will we remain closed to the world when no vaccine is likely coming soon, while the need to restore commerce and education is urgent? And how many lives and much quality of life are we willing to sacrifice before we decide to live with this virus like adults? This is a genie which has gone global and cannot be put back in the bottle.

[Idolmite 2,527]

1 hour ago, rdytdy said:

What Is New Zealand’s Coronavirus End Game?

By GP

 

Jeremy Harris is a businessman and investor from Auckland, New Zealand

 

As we emerge bleary-eyed from hiding behind our couches and under our beds, into the level-1 sun (or rain), with the fear subsiding we are now able to appraise objectively where we find ourselves as a nation.

For many New Zealanders, the last couple of weeks of March were a panicked blur. I too heard the shocking statement from the WHO that the fatality rate from COVID-19 was 3.4%, i.e. fatal to 3.4 people in 100, and I knew this was almost one-third more than the 1918 pandemic flu. So why weren’t our borders closed and everyone on lockdown much sooner? What was the Government doing? I dashed around spending almost 50 hours in those last 3 days getting ready for level 4 (some toilet paper may have been bought).

The day before lockdown started, for the first time in my life I begged a man on my knees (I’ll spare you the details – but it wasn’t pretty). All of a sudden, boom, we were in level 4. I had lots of time to read, to think. As an exporter who is responsible for a number of families’ livelihoods, I decided to find out exactly how severely this virus was going to degrade the world’s health and wealth. What I learned in the first 24 hours in level 4, freely available to all who wanted to find out, shocked me to my core. As a country we had made a massive mistake, maybe the biggest in our peacetime history; and it was, sadly, obvious. Here is what we now know – and could deduce without too much effort then.

The infection fatality rate (IFR) for this novel virus (properly called SARS-2) turns out to be, so far, approximately 0.25%, not 3.4%. This is almost 14 times more benign than the WHO’s early projection that was reported with little contextualising. This figure is now obvious from the dozens of detailed PCR assays and serological surveys that have been done around the world.

The USA Centre for Disease Control (CDC) advises that the IFR for symptomatic cases is 0.4% and they estimate that 35% of cases are asymptomatic (however there is evidence to believe asymptomatic cases could be as high as 69%+).  This brings their IFR estimate down to a maximum of 0.26%. The Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at Oxford University estimates that the IFR is in the range 0.41% – 0.1%, noting that in all epidemics the IFR trends downward as the epidemic progresses.  For context, the IFR of ‘regular’ flu is 0.1%. 

Furthermore, this risk is almost completely concentrated in those over 65 years of age and with serious underlying health conditions. If you are under 40 and healthy your chance of being killed by SARS-2 is approximately 4 in 100,000. That’s not a typo. The Telegraph newspaper in the UK recently reported that children are so naturally resistant to SARS-2 that they have a higher chance of being killed by lightning within the next year (if only they were allowed out of their houses). For many this will be hard to hear; how can this be true when the whole world has given up so much?  But it is. The reality is for those under 65 and healthy, life should always have gone on largely as normal; there should have been no lockdown and few if any closed borders.

You may also still be under the impression that we need 60% – 80% of the population to be infected to reach the unfortunately named herd immunity.  However, this too is incorrect.  Professor Michael Levitt (Nobel Laureate) and Professor Karl Friston (a most eminent statistician) have both calculated from the case data that there seems to be some form of “immunological dark matter”, some natural immunity in the population, which slows SARS-2’s exponential growth as soon as it starts spreading, and brings down the required herd immunity by 50% – 80%.  We now have a number of studies giving a possible mechanism for how this works, perhaps by unexpected T-cell response and localised immunity in the mucosal glands. More studies are sure to follow.

The facts as they stand are on the whole pleasant relief from the menacing images that impelled severe shutdowns; indeed, we have cause for celebration, and good reasons for markedly decreasing the political restrictions required to control this new virus, since the threat is at least 28 times smaller than we initially feared. 

As a country, we urgently need a conversation about how realistic it is to expect a safe vaccine within a year or two. The 10% -15% of our economy that relies on open borders has already been severely damaged and the longer we wait, the smaller the chance of recovery.

The collapse of firms and of sole traders will kill people too, conceivably thousands of people over the next 50 years if we wait even a year. How likely is a vaccine?  The Common Cold Research Unit in the UK, pioneers of coronavirus research, for 43 years sought a vaccine for the common cold (including the 4 cold-causing coronaviruses).  They gave up, emphasising the enormous size of their task versus the prospective benefit. No vaccine has been developed against SARS which caused the 2003 coronavirus epidemic, despite 17 years of research effort and a shocking IFR, 10%.  Similarly for MERS with a plague-like 35% IFR. All of this should be strong evidence that the 12 to 18-month timeline given for the development of a vaccine is wishful thinking by those who either do not understand the process of developing safe vaccines or who feel public pressure to downplay how hard it is to do safely and quickly, especially for a type of virus which has no existing vaccine. To hold out ill-founded hopes of protection is cruel.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the SARS-2 pandemic is likely to wane over the next few months and lapse into a less important status, e.g. the 5th cold-causing coronavirus. The final global death tolls are probably not going to end up significantly worse than a very bad seasonal-flu year.  Let us ask ourselves what is our country’s endgame?  How long will we remain closed to the world when no vaccine is likely coming soon, while the need to restore commerce and education is urgent? And how many lives and much quality of life are we willing to sacrifice before we decide to live with this virus like adults? This is a genie which has gone global and cannot be put back in the bottle.

