Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand/Archive 1

Archive 1

WikiProject COVID-19

I've created WikiProject COVID-19 as a temporary or permanent WikiProject and invite editors to use this space for discussing ways to improve coverage of the ongoing 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Please bring your ideas to the project/talk page. Stay safe, --Another Believer _(Talk) 17:57, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Xenophobia

In reference to "There has been an increase in xenophobia towards Asians.[52]". The reference doesn't actually claim that there has been an increase in xenophobia but the outbreak has highlighted NZ's existing xenophobia. It also uses circumstantial evidence that could easily be gathered about basically any racial group in any country at any time.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koanarec (talk • contribs) 17:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I deleted it (before I saw the comment above) as the ref is only an opinion piece anyway. Nurg (talk) 23:23, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Good call, Nurg. Schwede66 02:36, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Geographic Regions

The Ministry of Health regards Nelson, Tasman, and Marlborough as one region - not three as per the map Andy42W (talk) 19:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

This may have lead to an error! [1] refers to a patient in Marlborough's Wairau Hospital, although the map shows no cases yet in Marlborough. --Toothpickdog (talk) 05:41, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

No search or home page?

Why does " coronavirus NZ" and "Conavirus New Zealand" not come up in search "No page with this title.

Search within pages to see if this phrase appears anywhere"

Or the home page. Every other country is there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DaveNZ2020 (talk • contribs) 06:36, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Not sure whether you're on a desktop or mobile, but when I tried searching for "Coronavirus New Zealand" (note the correct spelling), 2020 coronavirus pandemic in New Zealand was given as a suggested search result. (Even though there is no article with the exact title "Coronavirus New Zealand"). Similarly, a search for "Coronavirus Australia" brings up a suggestion of 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Australia. Muzilon (talk) 08:02, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 March 2020

Covid-19 is likely to have originated in a wet market. In a wet market live animals are slaughtered and sold for consumption. The wet markets came about to inhibit starvation of millions of people under communist rule. In the wet markets, of which there are many in the world, cages are stacked one above the other. Animals in the lower cages are often soaked in bodily fluids excreted from animals above them. That is how viruses can jump from one animal to another. If the animal is slaughtered and sold for consumption the virus has an evolutionary opportunity to jump the species barrier. Animal rights advocated oppose such practices. Many viruses that affect humans have their evolutionary origins in animals. Influenza comes from birds and pigs. HIV/AIDS from chimpanzees. Ebola likely came from bats. There is some evidence Covid-19 came from a bat via a pangolin before infecting a human. R A Curtis BSc (BioSc) (talk) 09:04, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

All very interesting, but I think that sort of information really belongs in the current Wikpedia article about the virus itself, not in this article, which focuses on the impact of the virus in NZ. Muzilon (talk) 09:13, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

@R A Curtis BSc (BioSc): You should reply here, not on my personal Talk page where almost nobody will see what you've written. Muzilon (talk) 09:54, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Any suggested additional content must have references. Without references, the content won’t be added. Schwede66 15:04, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: per above. — MRD2014 (talk) 17:16, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Breakdown of responses by sector

Would it be worthwhile to provide sub-headings and breakdown responses by sector ? I could make a start on this if it is a good idea, and perhaps add more content about Financial/Economic support announcements - as these are extraordinary in their scale and scope. Marshelec (talk) 20:16, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Statistics

In the Statistics section, the numbers of confirmed cases in Otago and Southland are incorrect. There are actually 11 confirmed cases in Otago and 3 in Southland. https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-cases — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.75.148.3 (talk) 11:38, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

The map is wrong

Hi, the NZ map borders are just wrong, Im unsure on what its even showing. There is a region map, which should be used instead — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graveyjones5 (talk • contribs) 00:00, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

