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'Near extinction' of influenza in NZ as numbers drop due to lockdown
- collyw 6y agoRealistically the could eliminate influenza by staying isolated from the rest of the world, just like they did with covid. Would it be worth it?
- znpy 6y agoIf the alternative is a high risk of death then yes, I guess.
- slimed 6y agoWe have all lost our damn minds.
- fpgaminer 6y agoI mean, they could just mandate flu vaccine for everyone in or entering the country. I can see that being sufficient, without continuing the cumbersome isolation policies post-COVID.
- kennywinker 6y agoFlu vaccines are probably not effective enough, even if 100% of the population was vaccinated. Flu vaccines work, they just don't work perfectly. Many years you'd still get sick, the severity is just attenuated by the flu vaccine. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm > recent studies show that flu vaccination reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population during seasons when most circulating flu viruses are well-matched to the flu vaccine.
- smcl 6y agoThere's not one single "flu" - when you get a flu vaccination it's good for some particular strains which are (iirc) prevalent or particularly virulent at a given point when they're administered.
- softblush 6y agoIsolated from the rest of the world forever? Probably not worth it
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y agoUnfortunately influenza has animal reservoirs that COVID-19 does not seem to. It is unlikely we could permanently eliminate it. Maybe a few seasons of reduced numbers, but that's probably the best you could expect.
- wk_end 6y agoPossibly dumb question: since SARS-CoV-2 came from bats originally, are bats not an animal reservoir for it?
- Daniel_sk 6y agoThey are, they are also a reservoir of many other unknown diseases yet to come. But people don't get into close contact with bats as often (unfortunately this time it probably happened from the unsanitary Chinese wet markets).
- lippel82 6y agoIt did not come directly from bats to humans, there was another intermediate host species. We don't know which, pangolins possibly, or minks or some other species, probably in closer contact to humans than bats.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y agoRight. The other thing is that (as far as I know) there are no species in which sars-cov-2 is endemic. It may be that (besides humans) there had only ever been one other carrier of this particular virus. There are probably close relatives of sars-cov-2 that are common in bat species, but not necessarily the exact same strain.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 6y agoIt seems unlikely such isolation is going to be needed to eradicate influenza. A universal flu vaccine ("FLU-v") passed phase 1 and 2 clinical trials earlier this year [1] [2], and is moving on to phase 3 trials. [1] https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-universal-flu-vaccine-horizon.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-universal-flu-vaccine... [2] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=FLU-v&cntry=&state=&city=&dist= https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=FLU-v&cntr...
- dilyevsky 6y agoFlu jumps from animals (birds and pigs) frequently so you will have to do that all the time. Not worth it
- teruakohatu 6y agoThere was also a major push, more than usual, to get people to get the flu vaccination. People who didn't normally get it got it this year. Edit: I am not sure why I am being downvoted. I am a kiwi, flu vaccinations were very strongly encouraged this year.
- lostlogin 6y agoThis - and the government bought more doses than usual. It was a well run flu season.
- wenbert 6y agoEveryone did a good job. The government did a good job. The people did a good job. A lot of sacrifices in the right places. And just last night NZ time, we had the results of the elections. Current government won by a landslide. And surprisingly a Greens candidate won in Auckland Central. On mobile - but Chloe is just great for Auckland Central!
- kinow 6y agoAgree! Voted for her but thought one of the two big parties would get Auckland Central. Good surprise!
- c0nsilience 6y agoI agree that they did a good job, but I get tired of seeing others comparing NZ to other countries who didn't do so well--countries whose populations are 500-1000x bigger than NZ.
- _Microft 6y agoNew Zealand has 5 million inhabitants. That would mean these other countries would need to have billions of people (2.5-5B people). I suspect you just missed a decimal when looking up the number. Being an island and having a government that doesn't openly reject science certainly helps but they still needed to actually get it done. Which they did. Now they are in the comfortable situation that they can quarantine visitors and sit tight until there is a long term solution. Meanwhile their economy can function pretty normally.
- bacon_waffle 6y agoWhat scales such that the NZ approach would not work for a larger population?
