this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Aotearoa Daily Kōrero 13/12/2023 (self.newzealand)
submitted 11 months ago by Dave to c/newzealand
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Welcome to today’s daily kōrero!

Anyone can make the thread, first in first served. If you are here on a day and there’s no daily thread, feel free to create it!

Anyway, it’s just a chance to talk about your day, what you have planned, what you have done, etc.

So, how’s it going?

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[–] absGeekNZ 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think that the time delay between infection and symptoms/death is what would drive the most decisions.

If the time delay between infection and death is short ~1 week; then the lockdown/internment scenario is likely. If however the time delay is long ~3 months or so, then we would be looking at different outcome and the time delay would complicate things hugely, but give us time to react.

The rate of transmission would weigh heavily on decisions also. If we assume a high transmission rate (R0 > 2) with a short time between infection and infectiousness; there would be little we could do to slow the transmission.

As for the appetite for lockdown; if 1 in 6 people were dying; the bodies would quickly pile up and something would break. With the eventual death toll of 830k - 930k just in NZ; society would fracture quite quickly. We couldn't handle that kind of volume; mass graves would be needed.

[–] Dave 4 points 11 months ago

Yeah you make some good points. It it was as contagious as COVID but killed 16-18% then that's probably going to be tough for any government to ignore.

It would also depend on how long people stayed infectious. If there wasn't this separation of handedness, I'd point out that a disease with a kill rate of 16-18% would not spread well (assuming a short period until death). Viruses that kill too fast have trouble spreading. Adding in the relatively large group of people that spread without dying means the virus can spread dispite the high kill rate, so that addition changes this from a localised concern for the country of origin to a worldwide disaster!