The base map was made pre-2009 and using the incorrect regional boundaries as they appeared in Google Maps at the time. An SVG version of the base map using the correct boundaries hasn't been made yet. Lcmortensen (mailbox) 09:17, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Why is Stewart island coloured? There are nil cases on Stewart Island and it should be left blank or else it will negatively impact on domestic tourism to the island in the long term. --Asteriornis maastrichtensis (talk) 03:15, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Because Stewart Island is part Of Southland and the stats are shown at Regional level. It isn't going to deter many tourists since currently there are very few of them left in NZ and, in the longer term, everywhere will have had cases of COVId-19, including, probably, Stuart Island.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   03:19, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 March 2020

The entry for today's number of virus patients has been written incorrectly as 386, should be 368. SpudDDW (talk) 00:41, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

 Already done Goldsztajn (talk) 13:10, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Map?

Hi there, I have made a map of cases by District Health Board, should I add this to the page, The information is given by the MoH, unlike the data for regions, this means it can be updated accurately. Graveyjones5 (talk) 11:09, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

If you upload and link to the map we'd be better able to comment on it. Fanx (talk) 20:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Two graphs of same information

The bar graph {{2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/New Zealand medical cases chart‎}} and line graph seem to portray the same information. Am I missing something? Is there a purpose to having both of them? It makes the article a bit bloated to me. Adabow (talk) 03:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The bar graph could be moved to the top of the article? That seems to be what is being done with some other articles, e.g. Canada, Japan. Air55 (talk) 12:25, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Line-graph labelled incorrectly

Thanks to those providing such detailed and current data.

The line-graph "Progression of COVID-19 cases in New Zealand:[172]" displays "Number of Confirmed and Probable Cases", but it is labeled as "Active Cases". Active Cases refers (here and on other sites) to Total-Recoveries-Deaths. Both cumulative total and active cases are a useful indicator of progress.--HamishK NZ (talk) 04:37, 31 March 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by HamishK NZ (talk • contribs) 02:32, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Statistics section - recoveries

The statistics section is keeping daily track of the number of cases, but it's a real fight through the text to find the numbers of recoveries per day. Shouldn't that also be summarised in the statistics section? Grutness...wha? 03:47, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I will try to add a daily change in recoveries to the timeline.  Nixinova   T   C   22:01, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Tx. Grutness...wha? 02:33, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Scaling of COVID-19 cases in New Zealand chart: undesirable Horizontal scroll bar now exists

{{2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/New Zealand medical cases chart‎}} i.e. The COVID-19 cases in New Zealand chart now has a horizontal scroll bar. This seems undesirable for the readability of such an important chart e.g. individual bars are overflowing. Can the scaling or graph width be changed to fix this? Qatagorical (talk) 21:35, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

The tag factor= was deprecated in favour of divisor=, and removed from the parent template, which broke all old versions that had been using factor=. New templates work as intended now, historical ones don't ... sometimes Wiki-edits are not rational. Fanx (talk) 03:35, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 April 2020

Change spelling of Aluminuim to Aluminium to correct it 121.75.123.234 (talk) 04:27, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done, thanks.-gadfium 04:37, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Analysis to augment Statistics section or a new Analysis section

A few of us have been working hard to utilise the data from Ministry of Health and John Hopkins, to offer a number of fresh perspectives, differnt ways of visualising the data, and in some cases interactive analysis of it.

You can vie the reports here: https://pinginsights.nz/covid-19-cases-in-new-zealand/ There are currently 7 pages of reports, all navigatable from the menu at the top of the page. Best interaction is via desktop computer and by using the full screen option under the diagonal arrow in the bottom right corner of any page.

