COVID-19 Stuff Here

[waiopehu oldboy]

When some hospitality businesses went under during our first lockdown a Greens MP (Moana Pasifika) suggested that maybe they weren't viable to begin with & Covid just finished them off. She got "slammed" by numerous commentators & their followers who think & speak like the guy the cartoon. Funny that, eh.

 

[Ignoto]

It's an interesting one. A lot of people who are 'pro-life' both in the sense of being anti-abortion and against self-determination such as euthanasia have little care about the most vulnerable in society with COVID and accept that their death as a 'is what it is'.

 

[Pfitzy]

It's an interesting one. A lot of people who are 'pro-life' both in the sense of being anti-abortion and against self-determination such as euthanasia have little care about the most vulnerable in society with COVID and accept that their death as a 'is what it is'.

Saw a quote on social media to that effect: "they're not 'pro-life' so much as they are 'pro-birth'. After that , they don't seem to give a shit what happens to them"

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Now 17 community transmission cases in NZ one of whom recently visited an aged care facility in Hamilton. I don't think this is going to be over any time soon & it's going to get a lot worse first.

 

[Pfitzy]

Now 17 community transmission cases in NZ one of whom recently visited an aged care facility in Hamilton. I don't think this is going to be over any time soon & it's going to get a lot worse first.

UNlike.

 

[formerflanker]

Boyo, a good cartoon.
As you know, a fiscal conservative would have allowed the economy to keep working (no business closures, no industry destruction, no draconian stay at home measures enforced by armed police).
Simultaneously, all those at risk would have had an immediate support mechanism thrown around them i.e. old age homes put into professional management and high quality care brought in; a nation-wide meals on wheels rolled out for the aged and infirm at home; all those not testing positive get to go about their daily business.
It would cost taxpayers a lot less and help those who need it.
Meanwhile the business derided by the cartoonist would have a much better chance of surviving, creating wealth, and providing jobs.

 

[formerflanker]

Now 17 community transmission cases in NZ one of whom recently visited an aged care facility in Hamilton. I don't think this is going to be over any time soon & it's going to get a lot worse first.

It seems to me that the original lockdown didn't work. No need to hurt NZers again with another lockdown. Use an alternative strategy.

 

[fatprop]

Boyo, a good cartoon.
As you know, a fiscal conservative would have allowed the economy to keep working (no business closures, no industry destruction, no draconian stay at home measures enforced by armed police).
Simultaneously, all those at risk would have had an immediate support mechanism thrown around them i.e. old age homes put into professional management and high quality care brought in; a nation-wide meals on wheels rolled out for the aged and infirm at home; all those not testing positive get to go about their daily business.
It would cost taxpayers a lot less and help those who need it.
Meanwhile the business derided by the cartoonist would have a much better chance of surviving, creating wealth, and providing jobs.

amazing to see the lack of reality when life and death decisions are made public, these decisions are made every day, everywhere

who gets priority for that liver transplant, what a speed limit should be, what are the safety protocols used to build that structure, who gets priority in emergency etc etc

 

[zer0]

It seems to me that the original lockdown didn't work.

Why?

Use an alternative strategy.

Such as?

 

[Braveheart81]

Boyo, a good cartoon.
As you know, a fiscal conservative would have allowed the economy to keep working

Wouldn't the fiscal conservative take the option that involves the least long term impact on the economy?

The pandemic is the source of the economic impact. That is clear based on all the evidence we have of the economic impact around the world regardless of the measures taken. Economies that haven't had stay at home orders haven't fared better. They are in fact looking like they will suffer a longer economic downturn because their economies are tanking with no sign of the pandemic easing allowing business to increase.

 

[I like to watch]

Why?




Such as?

Unfortunately, there are millions of idiots, that think that as the current death tolls are in line with other pandemics that didn't shut down.
That's evidence that we shouldn't have shut down this time.

Ignoring the inconvenient fact, that things would be significantly worse now, with no shutdowns.

