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Which horse film is your favorite? This poll is closed. |
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| Black Beauty |
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2 | 1.06% |
| A Talking Pony!?! |
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4 | 2.13% |
| Mr. Hands 2x Apple Flavor |
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117 | 62.23% |
| War Horse |
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11 | 5.85% |
| Mr. Hands |
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54 | 28.72% |
| Total: | 188 votes | ||
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PT6A posted:If only there were a choice between pursuing zero COVID and doing so little that hospitals get overwhelmed and cancer patients can't get their treatment... Did someone hear some angry Albertan noises on the wind?
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Oct 4, 2021 20:27
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Yeah despite what the media and the corporations and the Trump/Biden administrations tell us, you can't actually bargain with natural phenomena or mathematical functions. If you choose to pursue policies that drive Rt below 1.0 the pandemic dies out, if you don't, daily new cases explode and everything that comes along with that, like death rates among marginalized and immunocompromised people. Thousands of people in New Zealand are going to die now because of this decision, if you don't like hearing that maybe your problem is with the policy, not the people pointing out the reality of what will happen? Like, I get the attractiveness of wishful thinking. I also wish the virus wouldn't infect people because it's Easter or because the good people wore their masks until they sat down at the table at Denny's. Unfortunately, that's not what happened and we've already cooked up a variant that's more infectious than OG covid-19 exactly because we succumbed to wishful thinking and let her rip. And I don't really get the angry responses, you guys won you should be happy? The markets are at all time highs and nobody is even trying to stop the pandemic anymore, you won. Take that victory lap, rational policy prevailed or whatever.
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Oct 4, 2021 20:30
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What's NZ up to vacc-wise, aren't they about comparable to Singapore?
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Oct 4, 2021 20:32
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Epic High Five posted:What's NZ up to vacc-wise, aren't they about comparable to Singapore? Of eligible folks, 79% first shot, 49% second shot. Their campaign only ramped up relatively recently.
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Oct 4, 2021 20:35
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VitalSigns posted:Yeah despite what the media and the corporations and the Trump/Biden administrations tell us, you can't actually bargain with natural phenomena or mathematical functions. If you choose to pursue policies that drive Rt below 1.0 the pandemic dies out, if you don't, daily new cases explode and everything that comes along with that, like death rates among marginalized and immunocompromised people. It's possible, and places have demonstrated that you can set a target goal that isn't literally zero cases before removing restrictions though. Of course any place that allows a prolonged period above an Rt of 1 is going to run into problems, but provided you can be quick enough, it's not unreasonable to say "quickly introduce restrictions when Rt is above 1, slowly remove them when Rt is below 1" without needing to get to zero to reduce restrictions. VitalSigns posted:And I don't really get the angry responses, you guys won you should be happy? The markets are at all time highs and nobody is even trying to stop the pandemic anymore, you won. Take that victory lap, rational policy prevailed or whatever. Do you think anyone in here is advocating for ignoring COVID in favour of maintaining the economy at all costs?
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Oct 4, 2021 20:43
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No I think people are arguing for trying to bargain somehow with exponential growth under the optimistic hope that this will allow countries to focus on maintaining the economy without paying the cost in sickness and death, I thought my post was pretty clear?
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Oct 4, 2021 21:30
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I feel like you're approaching it like this is a binary, where the only two options are 'no restrictions ever', and 'full lockdown until 0 cases without exception', when neither of those describe the approach taken by the vast majority of the world. Adjusting restrictions based on Rt values rather than raw cases isn't a case of bargaining - definitely different places have actually held to doing that with varying degrees of success, and there's more examples of 'slow to close, fast to re-open' than the inverse, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible to do better, and that countries have done better. Also "no one is trying to stop the pandemic anymore, you won" is pretty clear that you think everyone in this thread wants all restrictions to stop or doesn't think COVID is worth trying to fight, which is just a completely bonkers read of how this thread has gone.