- andrewinardeer 6y agoCo-operation
- odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
- Tipewryter 6y agoHow about we build a village somewhere in NZ or elsewhere with very strict rules for every new person who arrives. Like bringing a negative test and self isolating for 14 days. Then slowly grow this village this way and celebrate life without masks and social distancing. Of course, there would be a Covid outbreak at some point in time. Would that be the end of paradise or might there be a way to get back to zero infections? 14 days of full isolation of a whole village seems like something that might be possible. What do the digital nomads among you think about this?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Procrastes 6y agoTo celebrate, there should probably be some sort of dance or ball. It's coming up on Halloween; it could be a masquerade[1]! What could go wrong? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bradlys 6y agoHaving to hole up for 2 weeks after you go anywhere outside the village is a high cost. Unless all your friends and family move into this village, the gains are pretty low...
- lostlogin 6y agoThe gains seem pretty good from here on the inside. Overseas travel is possible, but no thank you. Domestic travel is up among many people I know and there are nice places to go.
- bradlys 6y agoRight but all your friends and family likely live in the village. That's my point. Reframe it to literally moving to a village of 1,000 people that are all random folks. You wouldn't move to that village unless you were a loner.
- Mc91 6y agoOutside of the quarantine zone, New Zealand hasn't had a new case of Covid in three weeks. Every detected case in NZ in the past three weeks has been from people getting off planes, going into quarantine, and testing positive. Also, outside the quarantine zone, no one in New Zealand is in the hospital with Covid.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoI guess I have a hard time understanding this strategy outside of an expectation of a viable, long-term vaccine. Aren’t you simply just trying to wait it out? It’s not like the virus is going to give up after a few years. A slowly building immunity among the lowest risk group seems like a better long term strategy, and put the old and at risk people into something like New Zealand.
- ravedave5 6y agoYou wait till there's a good vaccine, then get everyone vaccinated and reopen.
- higeorge13 6y agoThis seems like a long bet. What if we never find a proper vaccine?
- electriclove 6y agoExactly! What happens then?
- lostlogin 6y agoWe carry on as normal, like we are. We have to quarantine for 2 weeks when coming into the country, that is the price. Are you under the impression that something more onerous is happening?
- 6y ago
- russellbeattie 6y agoCan NZ produce enough food for its population? If so, that definitely seems like the right place to be in case of the apocalypse. Beautiful land, gorgeous ocean, intelligent populace, and far, far away from everyone else.
- tshaddox 6y agoIf you find yourself in the only place able to grow food you better be able to defend yourself as well.
- 8note 6y agoBeing really far away from everything else makes that a bunch easier
- kzrdude 6y agoWith its climate and low population density, it should be able to do that quite handily.
- jointpdf 6y agoThere are ~6 sheep per person in NZ and lots of wine, so I’m gonna go with yes. Also, there’s the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival in NZ (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokitika_Wildfoods_Festival https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokitika_Wildfoods_Festival), where everyone dresses up in costumes and voluntarily eats foods that one might resort to during an apocalypse. Highly recommended.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kinow 6y agoIt has good amount of meat/fish, exporting a lot now. But fruits and veggies are harder due to weather (but still possible with green houses, hydro, etc, tho to a smaller scale). It still needs corn, wheat, soy, etc to be imported.
- easytiger 6y agoAnd all it took was the almost complete destruction of society and our way of life. #worthit Edit: I see this has been flagged with no counterpoint. Congratulations on stifling any attempt at reasonable discussion. Bravo
- kennywinker 6y agoAs someone not in NZ, I gotta say, the half-destruction of my way of life for the foreseeable future seems way worse than total destruction for a short period.
- easytiger 6y ago> the half-destruction of my way of life for the foreseeable future seems way worse than total destruction for a short period. That makes zero sense. Is the plan for NZ to remain a prison island forever?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sharken 6y agoIt has a chance to work for islands, but not anywhere else except maybe North Korea. During the last few months it has been about how to manage, while waiting for the vaccine. That plan seems to require the half-destruction of many people’s lives unfortunately.
- throwaheyy 6y agoNo. The virus doesn’t travel over land, it travels via human hosts. Any country could eliminate it, island or not, by closing its borders to international passenger travel.
