…thank you. To get a real insight into how things are handled here here’s today’s Daily Briefing, hosted by the Prime Minister and Doctor Ashley Bloomfield.
These daily briefings are essential viewing here watched by many, and has turned us into a nation of mini-epidemiologists. Today’s briefing is especially good as the Prime Minister goes in depth to how the contact tracing has worked in Auckland, the difference between the cluster and the Maintenance Worker case, and Doctor Bloomfield reveals that he has been given a Tardis mask
These are a masterclass in communication, and one of the key things that have helped keep Covid-19 at bay here. The Prime Minister isn’t just a figurehead: she understands everything that is going on behind the scenes and can articulate it in a way that just makes us feel safer.
They are so popular someone started an IMDB page about it, which is full of inside jokes that mostly only Kiwi’s who have watched every episode of the last two seasons will get
So today there are 11 new cases, 9 related to the cluster, two caught at the border. The unknown case from yesterday has been genome linked to the cluster, and they are investigating the probability that this person caught the same bus as someone else from the cluster, they are confirming records for the Hop Cards (preloaded public transport cards) to see if that is the link. Bloomfield feels pretty confident that the cluster has been ringfenced. The government will decide on Monday whether or not Auckland will drop down to Level 2 or not based on the standard 8-point criteria they’ve been using.
This story was mentioned a few posts ago. Here’s another report.
“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working “to build a revolutionary new data system” for COVID-19 hospital data collection that the CDC will run upon completion, according to Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Birx’s comments this week come a month after the Trump administration mandated that hospitals sidestep the agency and send critical information about COVID-19 hospitalizations and equipment to a different federal database managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC.
…
Birx made the remarks Monday during a visit to the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion, but she did not provide a time frame for the change.”
Known cases. Were all the attendees tested? Don’t forget it takes up to two weeks for symptoms to develop and you have to factor in the asymptomatic cases. Of the known cases, how many did they infect before detection?
Panama has been looking up a bit. After peaking at 2,165 cases on July 20, new cases have been slowly decreasing. The seven-day average for new cases was stubbornly hanging at around 1000 from July 27 to a few days ago, when we had a couple of day when new cases were only around 600. Let’s see if that holds. They are reporting that the R0 has dropped to 0.99.
Thankfully they are easing up on some of the movement restrictions in the Panama City metro area. They are eliminating restrictions by 2-hour periods, although maintaining restrictions to alternate days by gender. So now I can go out between 5 AM and 7 PM on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday. It also means I can resume walking for exercise in the evenings when it’s cooler. They will also be opening up more kinds of businesses.
On the other hand they have tightened restrictions in some of the other provinces that have had outbreaks, including Colon, Bocas del Toro, and Chiriqui, where people have been freer to move around.
Last week I was able to escape from the city for the first time since March. I was invited to be part of a five-person team evaluating wetlands in the Central Provinces about 5 hours west of Panama City. (I gave the director of the environmental organization doing the work his first important job 25 years ago, so he was happy to do me the favor.) We had much-desired “salvaconductos” (safe conduct letters) giving us permission to travel, which we had to show at several checkpoints on the highway. We stayed in the only open hotel in the town of Chitre. Restaurants were open, but only for takeout. Still, it was great to have some meals I didn’t prepare myself. It was also wonderful to get out in nature and see some birds when we visited various marshes, mangroves, and other wetlands.
[sorry, off topic]
That was a wonderful update, thanks for posting. Quick question, though - what did the Prime Minister and the Doctor say at the beginning of their statements? Was it a greeting in Māori? Thanks.
…the Prime Minster said Kia ora koutou katoa (Greetings, Hello to you all – 3 or more people)
Dr Bloomfield said Tēnā koutou katoa (Greetings, Hello to you all – 3 or more people)
Kia ora is more like “Hi” than “Hello” and slightly less formal. Māori is an official language in NZ and often used in greetings, farewells, formally and casually, throughout society.
…completely coincidentally, this video just popped across my feed.
Doctor Bloomfield has become a hero down here. He’s the consummate professional civil servant, credited, alongside the Prime Minister, of being able to communicate the public health strategy against Covid-19 effectively. He is completely unflappable, like this attempt at a “gotcha” questions fell flat on its face. The previous Health Minister David Clark was mired in controversy during Lockdown because he breached Lockdown protocol twice, he barely fronted up to the press and was essentially side-lined during the crisis. He survived all of that, but his downfall was caused when he decided to throw Ashley Bloomfield under the bus.
The moment in video: (Video not mine, the only version I could find in youtube had those silly edits, so apologies for that)
Clark was gone a few days later. Nobody messes with Doctor Bloomfield and gets away with it
Todays update was via press release as there won’t be video updates over the weekend. 6 new cases today, 4 linked to the current cluster, 2 under investigation, but likely to be linked.
Thanks so much, that was fascinating! You’re lucky to have Dr Bloomfield, he sounds like our Dr Fauci - although sadly, Dr Fauci doesn’t seem to get the same respect that Dr Bloomfield does.
Again, sorry for the hijack, but are many people in NZ bilingual?
Wikipedia says about 4% of the population. (I’m not from NZ)
If you’re so inclined, and have Disney+, you can watch Moana in Maori - look under “Extras” for the alternate version. Pretty cool.
…that would probably be about right (if we are talking about fluent in both languages.) But almost everyone knows some Māori, Kia ora is almost ubiquitous as a greeting, other words like whanau, Aotearoa, Harae mai, Harae mai, Kei te pai, are often used interchangeably with their english counterpart.
Today’s update: only 3 new case, and the great news is that only 1 case is linked to the new cluster, the other cases were identified in managed isolation.
Nine people are in hospital, 3 in intensive care. Testing on Saturday was only 7000 though, down significantly from the surge earlier in the week. But the surge resulted in over 180 thousand tests. Phew.
I feel like politicians ought to understand the science, but also understand the needs and concerns of businesses, when they make a decision like this.
Today’s briefing is especially good as the Prime Minister goes in depth to how the contact tracing has worked in Auckland, the difference between the cluster and the Maintenance Worker case, and Doctor Bloomfield reveals that he has been given a Tardis mask 
Testing on Saturday was only 7000 though, down significantly from the surge earlier in the week. But the surge resulted in over 180 thousand tests. Phew.