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Oct 4, 2021 21:48
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Of eligible folks, 79% first shot, 49% second shot. Their campaign only ramped up relatively recently. And the PM's goal is to hit 90% before removing lockdowns. It's very far from a open er up approach VitalSigns posted:No I think people are arguing for trying to bargain somehow with exponential growth under the optimistic hope that this will allow countries to focus on maintaining the economy without paying the cost in sickness and death, I thought my post was pretty clear? I do not recall anyone ITT making arguments about maintaining the economy, do you have an example of that? There was some discussion of children being back to in-person learning and the harm being done by having them miss on socialization and educational achievement vs. risk of COVID. Economics is also not the reason NZ is abandoning zero COVID strategy. They've done a ton of lockdowns before, clearly they gave it a good try but it isn't loving working with this most recent wave. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Oct 4, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 22:03
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enki42 posted:
No I think I was pretty clear that I think some people are hoping we don't actually have to do what is necessary to fight covid, and that either an Rt below 1.0 will happen anyway or an Rt above 1.0 will somehow not be a problem, because then we can justify prioritizing the market. Idk how else to phrase it to resolve this misunderstanding but there it is. And I said you won because you did? Every liberal democracy is doing some version of the policy you want now, the last irrational holdouts finally admitted it's all for the best. E: to Fritz, clearly it is possible because China is still doing it, not doing it is a deliberate choice. What do you think would happen if covid had smallpox level mortality, would we just throw up our hands and let our civilizations be completely destroyed? Probably not right. A cost benefit analysis has been done by the people in power and covid isn't an existential threat to either our civilization or their position in it so the conclusion is that zero covid just isn't worth doing. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Oct 4, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 22:13
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VitalSigns posted:No I think I was pretty clear that I think some people are hoping we don't actually have to do what is necessary to fight covid, and that either an Rt below 1.0 will happen anyway or an Rt above 1.0 will somehow not be a problem, because then we can justify prioritizing the market. Idk how else to phrase it to resolve this misunderstanding but there it is. My point is, unless your definition of "what is necessary to fight covid" is "hard lockdown until 0 cases without exception", I don't think I've seen that expressed in this thread. I can't think of a single "drop restrictions now" poster in here. You can find plenty on reddit maybe if you want to argue with them? quote:And I said you won because you did? Every liberal democracy is doing some version of the policy you want now, the last irrational holdouts finally admitted it's all for the best. Right, it's more the second part of the statement, the "doesn't think COVID is worth trying to fight". Yes, a lot of countries are trying to strike a balance between keeping case counts low and raising and lowering restrictions to maintain that, especially since the evidence shows that the only way to get to zero is probably infeasible in western democracies. But that's not "not fighting COVID". It's fighting COVID less than you would personally like, maybe?
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Oct 4, 2021 22:25
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enki42 posted:Right, it's more the second part of the statement, the "doesn't think COVID is worth trying to fight". Yes, a lot of countries are trying to strike a balance between keeping case counts low and raising and lowering restrictions to maintain that, especially since the evidence shows that the only way to get to zero is probably infeasible in western democracies. But that's not "not fighting COVID". It's fighting COVID less than you would personally like, maybe? I apologize I must still not be expressing myself clearly, let me try an analogy. With climate change, I don't think it's a binary choice between "policies to achieve net zero carbon before total climate disaster" and " gently caress the earth roll coal as hard as possible just for the lulz". For example, here's one possible third option: wring our hands about how something must be done while pursuing policies that won't reach net zero but will at least look and feel like someone is doing something (in other words, the policy our leaders have actually chosen). I don't think that most people, and certainly not anyone in this thread or in D&D (except maybe Arkane lol) actually wants to destroy the climate in 50 years. I do think all the people in power want to destroy the climate (or rather profit off of doing it), and I think there's an awful lot of people who accept the rationalizations the powerful relentlessly push out through corporate media, government organs etc, that net zero carbon is too hard and irrational and that somehow as long as we say we care about the climate really hard that somehow net zero carbon won't be necessary and everything will just work out somehow anyway.