- kennywinker 6y agoWhile in theory true, in practice borders are not 100% effective. Locking the doors encourages people to climb through the windows, even islands can be entered by boat. Opening the borders with a strict two week quarantine enforcement seems like the only sane way to proceed (as NZ has done)
- air7 6y agoI honestly dont understand their strategy. These "wins" are only sustainable if they never open their borders. And once they do, covid and influenza will come back. Only option I can see is to maintain isolation until a vaccine is available but that could be a long way away.
- varjag 6y agoA domestic economy undisrupted by COVID appears to be a larger upside than unrestricted international travel.
- tshaddox 6y agoThat should be pretty clear, given that the choices are between 1) no tourism economy or domestic economy and 2) no tourism economy.
- lostlogin 6y agoI’m surprised I haven’t seen it phrased this way before, it’s very accurate. The long version could add in the damage to things like cafes, restaurants etc with Covid. Dark times.
- gHosts 6y agoActually, reality has fine print.... Instead of overseas visitors spending in NZ and rich NZ'ers spending their tourist dollars overseas .... the richer NZ'ers are spending locally. Turns out not as different as the doomsayers predicted.
- bbarn 6y agoI'm so sick of seeing New Zealand get praise for it's response. Just like Iceland, it's a tiny ass island, and yes - if you close your borders, don't produce or import anything globally, of course you'll knock it out. Then you open up again (just like we did here in Iceland) and boom, covid skyrockets again. It's not magic, it's just hiding in a cave.
- bbarn 6y agoNew Zealand is a tiny island with an authoritative government with a history for banning anything they don´t like and completely shut down the country. I'm still not sure why everyone praises this nation for it's response - they implemented extreme measures on the people and closed the doors - that's not innovative, it's just fear on a massive scale.
- tshaddox 6y agoI’m not sure why some people conflate pandemic devastation with freedom.
- eganist 6y agoand yet less people died. And those who lived are enjoying a higher quality of life. Also, you need citations for everything in the first sentence.
- cle 6y agoIs fear bad a priori? I don’t think so, this is an unprecedentedly dangerous virus, I think if you’re not at least a little scared then you’re delusional. Dismissing action as motivated by fear is ridiculous, we should be scared of dangerous things and let that fear motivate us to take rational action.
- throwaway894345 6y agoOh come now, we can exercise and advocate for caution and good sense without pretending that this virus is more dangerous than polio or measles or the 1918 flu or any of the markedly more severe viruses.
- cle 6y agoWhy should I care? How should the accuracy of qualitative comparisons of this with past pandemics affect our decision making? If this isn’t as bad as the Spanish flu, how should that change our response to the current pandemic?
- vajrabum 6y agoSome folks think NZ is paying a price for this but it appears to be a lot cheaper than the price the US is and has been paying, certainly in lives but also economically. Here is the relative performance of the US and NZ in 2020 according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the US Commerce Department and Stats New Zealand. We're paying a price both in US lives and worse economic performance for the current US policy. US 2020 Q1 -5% Q2 -34.3% NZ 2020 Q1 -1.4 Q2 -12.2% https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/gross-domestic-product-gdp https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/gross-domestic-product-... https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/gdp2q20_adv.pdf https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-07/gdp2q20_adv....
- IanCal 6y agoI think may are comparing annualised figures for the US and quarterly figures for NZ. Annual growth in NZ was consistently higher than the quarterly change in the past (which couldn't be the case for annualized figures).
- LudwigNagasena 6y agoNZ is an island with a population of a small metro area. Comparing the US to NZ makes no sense.
- c0nsilience 6y agoI agree. NZ isn't very well traveled compared to the U.S. or most of western Europe. And NZ's population is like 1/20th of Los Angeles County. It's not surprising that the little island handled the virus so well--it'd be more surprising if they didn't.
- nanna 6y agoAllow me to be the one who posts an obligatory xkcd reference: https://xkcd.com/2306/ https://xkcd.com/2306/
- birdsbirdsbirds 6y agoCould it be like sparrows in China? Killing the common cold could have unknown consequences. Having no germs in childhood increases the risk for allergies. Maybe something similar happens with the cold?
- hankchinaski 6y agosame goes for taiwan. its not news that relatively small islands with restrictive and defensive covid policies got this right.