Please contact me if you would like to insert thiis as an embedded resource. jmsinnz (talk) 03:21, 6 April 2020 (UTC) James Samuel james@pinginsights.nz 021 252 0653 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmsinnz (talk • contribs) 03:20, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Graph in statistics

The graph shows probable cases and confirmed cases together for the 24 March. Previous days don't take into account probable cases. 24 March should be 142 instead of 155 to keep consistency with previous days. Add a new key to the graph for probable cases. Lord A.Nelson (talk) 23:57, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

The trouble is that there hasn't been clear reporting breaking the numbers down into confirmed and probable cases. I'm not against separating the data into two keys, but is the data out there? The latest MoH release says a total of 205 cases, 22 of whom have recovered and 16 of which are probable. Have any of the probable cases also recovered? Adabow (talk) 01:12, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

There were a couple of probable cases in NZ early on, but they couldn't be tested because they'd already recovered. Can't remember where I read that though.-gadfium 01:33, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Ministry of Health only started releasing probable cases data on 24 March so it only shows up in our data from then. Fanx (talk) 19:56, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing that up. I can see where you are coming from, but MOH has the confirmed and probable cases listed on the website. Is that legitimate enough though? Lord A.Nelson (talk) 05:46, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

How about using a logarithmic scale? One might then have a chance to observe whether the infection/etc. rates are accelerating/decelerating/remaining about the same. And, who knows, perhaps this could be correlated to health actions. Here is a scheme via Octave. MatLab users will need to replace " by '.

t = datenum(["28/2/2020";"29/2/2020";"1/3/2020";"2/3/2020";"3/3/2020";"4/3/2020";"5/3/2020";"6/3/2020";"7/3/2020";"8/3/2020";"9/3/2020";"10/3/2020";"11/3/2020";"12/3/2020";"13/3/2020";"14/3/2020";"15/3/2020";"16/3/2020";"17/3/2020";"18/3/2020";"19/3/2020";"20/3/2020";"21/3/2020";"22/3/2020";"23/3/2020";"24/3/2020";"25/3/2020";"26/3/2020";"27/3/2020";"28/3/2020";"29/3/2020";"30/3/2020";"31/3/2020";"1/4/2020";"2/4/2020";"3/4/2020";"4/4/2020";"5/4/2020";"6/4/2020";"7/4/2020"],"dd/mm/yyyy");
t = t + 0.5;	%Convert to the middle of each day.
C = [1 2 2 2 2 2 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6 8 8 12 20 28 39 52 66 102 155 205 283 368 451 514 589 647 708 797 868 950 1039 1106 1160];
A = [1 2 2 2 2 2 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 6 7 7 11 19 27 38 51 65 101 143 183 256 331 401 457 525 572 625 707 764 822  882  929  918];
R = [0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1  1  1  1  1  1  1   1  12  22  27  37  50  56  63  74  82  89 103 127  156  176  241];
H = [0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 3 NaN NaN NaN 6 7 8 12 9 12 14 14 13 13 10 15 13 12];
D = [0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1];

figure(1); clf; hold "on";			%Start the plotting.
title("Progression of COVID-19 cases in New Zealand, 2020");
stay = datenum(["26/03/2020";"23/04/2020"],"dd/mm/yyyy");
semilogy(t,C,"r",t,A,"m", t,R,"g",    t,H,"b",       t,D,"k",stay,[100 100],"c");	%Red, Magenta, Green, Blue, and obviously, blacK.
legend(["Cases";"Active";"Recovered";"Hospitalised";"Died";"Stay Home"],"Location","NorthWest");	%Brilliant use of ; in a list.
tick = [1 2 3 5 7]; ticks = tick;
for p = 1:4
 ticks = [ticks tick.*10^p];
end;
set(gca,"TickDir","out");			%Do not deface the data area.
set(gca,"TickLength",get(gca,"TickLength")/2);	%And be quiet about it.
datetick("x","dd/mmm"); grid "on";		%Don't repeat the year every time.
set(gca,"ytick",ticks,"yticklabel",ticks);	%Hopefully, 100,000 will never be reached.
set(gca,"yminorgrid","off","yminortick","off");	%This must be done late in the sequence...
ylim([0.9 2000]);					%Restrain the lurch up to 10,000, and offset from the x-axis.
xlim(datenum(["27/02/2020";"24/04/2020"],"dd/mm/yyyy"));
print -dsvg virus.svg