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Oct 4, 2021 22:38
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Are the "people in power" in this analogy supposed to be the NZ government?
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Oct 4, 2021 22:48
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If we have any NZ goons please correct me but from what I read today it seems like basically: -NZ has tried hard for a zero-COVID strategy and the population has largely been behind it. This has meant strict lockdowns, among the strictest and longest in the world but up until this fall they were able to keep cases at or near zero. -Literally just one Delta case (an international traveler) slipped quarantine and started the current outbreak. -After seven weeks of strict lockdowns, there are still dozens of unchained (not track/traced) cases popping up each day. The PM decided to abandon the zero COVID strategy because it literally wasn't working, they haven't been able to get to zero after nearly two months of lockdown. -A few restrictions will be relaxed, people will be able to meet each other outside in small groups. A slightly loosened lockdown will remain in effect until the population reaches 90% eligible vaccinated. The "people in power" in other countries might have decided they care more about the economy than getting rid of COVID but that appears to simply not be true with NZ. NZ gave it an honest, hard try. It didn't work. They're not going to open er up, they're still enforcing strict measures and ramping up vaccination, but they're no longer pursuing zero COVID as a goal. If anything this seems to me an example that zero COVID may simply not be practical for many nations, even if they earnestly wanted to try. NZ seemed like the most likely among western democracies to achieve and maintain zero COVID but they can't get a handle on this latest Delta outbreak after a long, strict lockdown. Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Oct 4, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 23:02
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It's basically right, but thisFritz the Horse posted:The PM decided to abandon the zero COVID strategy because it literally wasn't working, they haven't been able to get to zero after nearly two months of lockdown. There's also the very real possibility that Ardern got influenced to do this by New Zealand's own open er up crew who have been banging on about lifting restrictions for months.
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Oct 4, 2021 23:15
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Relaxing lockdowns because the pandemic is getting worse is the opposite of logic.
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Oct 4, 2021 23:20
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Gort posted:Relaxing lockdowns because the pandemic is getting worse is the opposite of logic. It makes sense if people are tired of severe lockdowns that aren't accomplishing the stated goal of 'zero covid'. We've all watched over the last year and a half as people in every part of the world find that unlimited, severe lockdowns in search of 'zero covid' aren't actually popular or embraced at all. Even in New Zealand, even in Australia. I would guess that, as a demographic, Something Awful posters are slightly more predisposed than the average person to embrace and tolerate severe lockdowns (or perhaps those people are just very very vocal even on here). I think it's important to recognize and keep centered in our minds the fact that that's not a universal feeling by any means.
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Oct 4, 2021 23:29
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:Are the "people in power" in this analogy supposed to be the NZ government? The 1%. Which most 'democratic' governments eventually obey more or less on the issues most critical to the interests of the 1% The NZ democracy resisted them for a shockingly long time but as you note they eventually capitulated. With essentially the same strategy as everywhere, gently caress it up with inadequate countermeasures then use that as an excuse to stop trying. Same thing happened in the US right, we were assured masks and lockdowns weren't needed anymore because the vaccine is a magical silver bullet, all the epidemiologists saying this was wrong and that delta couldn't be stopped even with 90% vaccination rates were ignored, people agreeing with the science were mocked, and whoops now delta is everywhere so it's too late to do anything anyway which is what the people pushing for inadequate policy always wanted in the first place. We'll see this in climate change too, once oil companies can plausibly claim it's too late to stop it now anyway, that will be the new reason that we don't do anything, because hey we need to focus on mitigation now and what do we need to make mitigation possible? A strong economy! The revenues from a strong economy will not actually be used for mitigation beyond reinforcing the summer homes of the 1%
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Oct 4, 2021 23:29
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quote:Same thing happened in the US right, we were assured masks and lockdowns weren't needed anymore because the vaccine is a magical silver bullet, New Zealand hasn't indicated that they're anywhere close to removing their mask mandate. "Lockdown" is a relative term but in in comparison to the U.S., they'll be at early 2020 levels even after this easing. Recent vaccines, while not an excuse to abandon other NPIs, do have a pretty powerful effect on infections as well as severe outcomes, and it's reasonable to assume that at a 90% level you can maintain an Rt at or below 1 while easing some restrictions (of course, vigilance and reacting quickly is important if cases do start to trend up) I get that there's a natural tendency to react to a headline that somewhere is "easing restrictions" and assuming that it means that it's full open 'er up, particularly if your context is the U.S. where that very much happened. But that doesn't seem to be the case here. enki42 fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Oct 4, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 23:40
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I don't see how the arguments "lockdowns can't stop delta from spreading" and "you can keep Rt below 1.0 while easing restrictions" can possibly be logically compatible. Like I get we'd all like to pick whatever argument is convenient for the moment, but at least wait a page before flipping from one to the other idk. But I guess this is just reinforcing what I said above about wishful thinking, that it will just magically go away anyway even after we give up and say there's no point to zero covid policy anymore. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Oct 4, 2021 |
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Oct 4, 2021 23:52
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If you could hypothetically get a population to 100% vaccination rate would that halt the outbreak based on our understand of VE overtime?