- galimaufry 6y agoI'm kind of surprised that being an island would help, actually. Is international travel into prosperous islands really less than into equally prosperous contintental countries? Most long-distance travel is by air anyway.
- iso947 6y agoVery few people pass through NZ, it’s not like london or singapore or whatever. NZ doesn’t rely on cross border lorry drivers either, and is far enough away that any boats are quarantined
- luckylion 6y ago> Most long-distance travel is by air anyway. You can't land just anywhere on an island, but you can take lots of roads into large countries on a continent. Islands have much more control over arrivals than landlocked countries with lots of neighbors and very integrated road & train networks.
- odshoifsdhfs 6y agoNew Zealand total passengers (all airports) per year is less than just JFK per year (59M JFK vs 43M all of NZ give or take)
- 317070 6y agoTrucking goods over land will spread a lot more covid than shipping over sea (with seamen no longer allowed to leave ship). That is the big factor I reckon. So islands will ship everything already, whereas most land-countries move a lot of goods with trucking, and spread the disease that way, even when land-borders are closed. International travel can be closed off with little repercussion.
- 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
- mysterypie 6y ago> Lockdown measures had not managed to stop ordinary colds and respiratory illnesses, such as rhinoviruses - which had dropped slightly during lockdown but bounced back soon after. "A lot does come down to their reservoirs and some are so well-adapted for humans and they're so widespread in the population that they are not affected a great deal by the lockdown." Can anyone explain why colds have not come down as well? I don't understand what they mean by reservoirs. As a related question, I've read that we all have cold viruses inside of us all the time, and they can be triggered by an immune weakness (such as by being in the cold outside). I've also read that you get a cold only because the virus is transmitted to you from someone else (which is more likely in the cold months when we're huddled together). Which is it? Can you develop a cold from a pre-existing internal virus with zero contact from another person?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- saboot 6y agoI believe reservoirs refer to animals that can also carry the cold or virus but are not affected by government measures
- dmead 6y agoThank you. Would you like to tell me more about the role of government?
- wenbert 6y agoI'm no expert but NZ houses suck. Little to no insulation. Some air can go in gaps between doors and windows, etc. Central heating is non-existant. Old stock. Mouldy. Damp. During winter some landlords tell their tenants to open windows to air the house out. That might be it?
- thechao 6y agoColds are spread by a virus, not by air conditioning, or the lack of it.
- just-juan-post 6y agoOn the subject of the effectiveness of lockdowns I would suggest taking some time to read this well researched, cited, and sourced article about China's influence with regard to lockdowns and Covid 19 China’s Global Lockdown Propaganda Campaign https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/china-covid-lockdown-propaganda https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/china-covid... A couple quotes from the middle of the article: > In March, Chinese state media began describing the strategy of “herd immunity”—allowing the coronavirus to spread among the young and healthy—as a violation of “human rights,” an Orwellian formulation given that lockdowns are essentially a blanket suspension of rights. > Initially, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also opted for herd immunity. But on March 13, suspicious accounts began storming his Twitter feed and likening his plan to genocide. This language almost never appears in Johnson’s feed before March 12, and several of the accounts were hardly active before then. Britain locked down on March 23.
- gojomo 6y agoNote, though: circulating cold & flu viruses serve to "boost" prior immunity via new mild/asymptomatic cases each year. Without these, immunities are decaying. So it's possible that when more normal interchange with the rest of the world resumes, NZ (and others) will have some "very bad" traditional cold/flu seasons. (It may feel like Covid, but not be.)
- orwin 6y ago> Note, though: circulating cold & flu viruses serve to "boost" prior immunity via new mild/asymptomatic cases each year. Without these, immunities are decaying. No, not really. I understand where you're comming from but this is a myth, that even some generalists doctor contribute to. Yes the immune system can "register" a new pathogen and how to produce antibodies for them, but honestly we have vaccine for (almost) every sickness that can put a non-immunodepressed down if the immune response is too late, and adequate serums and care when a vaccine isn't available. But your immune system do not "decay" if not stimulated. At all, and it might even be the opposite (the effect is within the error margin of the studies for now).