It never ceases to amaze me how many of these opinion pieces are written criticising decisions made back then, with their arguments loaded with data and information discovered over the intervening months. Hindsight 20/20 opinions aren't worth the paper they're written on, especially when they only grasp the pieces of the argument that suit their rhetoric and overlook other stats and opinions. And in this case the serial copy & paste poster adds no opinion of his own. Merely posts somebody else's.......

[100 1 1,386]

4 hours ago, tripple alliance said:

 

All country's have failed on that score but all are learning and now succeeding , only the Labor government in VICTORIA  has let the team down . 

Reading this article  it points to the herd immunity being a real possibility which means there is hope for the USA and potential disaster for NZ , TIME will Tell .

One day ago .

" Britain is finally BEATING coronavirus: Doctors declare huge successes in fight with virus

BRITAIN is finally defeating the coronavirus thanks to improved treatments, a top medic said yesterday.  More of the sickest patients are now surviving as doctors gain more knowledge about the virus. The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has fallen by 96 per cent since the peak of the ­epidemic in April. And one consultant even declared: “We’re almost reaching herd immunity.” Patients have a much better chance of recovering thanks to new treatments and fewer vulnerable people falling ill. . sufferers dying after admission to intensive care has halved since mid-April.  Analysis of data from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre found severely ill patients were now significantly more likely to survive than in the early weeks of the outbreak ."

 

 

Why don't they just say they are using the HCQ combo?

 

 

[Gruff 2,790]

1 hour ago, Idolmite said:

It never ceases to amaze me how many of these opinion pieces are written criticising decisions made back then, with their arguments loaded with data and information discovered over the intervening months. Hindsight 20/20 opinions aren't worth the paper they're written on, especially when they only grasp the pieces of the argument that suit their rhetoric and overlook other stats and opinions. And in this case the serial copy & paste poster adds no opinion of his own. Merely posts somebody else's.......

Other stats and opinions? Like Brazils Stats  Wake up Mitey you just cant see it 

[rdytdy 5,341]

 

So the plan is "throw the country into turmoil every time we get a couple of Covid-19 cases."

A complete joke.

Four cases in Auckland and she shuts the whole country down .

What information have they been hiding?  Since last week going on about wearing masks, the Covid adverts starting up again. Bloomfield shown getting tested  for Covid this morning. 

Complete incompetence and I bet the team of 5 million will be far from impressed.    

[tripple alliance 1,024]

Covid again , something rotten going on here , think about it comrade cindy and various commentators have been sounding warnings over the last couple of weeks I recon they new something was brewing , a serious mistake had been made somewhere and they new it .

If this gets out of hand the $50 billion and businesses ruined will have all been for nothing . 

[100 1 1,386]

Fear porn at it's finest

Billy is the only one calling out the Covid Scam...he had information from the Military that this was all planned from the beginning.

NZPublic Party

https://www.facebook.com/NewZealandPublicParty

Read the comments after Jacinda's statement

The people are waking up

 

[Southland 91]

20 minutes ago, tripple alliance said:

Covid again , something rotten going on here , think about it comrade cindy and various commentators have been sounding warnings over the last couple of weeks I recon they new something was brewing , a serious mistake had been made somewhere and they new it .

If this gets out of hand the $50 billion and businesses ruined will have all been for nothing . 

100% agree. This smells.

total over reaction to boot. 

 

[rdytdy 5,341]

            

[Gruff 2,790]

Wouldnt be to many surprised surely 

Bloody Circus, Mike Baker just said the good news is its  just one family ....WHO puppet with no f%#kn clue.  

[rdytdy 5,341]

 

 

The BFD. Cartoon credit SonovaMin

[Gruff 2,790]

41 minutes ago, tripple alliance said:

Covid again , something rotten going on here , think about it comrade cindy and various commentators have been sounding warnings over the last couple of weeks I recon they new something was brewing , a serious mistake had been made somewhere and they new it .

If this gets out of hand the $50 billion and businesses ruined will have all been for nothing . 

Its out of hand now. How many cases of Flu were there when we locked down in March?  Navigating this in the middle of winter was always going to be a major issue with obvious seasonal complications .... delaying the inevitable alright