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Oct 4, 2021 23:59
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VitalSigns posted:I don't see how the arguments "lockdowns can't stop delta from spreading" and "you can keep Rt below 1.0 while easing restrictions" can possibly be logically compatible. They can be logically compatible as soon as you realize that Rt varies even within a country and it's not a strict mathematical "every single person transmits COVID to exactly X people" thing. You can have pockets of cases that can be very difficult to completely remove, whether it's due to age cohorts (say school-aged children dropping at a much lower rate than adults), less vaccinated regions, less compliance with restrictions in certain areas / groups, etc. On top of that, you can usually get to the point where your Rt is lowering months before you get to actually having 0 cases, particularly in places where COVID has widespread community spread. If you take into account that there's going to be additional waves, and additional variants, making sensible adjustments to NPIs (I agree with you that 'masks off everyone!' is not a reasonable adjustment) can make sense and even help with compliance over "stay locked in your houses until we have 0 cases, even if what you want to do is considered safe by virtually any expert and nearly all hospitalizations are coming from unvaccinated cases ignoring rules" enki42 fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 00:05
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cr0y posted:If you could hypothetically get a population to 100% vaccination rate would that halt the outbreak based on our understand of VE overtime? If the vaccine is 100% effective (so no breakthrough infections) then yes. If not (and it isn't) then it depends on the efficacy of the vaccine. The immunity threshold depends on R0, and the formula is straightforward, comes right out of exponential functions. Immunity threshold = 1-(1/R0) So for an R0 of 3 (OG covid-19) the vaccine would need to be 67% effective at stopping infection and transmission for 100% vaccination to stop the outbreak. Delta variant is currently estimated at somewhere between 6 and 7, so would require 83% to 86% effectiveness if absolutely every single person were vaccinated.