Alas, as the days roll by, and additional data accrue, augmentation will be needed. The data came from the web page, and the above three "NaN" entries are there null entries; nothing between the commas. Since MatLab/Octave uses spaces as delimiters in the above context, not commas, null entries won't work.NickyMcLean (talk) 12:58, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Background section

For a debate about the new introduction of the Background section, please see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_COVID-19#Mass_duplicates_for_"Background".--walkee^talkee 17:25, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2020

There is 2210 cases 202.9.116.23 (talk) 00:43, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

 Not done Don't worry, this will happen shortly, but with the correct numbers. Schwede66 01:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2020

Please change

On 7 April, it was reported that the New Zealand Police had recorded 291 breaches under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 and the Health Act 1956. Of these, 263 people had been issued with warnings for breaking lockdown rules, 12 had received a youth referral, and 16 were facing charges. Clark, who was disciplined by the prime minister for violating lockdown requirements, was not listed among the 291 breaches reported. On 8 April, the Police Commissioner Andrew Coster updated the figures to 367 breaches including 45 prosecutions, 309 warnings, and 13 youth referrals. Coster also reported that Police were dealing with 37,000 businesses, mainly by businesses.

to:

On 7 April, it was reported that the New Zealand Police had recorded 291 breaches under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 and the Health Act 1956. Of these, 263 people had been issued with warnings for breaking lockdown rules, 12 had received a youth referral, and 16 were facing charges. Clark, who was disciplined by the prime minister for violating lockdown requirements, was not listed among the 291 breaches reported. On 8 April, the Police Commissioner Andrew Coster updated the figures to 367 breaches including 45 prosecutions, 309 warnings, and 13 youth referrals. Coster also reported that Police were dealing with 37,000 breaches, mainly by businesses.

To correct a typo by changing the sentence "Coster also reported that Police were dealing with 37,000 businesses, mainly by businesses" to "Coster also reported that Police were dealing with 37,000 breaches, mainly by businesses." 125.237.255.246 (talk) 02:04, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Y Thanks. Schwede66 02:13, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Incorrect colour on map for Tairawhiti

Tairawhiti only has 1 COVID-19 case and the current corresponding colour states that the Tairawhiti region has 10-49 cases. May I suggest that Tairawhiti region colour be changed to the 0-9 cases colour to reflect that Tairawhiti has 1 case Icecream342 (talk) 03:09, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Done, thank you for pointing that out! Looks like I had accidentally mixed up Hawke's Bay and Tairawhiti when I was recolouring the map. -Air55- ^(Talk) 15:21, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Misleading figures on graphs

By placing suspected cases on the graph as active cases it shows increases in cases where there are not. This is misleading and can't be relied upon to get accurate information on the number of cases in country or region. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.188.186.159 (talk) 05:06, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

That's how the government reports cases, so it's how we report them too [2]  Nixinova   T   C   01:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Correction - Value Imprest Supply (Third for 2019/20) Bill

Hi, could an editor please correct the following statement: Prior to its closure, Parliament passed three bills with cross-party support including: the Imprest Supply (Third for 2019/20) Bill, which invests $52 million into emergency spending. This should in fact be Prior to its closure, Parliament passed three bills with cross-party support including: the Imprest Supply (Third for 2019/20) Bill, which invests $52 billion into emergency spending. Source: Bill here; add the value of sections 7, 8 and 9 to get $52 billion. Plus, logically, $52 million is tiny and would not represent a stimulus at all. Ta 122.58.45.102 (talk) 20:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Good spotting. Done. - Snori (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Deaths on new cases graph

Hi, putting deaths on the new cases graph is easy to understand, but a bit misleading - presumably the person who sadly died was a new case a few days earlier, so is being counted twice, in a way. Anguswalker (talk) 10:40, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

You're right. Perhaps they could be placed in a second bar (so there are two bars per day) or simply removed, as the cumulative number of deaths are shown on the prior graph. Adabow (talk) 14:08, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Not really, there are always delays in reporting; the graph only shows announcements as it would be too difficult to actually track when each case happened.  Nixinova   T   C   07:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Encyclopedic?

