prp343

If a test identified correctly x% of all cases what would x need to be in your opinion for it to be a valid strategy?

nzkarit

NZ is working towards a zero tolerance outside of border isolation and quarantine, so I don't see that working. If the goal is keeping out most imported cases it would work.

There are plans to add the Pacific to our bubble and they are even more risk adverse due to their health infrastructure. So given that risk profile we have to been along those lines as well.

Also getting the stats to back the percentage up, will be ethically hard. Would be hard to get ethics approval to expose a group of people to SARS-CoV-2 then perform a test every X hours to see how long between exposure and detectable tests. Then also test at different exposure levels and track that over time. Currently it seems to be days between exposure and tests returning positive. (Going from household close contacts will often test negative when the index case is symptomatic and has tested positive and those household close contacts will later test positive).

prp343

That seems overly stringent.

I think opening to other countries would be more worthwhile than the Pacific if one precluded the other.

Deliberately exposing people definitely seems untenable, in most countries at least. There is so much testing and so many studies done around the world that there should be some reasonable statistically accurate inferences drawn from naturally occurring cases. The NBA for example is thinking that three days should be long enough for detection to be accurate enough after one player tests positive to be confident that others are negative.

nzkarit

Opening to the Pacific is multi faceted. Sending them tourists will help them get up and going, with less need for foreign aid e.g. yesterday's budget included an increase in foreign aid. Geopolitically NZ and Aussie want to be seen as the strong player in the region with the islands' backs and not ceed influence to China.

What sports are doing I would be careful to read too much, as they will be putting in other controls in place. Like having some type of team bubble and minimising contact with others. That is also three days from a positive test but the other team mates would have been exposed daily to that person in the infectious period before the test so they themselves may be nearer a week+ from initial exposure by that point.

SeaProf

Yes, I am aware of that. My response was based on the original post which said: "By regular I mean, we won't be going through 2 weeks of quarantine etc when we arrive back in country. Back to 90% normality of travel." I don't see that happening for a very long time for flights from the USA to NZ. And for people like me who live in the USA and who do not hold a NZ passport, there simply is no realistic possibility of flying NZ1/2 between AKL-LAX in the foreseeable future.

jawnbc

That's not quite accurate
The PCR test tends to give more false negatives and almost zero false positives. The main reason is how difficult it is to get virus from the swaps if a person's infection is relatively mild. Anti-body testing will usually give more false positives than negatives--which is why for things like HIV an ostensive antibody test is followed up to see if there's an actual active HIV infection.

This is why the NZ stats are for confirmed and probably cases. Someone exposed with the symptom profile might test negative and still have COVID.

kiwifrequentflyer

Is your travel for family or business? How have you managed post covid-19. When you could resume travel, do you think you will at the same rate as before?

prp343

A lot of the probables were for people that were not even tested but just diagnosed with it.

SeaProf

Historically, my travel to DUD and MEL has been for work, but my travel to RAR and LHR has been for pleasure. I have every intent to resume travel as much as I did before, but time will tell. Quite frankly, I'm getting more and more disheartened at the thought of being stuck here in the USA without the chance to get away on a regular basis.

kiwifrequentflyer

I am very glad we got the virus under control because mg parents are older and they are the most important thing.

But I am sad that, as I am "trapped" in New Zealand, we don't have the same variety as the USA. You have such a huge variety of cultures and entertainment options. So your domestic travel can be extremely varied. Here, it's mostly pretty similar, even if it is beautiful.

cavemanzk

At least the ‘Tasman Bubble’ is starting to look like an more positive that will happen in the next couple of of months time.

There is only some many things / places you can go in New Zealand. With Jetstar not currently flying we’re stuck with NZ running the show.....

I would expect the Tasman demand is going to be massive once the Tasman reopens. Hopefully will get the 787s some passenger work.

Silver Fox

I think the lack of variety (but that "lack" is why I love it so much) is one of the things that helped you not be so badly hit. Most of the touristy stuff is all outdoorsy stuff so you didn't really have the incubators called cities/museums/concerts to the extent, or scale, that a lot of other countries/cities had.

I just want to clarify that this is most definitely not a criticism because even before this meltdown existed, we visited family almost every year and I/we loved every single minute of it (well apart from Queenstown over New Year, too many people for me! ) but the space you all have, and the lack of melting pots really helped. Plus JA had the advantage of watching countries making mistake after mistake and could avoid going down many of those routes. It's definitely going to be interesting to see what the exit strategy is as it relates to tourism. I know it is a large part of the economy in many ways and every country has tough decisions ahead.

H99

Logically its when a vaccine is available and can be rolled out to the NZ population. There is a a massive international effort underway with over 100 in development and Trump making it clear the funds and resources available are unlimited, with manufacturing on mass of multiple candidates so that the right one is ready to go as and when it works. But when could that be rolled out accross NZ - at least a year from now absolute best, and that's if all goes really well.

But what does NZ do if there isn't a vaccine next year or the year after that? The global population slowly gets infected, but NZ is untouched. Maybe testing becomes super accurate, or some sort of immunity passport, or therapeutic treatment.

Personally, I think a viable vaccine and excellent treatments will be available this year. Or the virus might fizzle as some suspect now that it has infected the most vulnerable.

kiwifrequentflyer

I think it would be extraordinarily unlikely that there wouldn't be a vaccine of some form of treatment, so New Zealand is banking on "eliminating" the virus now, so we can return to 90% normal, then wait it out, rather than get the virus and have if disrupt local commerce businesses due to everyone being afraid of going outside.

It's true it isn't guaranteed but given how many resources are being poured into it, I would be betting on it rather than not.

By betting on it, our domestic market is relatively back to normal. These past two days have been honestly almost back to normal from what I have seen. Obviously it's now modified and some stuff is a no go (large events) but it mostly feels normal now that we are in level 2. And we got to this stage super quick due to the "elimination" strategy.

Another country would be in the same position as us, but on a much bigger scale: China. Its barely gone through their population of 1 Billion!

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jawnbc

You retiring? YYJ, where Canada goes to die.