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Oct 5, 2021 00:12
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enki42 posted:They can be logically compatible as soon as you realize that Rt varies even within a country and it's not a strict mathematical "every single person transmits COVID to exactly X people" thing. You can have pockets of cases that can be very difficult to completely remove, whether it's due to age cohorts (say school-aged children dropping at a much lower rate than adults), less vaccinated regions, less compliance with restrictions in certain areas / groups, etc. This doesn't make any sense and you're fundamentally misunderstanding something somewhere. It can't be true that you can maintain R0 below 1.0 and also that zero covid policies don't work. If you are maintaining R0 below 1.0 then you are accomplishing zero covid policy by definition because that is what zero covid policy means because any new outbreak (by an imported case that escaped quarantine or whatever) will die out. Your argument against lockdown is that cases spread anyway regardless (R0 > 1), this simply cannot logically coexist with your other argument that easing restrictions will still maintain R0 < 1 E: it is true that Rt can temporarily dip below 1, for example what happened in the US last winter as a consequence of holiday travel ending and a whole fuckton of people getting infected over the holidays and becoming immune, but that's different from policy that can maintain it below 1, obviously the policy did not do that, and there's pretty much what we see everywhere. We'll see that in NZ too, waves of infection and mass deaths, followed by a retreat, erroneous claims that it's over and we can relax restrictions more, then it comes roaring back and we get claims that restrictions are pointless so we may as well relax them more, etc VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 00:18
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How is NZ's vaccine stocks? And what's their populations vaccine hesitancy levels at? I read somewhere that they had to wait in line a bit so they couldnt get people the jab as quickly as they wanted it. It sounds like their lockdowns failed to wrangle Delta because of a small number of marginalized groups. It really is a "you're only as strong as your weakest link" problem. If a minuscule percentage of your population is ignoring the lockdowns for whatever reason and their numbers are significant enough, it essentially won't matter that 99% of the population hasnt stepped outside their house in two months. You'd think this would be something that could be addressed with an information campaign blitz, social services targeting those groups and increased police presence to promote compliance for anyone who has just been flipping the government the bird and doing whatever they wanted, but perhaps they already ran the numbers and realized that wouldn't work for some reason. Either way NZ'ers have been the little engine that could through this whole thing and they should be proud of their accomplishments. They showed the world what a country can do when everyone is on the same page and cooperating, and that's no small thing.
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Oct 5, 2021 00:22
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-Blackadder- posted:How is NZ's vaccine stocks? And what's their populations vaccine hesitancy levels at? I read somewhere that they had to wait in line a bit so they couldnt get people the jab as quickly as they wanted it. Supply should be fine now, the most vaccine hesitant are unsurprisingly Maori and Pacific Islanders.
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Oct 5, 2021 00:28
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VitalSigns posted:This doesn't make any sense and you're fundamentally misunderstanding something somewhere. It can't be true that you can maintain R0 below 1.0 and also that zero covid policies don't work. If you are maintaining R0 below 1.0 then you are accomplishing zero covid policy by definition because that is what zero covid policy means because any new outbreak (by an imported case that escaped quarantine or whatever) will die out. Assume that getting from reducing cases to 0 takes some time (due to all the reasons I mentioned). Also assume that governments don't have superpowers and adding restrictions takes time to implement. It's not that difficult to see how you can have long periods of a very slow reduction in cases, something occurring (new variant, seasonal waves, slightly too aggressive reductions in restrictions) that pushes Rt above 1, which tends to grow cases fast, and then working that back down again. I think the only real difference in our arguments is that literally getting to zero is unrealistic and might be counterproductive given delta (since indefinite full lockdowns will eventually push people to abandon all NPIs) quote:E: it is true that Rt can temporarily dip below 1, for example what happened in the US last winter as a consequence of holiday travel ending and a whole fuckton of people getting infected over the holidays and becoming immune, but that's different from policy that can maintain it below 1, obviously the policy did not do that, and there's pretty much what we see everywhere. We'll see that in NZ too, waves of infection and mass deaths, followed by a retreat, erroneous claims that it's over and we can relax restrictions more, then it comes roaring back and we get claims that restrictions are pointless so we may as well relax them more, etc Plenty of places outside of NZ, Australia and China have seen long periods where Rt remained below 1. That's the entire reason we talk about waves of the virus. Otherwise we'd just be increasing all the time. Different countries have reacted to cases rising again with different levels of urgency, which has had a clear impact on how bad those waves were. None of these countries got COVID to zero and kept it there. There are more places in the world than China and the US. I'm not saying you can indefinitely maintain enki42 fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 00:31
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VitalSigns posted:If the vaccine is 100% effective (so no breakthrough infections) then yes. Lol
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Oct 5, 2021 00:34
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-Blackadder- posted:It sounds like their lockdowns failed to wrangle Delta because of a small number of marginalized groups. It really is a "you're only as strong as your weakest link" problem. If a minuscule percentage of your population is ignoring the lockdowns for whatever reason and their numbers are significant enough, it essentially won't matter that 99% of the population hasnt stepped outside their house in two months. You'd think this would be something that could be addressed with an information campaign blitz, social services targeting those groups and increased police presence to promote compliance for anyone who has just been flipping the government the bird and doing whatever they wanted, but perhaps they already ran the numbers and realized that wouldn't work for some reason. The groups being marginalized and "increased police presence to promote compliance" isn't a great look when put together, and I don't know much about policing in NZ but if it's anything like North America declaring open season on indigenous folks (and also saying they're the reason for lockdowns) is going to end pretty horribly. (I know that in any population that less vaccinated populations aren't exclusively marginalized / racialized / indigenous / etc, but a significant proportion are).
