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Since somebody asked about population of under 5s (on the theory that Pfizer will likely be approved for 5-11s), I checked Stats NZ, and as at 30 June 2021, they estimate that age group as 305,190 out of 5,106,300. The 5-11s are estimated as 462,850, so nearly 10% of the total population.
From that, currently around 85% are eligible to be vaccinated, and if we get 80% of that eligible group vaccinated, that still leaves 1.6 million unvaccinated, plus Delta does still affect the vaccinated, but hospitalisation rates are tiny (LA data suggests 1 in 100,000, which is neglible in NZ's population compared to numbers below).
Current estimates are that Delta spreads at R0=6, but even if we drop that to R Eff =2 to account for vaccinations and level 2 measures, that would infect most of the country in around 20-22 cycles (so 9-10 months). R Eff and spread is a bit of a red herring though - if R Eff is >1, everyone unvaccinated will get it eventually, and if R Eff is closer to 2 or higher, that eventually will be pretty quick other than perhaps in really rural areas.
If I'm lazy and run with 5% hospitalisation and 0.5% death rates in that whole 1.6 million unvaccinated, that would be 81,000 hospitalisations and 8,100 deaths, large numbers of whom would be under 12s. Note that I haven't adjusted for age or any other risk factors, so obviously as the model gets more sophisticated, the hospitalisation and death rates would change.
If vaccination rate of those 12 and over was 90%, that would decrease hospitalisation and deaths to around 61,000 and 6,100 respectively. 75% of same would be hospitalisation and deaths of 92,630 and 9,263 respectively.
Halve the hospitalisation and death rates, and/or spread those over two years, and it would still be a lot of hospitalisation and death, and they wouldn't necessarily be spread evenly - more likely to come in waves/clumps.
That's obviously an extremely simplified model, and a better model would adjust some groups upwards due to age and other comorbidities while adjusting the children down. Public health measures/restrictions would also be modelled in a range of scenarios, and so on. However, I think 7,000 is plausible in a low vaccination, low restriction environment. Obviously adjust either vaccinations and/or restrictions upwards, and number of hospitalisations and deaths will fall rapidly and spread out over time as well.
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@godder Two major flaws with your rough estimates, The first is the death rate in under 12s would be much closer to 0 than 0.5%, so those ~800k children are essentially doubling the deaths at 80% in your estimate.
The other is we're already at over 90% in the 65+ age group where the majority of the deaths would be. As there's unlikely to be much of an increase in the vaccination rate in this group, so the overall vaccination rate increasing is going to make a lot less of a difference.
If you correct for these, it goes to being ~2800 deaths at the current 75% vaccinated rate and ~2200 at 90% vaccinated. Still obviously a rough estimate though.
Also, the modelling with restrictions isn't really helpful unless the model also takes into account how long they'll need to stay in place. In general, the bigger the impact the restrictions have, the longer they'll need to stay in place. Over how long of a period of time would the cases causing those 7000 deaths need to be spread out to reduce them? If it's 10 years, then you're looking at at least 5 years of reasonably strong restrictions.
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I feel a TSF Covid scientific modelling group is forming ...
This is a very good article I read today. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/24/a-bit-of-a-mistery-why-england-covid-cases-are-going-down-despite-ease-of-restrictions
Case rates and hospitalizations are falling in England and the head of Spi-M (our government's scientific modelling group) admits this is unexpected. Hospitalization was expected to peak at a low estimate of 2000, but seems to have peaked at 800 and is falling now. No one seems to know why. Remember we have voluntary masking, no mandatory controls here.
According to Prof Graham Medley, chair of the Sage modelling subgroup, Spi-M, while infections and admissions have drifted down in the past couple of weeks, little has changed over the larger timeframe of the past 10 weeks. “This is unexpected,” he said. “There must be a balance between the increasing immunity from infection and vaccination, and the amount of contact, but how they exactly balance to keep R roughly at 1 is a bit of a mystery.”
Basically post-Vax is new territory for every country.