 

[fatprop]

Unfortunately, there are millions of idiots, that think that as the current death tolls are in line with other pandemics that didn't shut down.
That's evidence that we shouldn't have shut down this time.

Ignoring the inconvenient fact, that things would be significantly worse now, with no shutdowns.

The key factors in death rate appears to be a bit more multi factorial, the differences between countries (& US states) that locked down and when they locked down isn't particularly significant statistically

Peru & Brazil did the opposite and have ended up as shit as eachother

The health of the population, the age of the population, the number of generations sharing the same household, the viral load in the population, did it get into their nursing homes, the state of the health care system, vitamin D deficiency in the population, a light flu season the previous season had more at risk still around etc etc are all factors

What we do know that most countries screwed up something, the countries that got hit bad early also had no real idea how to treat the thing. They now have and the outcomes are much better for those that need hospitalization

Even the timing of the Victorian "shutdown" is closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, they have over 1200 nursing home patients infected .......

 

[Tex]

The thing with the aged care situation here is that ratcheting down on social contact in the broader population while continuing to nominate aged care workers as "essential" was always going to be ineffective against the spread in the homes.

Private and NFP aged care providers rely almost entirely on low-paid personal care workers, employed on a contract/part-time basis, minimal nursing oversight (let alone employment in caring roles), with many of those workers sharing shifts across multiple sites and employers. So while the rest of the workforce bunkered down, the care workers doing the hard yards in aged care continued to flit from place to place.

It's a catastrophe waiting to happen every year, let alone with this new virus.

 

[Tex]

When you break it down to its bare bones it becomes pretty stark.

- we warehouse our most vulnerable (largely people who have dementia) in places that are largely dollar-oriented
- we organise our aged care system to keep people independent and at home as long as possible, reliant on in-home support from a multitude of different staff
- we stretch staff ratios as fine as possible, avoiding high cost nursing staff unless legally required
- we wonder why incredibly infectious diseases run rampant.

There's a lot of money being made in aged care and I hope the royal commission runs an absolute train on the entire system.

 

[fatprop]

The thing with the aged care situation here is that ratcheting down on social contact in the broader population while continuing to nominate aged care workers as "essential" was always going to be ineffective against the spread in the homes.

Private and NFP aged care providers rely almost entirely on low-paid personal care workers, employed on a contract/part-time basis, minimal nursing oversight (let alone employment in caring roles), with many of those workers sharing shifts across multiple sites and employers. So while the rest of the workforce bunkered down, the care workers doing the hard yards in aged care continued to flit from place to place.

It's a catastrophe waiting to happen every year, let alone with this new virus.

And that they have a contract supplementary force that may work at 5 different nursing homes a week, hence the infection spread

 

[Tex]

And that they have a contract supplementary force that may work at 5 different nursing homes a week, hence the infection spread

Yep. There's a lot of money being made at the moment.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/gol...ls-says-nursing-home-ceo-20200803-p55i4b.html

 

[Braveheart81]

The deregulation of the aged care sector has been a disaster. It is unbelievably underfunded and the levels of care are dangerously low in many facilities.

The fact that there are no staffing level requirements for private sector aged care facilities at all and they aren't required to even have a registered nurse on site is unbelievable.

 

[Tex]

The wife of a former colleague is an RN in private aged care. Her shift would regularly see her assigned clinical oversight of 180+ residents, most of whom had complex care needs.

Edit: as the sole RN

 

[fatprop]

The deregulation of the aged care sector has been a disaster. It is unbelievably underfunded and the levels of care are dangerously low in many facilities.

The fact that there are no staffing level requirements for private sector aged care facilities at all and they aren't required to even have a registered nurse on site is unbelievable.

We get what "we" are prepared to pay for

The issue with most government subsidised health care is we all want Quality, Affordability
& Availability

The challenge is that we can only get two of the three at any one time

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Two new cases outside the Auckland region but linked to that cluster, allegedly up to six others in South Waikato. Level 3 about to be extended, I think.