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Oct 5, 2021 00:39
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enki42 posted:Assume that getting from reducing cases to 0 takes some time (due to all the reasons I mentioned). Also assume that governments don't have superpowers and adding restrictions takes time to implement. It's not that difficult to see how you can have long periods of a very slow reduction in cases, something occurring (new variant, seasonal waves, slightly too aggressive reductions in restrictions) that pushes Rt above 1, which tends to grow cases fast, and then working that back down again. I think the only real difference in our arguments is that literally getting to zero is unrealistic and might be counterproductive given delta (since indefinite full lockdowns will eventually push people to abandon all NPIs) It's happened all over the world, and now that you've won it will happen in New Zealand and Singapore too, job well done I say.
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Oct 5, 2021 00:42
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VitalSigns posted:
Life is a cost-benefit analysis. Like, literally everything we do. And the 99% are doing their cost benefit analysis too and I'm sorry (because I know you fervently wish it was) Covid is not airborne smallpox or BuboniFlu.
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Oct 5, 2021 00:49
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Yeah the whole "the people in power!  " take on our limp covid responses really falls flat for me. I just have not at all gotten the sense that it's a top-down regime of death forced upon the masses. It's just people. Not people in power, just people.
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Oct 5, 2021 00:53
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How are u posted:Yeah the whole "the people in power! Exactly, I'm in Melbourne and the Powers That Be, have been desperately begging everyone to please not have people over to your house, avoid having your bi-weekly indoor spitathons and please god stop breaking the rules. They run (badly timed) commercials about drowning in your own lungs in the ICU. I guess this is just another example of the 1% using their classic reverse psychology tricks on us poor sheep. Lockdown in Melbourne has failed because "the people" or at least a significant proportion of them, have run a cost benefit analysis and decided it's not for them. About 99% of them will be vindicated as well, as they either don't get Covid or get it very mildly. It is of course going to work out very badly for a large number of people simply because of the huge numbers involved. We're a sardine bait ball at this point swimming through a horde of Tuna
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Oct 5, 2021 01:01
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https://twitter.com/WicMar/status/1445020155545722883 https://twitter.com/WicMar/status/1445020176051703815 The "weakest link" argument about non-compliant subpopulations just means that you have a long tail as COVID burns through those subpopulations (and hopefully they start taking more personal precautions). It doesn't mean that the only thing left to do is let COVID burn through the whole country. Keep in mind that the US had an estimated 85%+ seroprevalence of prior infection or vaccination going in to Delta. Any country with low seroprevalence that doesn't hit extremely high vaccination rates (and very quickly so most are fresh) is in for a bad time if people are too lax with their new-found "freedom". How are u posted:Yeah the whole "the people in power! This is fatalist nonsense. You'd think that person who constantly tells us that they'll only ever do the bare minimum recommended by government agencies would understand that government actions and structures actually matter in shaping personal responses. Stickman fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 01:06
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Illuminti posted:Life is a cost-benefit analysis. Like, literally everything we do. And the 99% are doing their cost benefit analysis too and I'm sorry (because I know you fervently wish it was) Covid is not airborne smallpox or BuboniFlu. There's a non-zero chance it's airborne Parkinson's, especially with repeat infections, which it's really really good at.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:14