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@anonymous that comes under "extremely simplified" and adjustments based on age and other conditions (you have adjusted for age, but not comorbidities). Restrictions matter in that they extend how long it takes for the wave to roll through the system, but unless they reduce R Eff to below 1, almost everyone who is unvaccinated will still eventually get it.
That said, if there is a large wave, the health system would fail to cope, and the death rate would increase.
The
laughably simplistic spreadsheet with a few basic formulamodel also doesn't account for border restrictions. -
I wasn't going to post for a while but something happened in the last couple of days that really hit me.
I'm not a huge fan of people, which is why I wasn't going to post - I didn't want to verbally punch anyone on here when things are tough.
Then this happened.
One one my businesses is part of a group of over 70 stores over NZ. All privately owned. We are part of the 4 group included in AKL and we were locked down, no income, etc when the rest of the country was out and able to trade.
The rest of the country's stores started a "Jafa" fund (amusing in itself) and donated cash so we all received a huge gift basket and gift cards to take our staff out for dinner when we are allowed. I didn't need the cash, but the gesture from so many people around the country is just staggering and I have never been so touched about the kindness of others. Not something I am usually accustomed to as I am a prick. Karma is a bitch.
Just remarkable.
I might even lighten up on Cantabs (maybe). Some good people in this country.
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@snowy said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
I wasn't going to post for a while but something happened in the last couple of days that really hit me.
I'm not a huge fan of people, which is why I wasn't going to post - I didn't want to verbally punch anyone on here when things are tough.
Then this happened.
One one my businesses is part of a group of over 70 stores over NZ. All privately owned. We are part of the 4 group included in AKL and we were locked down, no income, etc when the rest of the country was out and able to trade.
The rest of the country's stores started a "Jafa" fund (amusing in itself) and donated cash so we all received a huge gift basket and gift cards to take our staff out for dinner when we are allowed. I didn't need the cash, but the gesture from so many people around the country is just staggering and I have never been so touched about the kindness of others. Not something I am usually accustomed to as I am a prick. Karma is a bitch.
Just remarkable.
I might even lighten up on Cantabs (maybe). Some good people in this country.
Sometimes when you need it most the goodness of the human spirit can surprise you. Sounds like a much needed morale boost
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@snowy was a big banner in the Southland - Canterbury game saying thank you to Auckland!
so while its easy for us to poke and laugh at Auckland, i think people generally do feel for you guys, given we hated our 2 weeks or so of L4 and you guys done 5!
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She has an article about how we are being held hostage by a small unvaccinated few. But it's paywalled and I'm not going to pay to read the Ferald
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John Key wades in
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/time-change-over-covid-approach-key
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@taniwharugby I had my 2nd jab on Friday. Compared to my first time in August, the vaccination centre was almost empty and I didn't have to wait at all. The few people that I saw while waiting post-injection were all younger compared to a room full of 65+ back in August. Hopefully that cohort has already had their 2nd injection.
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@snowy awesome bro, on the Cantab treatment that is 😉
Thanks for sharing the story. In what has been a crap situation, there’s been a lot of kindness and goodwill that has not had any fanfare or coverage, just because there are some decent folk out there that like helping.
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@canefan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
https://stuff.co.nz/opinion/300415938/miq-is-broken--why-do-so-few-kiwis-care?cid=app-iPhone
Jacinda speaks a lot about kindness, but she only seems to mean it when kindness means votes.
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@donsteppa said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@canefan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
https://stuff.co.nz/opinion/300415938/miq-is-broken--why-do-so-few-kiwis-care?cid=app-iPhone
Jacinda speaks a lot about kindness, but she only seems to mean it when kindness means votes.
Agree, although I think that's more because of realpolitik than any particular disbelief in kindness - if kindness will get you voted out and the other lot voted in with a specific mandate to undo your kindness, it's not much use. If NZers believed in kindness seriously, we'd have different welfare and corrections systems.
Coronavirus - New Zealand