Is it actually encyclopedic to have a line for every single day with the new cases and running total? This could go on for months and the article is already well over the 100k maximum recommended article size. DerbyCountyinNZ ^{(Talk Contribs)} 01:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

If it gets too big, we could always split it into several articles. For example, we could have one for Timeline of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in New Zealand. The main article for timelines, i.e. Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, has already been split into months. Schwede66 01:47, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

The lines which are simply "On [date], [x] cases were reported, bringing the total to [y]." should be removed. The data is already shown in graphs for readers who are interested. Information about responses is more interesting and useful to read. Adabow (talk) 03:43, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

So read those. It's useful historical information and doesn't only contain pure numbers. And just because it's over the "recommended" size doesn't mean it should be nuked.  Nixinova   T   C   04:12, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

But doesn't it seem redundant to have the bar graph, which conveys the daily number of cases quickly at a glance, as well as daily diary entries? Of course the information is useful and historical but I don't think day-by-day written sentences are the best way of presenting that information. Adabow (talk) 12:44, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Just remember that some people, when they look at a bar graph, they have no idea what they are looking at. Whereas most people can get the head around words / sentences. Schwede66 18:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

When the only addition to a daily timeline is the update of numbers (like 27th March) I agree it is enough to be in the graph only. However, due to the speed this is still happening it seems ok to have daily updates on the timeline. Perhaps leave as is for another week or so when we'll not be wondering about the exact date of March events, and then begin condensing the information? TreeReader (talk) 13:13, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Just looking back at this again, most of March is just adding new cases with no other news. Any ideas for condensing the timeline now? I'd be hesitant to get rid of the daily case updates entirely, but perhaps changing it to a table or something - columns for new cases, new recoveries, deaths, and general news. Some of the other countries' covid pages (italy off the top of my head) have their timelines as tables and it seems to be working. TreeReader (talk) 12:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Also, it seems the Central Govt. Response section is also in a timeline format. So the first section marked 'timeline' is kinda misleading - shouldn't it be 'timeline of cases' or something along those lines? It's a bit confusing having some news/govt updates in the first timeline section (there's quite a few in feb especially) and then all the march/april updates are in two separate timelines. TreeReader (talk) 12:22, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

You are correct that some early timeline content should be shifted to “Central government responses”. When done, renaming to “Timeline of cases” seems appropriate. Schwede66 18:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

New map with DHB regions

COVID-19 Outbreak Cases in New Zealand (DHB Totals)

Kia ora all,

With all the issues we seem to be having with maps recently (i.e. the Wikipedia maps only having regional boundaries while the Ministry of Health have been giving statistics by DHB), I quickly used some Stats NZ datasets to create a new svg map of New Zealand with District Health Board (DHB) boundaries - File:COVID-19_Outbreak_Cases_in_New_Zealand_(DHB_Totals).svg, and I've added it to the page. Hopefully this should sort everything out - let me know if there are any problems with this new map.

Cheers Air55 (talk) 12:19, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Very good; thank you. I’ve amended the text accordingly. You might as well produce a map series that highlights just one region at a time so that we’ve got a base map for each DHB article. I might also point out that many DHB articles are still red links. Appealing to Kiwi editors here; let’s fix that. Schwede66 18:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