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How are u posted:It makes sense if people are tired of severe lockdowns that aren't accomplishing the stated goal of 'zero covid'. They were (mostly) popular and embraced until they stopped working. Melbourne is having its second long strict lockdown, after doing a four-month one last year (while the rest of Australia was the Garden of Eden). Last time its started working pretty quick and we watched the numbers go from 700 a day to 500 to 300 to 100 to 70 to 20 etc. And then we hit zero. It was hard but there was a clear goal to strive for (as exemplified by the rest of the country) and we saw the tangible results every day. This time around (because Delta is more infectious) it just keeps going up and up, and the government had to abandon its elimination policy, and so people naturally gave up and so the numbers are blowing out even worse. The fact that Delta has proven impossible to contain with strict, fast lockdowns in Sydney, in Canberra, in Melbourne and in Auckland suggests to me that it's simply not possible to do so unless you get lucky in the very first stages (Brisbane, I think, managed to stamp one out that had reached three or four cases.) Canberra in particular is the most concerning model. It's a planned capital, so virtually everybody who lives there works for the federal government, is highly educated, very few poor or marginalised groups etc. They shut down as soon as they had a case and have hovered around 10-20 cases a day for 6 weeks now. Lockdowns can keep Delta at bay but they simply can't stamp it out.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:16
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I think lockdown to elimination of Delta needs to really look at a) what is an essential workplace and b) what can be done to reduce transmissions in the workplace. Delta is infectious but it's not magical, someone is slipping up to make these lockdowns leaky.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:17
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There is no singular "someone." I go for a walk and I see tradies gathered around each other in groups of three or four having a smoke, I see staff in shops not wearing masks properly, I hear my neighbours having family over for their kids' playdates, etc ad infinitum. All of these things were also happening during the last lockdown. The difference this time is that Delta is more infectious and we can't scrape through with just shutting down pubs, restaurants and private offices anymore. Unfortunately no system is free of human behaviour therefore this is impossible to counter, however much Something Awful posters are going to armchair theorise about shutting down the supermarkets and having Australia's non-existent National Guard deliver food to people's homes.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:23
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enki42 posted:The groups being marginalized and "increased police presence to promote compliance" isn't a great look when put together, and I don't know much about policing in NZ but if it's anything like North America declaring open season on indigenous folks (and also saying they're the reason for lockdowns) is going to end pretty horribly. Certainly PR is an important factor in the cost-benefit analysis of any policy initiative. It sounds like some of the groups are homeless as well which is why I mentioned an info campaign and social services, (who tend to be much better at addressing those communities issues than cops) doing things like vaccine outreach. Law enforcement presence also doesn't necessarily mean direct contact, it can be more along the lines of how people suddenly stop speeding when they see a cop on the road. Anyway it looks like they decided what the best course of action for them was, and while its certainly possible that as someone mentioned upthread, Arden was influenced, NZ's performance during this crisis has been pretty solid so far so I'd probably lean toward the side of trusting that they got to this decision through legit analytics, rather than anything else.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:24
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freebooter posted:Canberra in particular is the most concerning model. It's a planned capital, so virtually everybody who lives there works for the federal government, is highly educated, very few poor or marginalised groups etc. They shut down as soon as they had a case and have hovered around 10-20 cases a day for 6 weeks now. Lockdowns can keep Delta at bay but they simply can't stamp it out. Its popped up higher now in Canberra. Over 50 cases a day for a couple of days. High 20s-30s now. Wouldn't be surprised to see it start to creep up. I agree with you, if Canberra can't do it there's no way Melbourne or Sydney could. Illuminti fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Oct 5, 2021 |
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Oct 5, 2021 01:29
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poll plane variant posted:There's a non-zero chance it's airborne Parkinson's, especially with repeat infections, which it's really really good at. Now this, to me, seems extremely alarmist. "Airborne Parkinsons" is an incredibly volatile claim, and until I see it widely reported among the mainstream, credible press I'm going to take this with shakers and shakers of salt. The mainstream, credible press loves misery and drama, and if there were some truth to this then they'd be broadcasting it to the Sun and back.
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Oct 5, 2021 01:31
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