Today was an interesting day. After the having the end of the world as we know it on my mind for much of the week, and feeling like I had to personally bid modernity goodbye, I did wake rather positively this morning. I can't remember the exact hopes I had for the world but things seemed more in control. Then there was news of the inevitable sixth case, a traveller from America, showing it wasn't just Italians and Iranians "seeding" foreign countries with the virus. (Trump literally pointed the finger at Europe for seeding the virus in the States!) But then the blockbuster news rolled in: New Zealand will require all arrivals to self-isolate for 14 days. The implications of it took time to parse. All the international sporting competitions suddenly hit a very hard wall. An overseas based Kiwi friends quick visit home was nixxed. I had thoughts of my students who were due to land after midnight Sunday but who will now not be able to start class; thoughts of our potential students who were due to depart but now might be left in the lurch. But the really unconsciously from behind the fluster of thoughts, there was relief. There needed to be some change to the status quo that left the country in a brace position. And it was good to see the Prime Minister speak in the language of flattening the curve.
To be clear it's a policy that will be reviewed in 16 days. Even though this is going to be a pain for our company short term, I can see some good things even commercially. Currently we are the only English speaking major country without wild community spread. For all schools of New Zealand, we could be the safest haven from this scourge.
16 days is a long time. Just a little peek back to 27 February, 16 days ago, Italy had but 12 deaths. Now it has 1266 deaths. In fact even in those quaint days when it seemed so bad, it was just 53 people dead outside greater China. Now we're perched in the low 2000's. The world might have changed a lot at the end of this tunnel. Switzerland and the UK are on 11 fatalities - will they replicate Italy's carnage and be near 1200. The US has just crept into the 50's. Will it play its outbreak like a microcosm of the world and also be in the 2000's.
We also aren't out of the woods. Because the door was essentially open to a huge number of outbreak countries with unfettered entry into New Zealand until tomorrow night, there could be further cases. There's been an astonishing absence of cases after the bans on Italy, Iran and South Korea stifled the rise. It's very plausible though that we'll have a few other American or European originating cases. Closer to home, with 8 deaths from a certainly inaccurate 64 cases, the Philippines could also have potentially given us a case. Australia also with its 199 confirmed cases represents a potential risk. More likely, and I'm thankful that it hasn't happened yet, there must be some virus in the community. It might be bouncing around a few healthy people, knocking them down for a moment, before they get well; but not before infecting another one or two. It's possible that we might have even had an unnoticed death, because it could have been the final nail in a lost cause, or two. When there is only testing with strong cases, as we're doing now, it's hard to know whether there is some community transmission or not.
16 days is a long time. If we do have some more challenging cases to contract trace and quarantine, it'll make for coronavirus's first real battlecries in NZ. There is no way NZ can keep itself 100% Corona-Free. In fact, it will need to let it in one step at a time almost in a controlled way to really "flatten the curve". The worst case scenario would be that we don't get it because our vulnerability will remain - the populace would have no immunity. Ideally we have pockets of people gain immunity so that for each outbreak the chances of the non-immune encountering an infected person are reduced. The more we get into that territory the less chance there is to everyone.
Covid-19 does present a rather unique global threat. I'm proud our country has so far been unscathed and also proud of the bravery to make the move today. Let the 30 March 2020 be an important milestone for the world and New Zealand. 16 days will reveal a lot.
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