COVID-19 NZ: Do it Once, Do it Right! Extend L4 Lockdown for at least an extra week!

Stay in Level 4

So much pain with no gain
My brain may grow insane
What a bloody cockup
Maintain L4 lockup
Do not drain me again

Alan Grace
16 April 2020

We need to extend Level four (L4) Lockdown for at least an extra week (initially) because:

1. The four weeks in L4 Lockdown will be wasted if we get too many more cases and have to go to L4 again.
2. The cases appearing currently were infected an average of 6 days ago and more will appear for at least a week.
3. We still have 16 clusters (groups with at least 10 cases)- far too many!
4. We now have nine times as many deaths as we had a week ago.
5. We still have more cases each day now than we had a couple of days before lockdown on 25 March (compare the left and the right ends of the bar chart below).
6. It took a long time for the curve to flatten (over two weeks).
7. The cases almost became exponential  around 2-4 April (no longer quasi-linear) and we do not this to happen in the future.
8. Up to 50% of cases may be asymptomatic (people may be infected and infectious and not showing any symptoms).
9. The tail of the curve may continue for a long time (China continues to have cases a month after the curve started to have low numbers again and case numbers are increasing- still 46 new cases today).
10. It was announced this week that maybe 10% of close contacts of infected people may not have been tracked. While this percentage seems low to me, it means that the source of infection may not be identified quickly enough to reduce spread of COVID-19 particularly below Level 4.
11. COVID-19 is not beaten yet in NZ. Look at the basket cases overseas to see what may happen if we leave Level 4 too early.
12. The increased risk of infection and spread if we move to Level  3 too early is not justified yet. Also increasing the size of your Bubble presently is very risky. See:
    https://aaamazingphoenix.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/covid-19-what-is-the-risk-of-extending-your-bubble-stay-in-your-own-bubble/

Here are the current graphs for New Zealand:

My other COVID-19 posts can be found here:
https://aaamazingphoenix.wordpress.com/tag/coronavirus/

Data for my posts can be found at:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_New_Zealand

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https://guestdailyposts.wordpress.com/guest-pingbacks/