- xref 6y agoLots wrong here: > we have vaccine for (almost) every sickness that can put a non-immunodepressed down if the immune response is too late The 40-60% effectiveness of annual flu shots would beg to differ. And more often it is your immune response being wildly overreactive and attacking healthy cells that causes problems, not a “late response” > But your immune system do not "decay" if not stimulated. Sure it does, for one that’s the whole point of booster shots; your immune response to certain pathogens can decay over time (wether acquired from vaccine or naturally). Additionally the “Hygiene Hypothesis” suggests our world being so clean, and our immune systems not being challenged, has led to a large spike in allergies (like peanuts) as the body searches for anything to attack. https://www.vox.com/2014/11/6/7163713/peanut-allergy-symptoms https://www.vox.com/2014/11/6/7163713/peanut-allergy-symptom...
- gojomo 6y agoImmunity absolutely decays in many cases unless refreshed. For example, many vaccines require later booster shots. See also the strong evidence around a "boosting" effect from circulating chickenpox cases. Namely, that the availability of the chickenpox vaccine, by reducing the amount of environmentally-circulating chickenpox virus, is now preventing natural reinforcement of adults' immunity via asymptomatic encounters, and thus leading to more (painful, symptomatic) cases of shingles, especially among people in their 30s/40s: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150811103555.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150811103555.h... https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2020/adult-exposure-chickenpox-linked-lower-risk-shingles-does-not-provide-full https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2020/adult-exposure-... https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/shingles/news/20180904/shingles-on-the-rise-among-younger-people https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/shingles/...
- dpc_pw 6y agoPeople chearleading lockdowns here, are completely misguided. There's really no evidence that it were masks or lockdowns. (There's really no evidence that mask and/or lockdowns do absolutely anything to COVID or flu, now or in the past, BTW). It's more likely that COVID just out-competed the normal flu. https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1317186379483406337 https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1317186379483406337
- duskwuff 6y ago> It's more likely that COVID just out-competed the normal flu. "Out-competing" another disease requires them to both be present in the population they're competing over. This was never really the case for COVID-19 in New Zealand -- the country went for months with no identified cases of community transmission.
- dpc_pw 6y agoThanks. OK. That might be different. If they did already have a very low presence, then they might have just suppressed it and border controls and low traffic prevented seeding new cases from abroad. Elsewhere in the world we're seeing similar 98% drop in flu cases, starting even before the preventing measures. Seriously, the discussion in comments in https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1317246961255370752 https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1317246961255370752 is really good, no matter the ones particular viewpoints.
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoA lot to learn from NZ. A similar success story is the Atlantic provinces of Canada (everything east of Quebec), which have done exceptionally well. Decisive action taken early to avoid excessive sacrifices later. And a population that was on board with that decisive action. Many lessons in leadership to learn here. Here in central Canada I just keep watching the government and populace respond to things two to three weeks late, and half-assedly. Schools were shut down decisively in early March but it took almost two weeks after that to close obvious things like _shopping malls_ and _gyms_. No mask mandates in most cities until August. And apparently we learned nothing from the spring because the second wave is leading to the same inept and slow inaction. 70+ cases alone linked to one gym (a spin studio) near me but that region is still allowed to have gyms (with maskless participants!!) open.
- zaroth 6y agoThis is not unique to NZ. > 98%. > What if I told you that confirmed flu surveillance across the world has dropped year over year by 98% since April? > This is the deep dive story with data, graphs and charts showing how the world's most consistent nemesis has (almost) completely vanished. https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1317186379483406337?s=21 https://twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1317186379483406337?s=21
- taxicab 6y agoIt is a little disappointing to see this post get so quickly flagged off of the front page when there is another COVID-19 post that better fits preconceived notions still there that is seven times as old and has one third of the votes. It makes having a well balanced discussion of the news difficult when articles that offend some political sensibilities have such a high barrier to entry in terms of how much they get flagged that they have no chance to survive in the first 50 posts (COVID related or otherwise).
- lostlogin 6y agoJust now it was announced that there is a new border case of covid that is awfully close to being a community case. Hopefully it is contained. Edit: it is classified as community. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428619/watch-live-ashley-bloomfield-provides-latest-covid-19-update https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428619/watch-live-ashley...
- nextweek2 6y agoWhat I'm curious about is other illnesses which would also die out due to the lock downs. Surely sexually transmitted infections have fallen off a cliff?