That's a good idea re base maps for each DHB, might get onto that tonight. Air55 (talk) 05:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Newbie here. This DHB map is exactly the kind of thing I'm hoping to incorporate into a Power BI dashboard I'm building that I want to publish publicly. Is there some way I can access the shape file that created the boundaries? I don't have any experience with Mapping and don't own/know how to use any software that would let me create a suitably low-data-point one from the file available from Jeff Weir (talk) 19:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi there. When I was making the DHB map, I put the shapefile through a website called https://mapshaper.org/ – it has an option to 'simplify' the polygons by reducing the number of nodes. You can also customise the level of simplification so you can adjust it to your need. Hope that helps, let me know if not. -Air55- ^(Talk) 02:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

References

12th death

The briefing at 1 pm today mentioned that the death in Invercargill a few days ago was now established as being caused by Covid-19. When @Nigel.P.X: made the initial updates to this article, they included this death, but shortly afterwards removed it with the edit summary "Discussed fatality not included in count". I can't see why this shouldn't be included, and it appears on the official government page at [3].-gadfium 03:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I gather it didn't appear on the official government page at the time other updates were made, but has appeared more recently, and it has now been added to the article, so this question is resolved.-gadfium 06:20, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The number of total cases is a bit outdated

it's updated to 108238 total tests when latest data from https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases shows 120981 Kika.txt (talk) 01:11, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 April 2020

Coronavirus cases are now 1469. See link below. https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases Steve2038 (talk) 05:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

 Already done Mdaniels5757 (talk) 21:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Timeline layout

Hi and I would like to thank other users for updating this article regularly. However I personally find it a bit odd that in the Timeline section, each line starts with "On [date],..", and now doubt it will carry on until the last event. Should we slightly change things a bit? Perhaps doing something like, where the date is more bold and easier to be seen, as for example, 25 March –. Thoughts? Thanks and stay safe. :) Typhoon2013 (talk) 01:52, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

That may be useful. On mobile its fine as-is but on desktop the line height is quite small and it all blends into each other.  Nixinova   T   C   01:31, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Nixinova: When you said line are you talking about the dash thing? The dash is clearly visible both either on desktop or on phone if it is being used. I mean we could use a colon instead, but a dash is more preferable. Typhoon2013 (talk) 10:59, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Considering the longer term I think this whole timeline needs to be cut back and summarised. There's probably some MOS advice for timeline sections like this too. Tayste (edits) 02:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Is WP:Timeline_standards useful? Tayste (edits) 02:09, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

By line height I mean literally the height of each line. Anyway, I'd oppose condensing the timeline because a prose equivalent of the graphs is much easier to understand and make use of. And I think the 10 year test would side with me in this -- see how useless the 2009 swine flu pandemic in New Zealand article's timeline is.  Nixinova   T   C   06:38, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

The standard format of the daily entries is fine, though most of it could be replaced by a table of new confirmed and probable cases, deaths and recoveries, with totals, for each day. Once the pandemic is over, I think most of the timeline could be condensed to the key events, but at present it's okay to have this daily record. It made it easy for me just now to check when was the last time we had zero new cases - 16 March. I could also see that on the New cases and fatalities graph, except that the x-axis labels are illegible.-gadfium 03:35, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

If we keep up these zeroes the timeline length isn't going to be a problem as it won't get a lot longer than it is currently.  Nixinova   T   C  

Faith communities' responses

The article states that 'the Catholic Bishops of Aotearoa New Zealand declared that all Roman Catholic Masses would be suspended for the foreseeable future.' However, only masses open to the public are cancelled and private masses are still ongoing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KAMYSHINSKAYA Aleksandra Anastasevna (talk • contribs) 16:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

 Done I have clarified this sentence. --Hazhk (talk) 22:14, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Correction request

"... the Warehouse ... with all staff being put on full paid leave". That is what is says in the Herald article, but it is untrue (I work there). Only front-line customer service staff were put on paid leave, and some of them continued working (in a dispatch capacity). Support staff took a pay cut, while continuing to work normal hours. 6 May 2020. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.84.15.249 (talk) 22:25, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Changes to gathering rules, especially re tangihanga

Mention should be made of the changes to the rules regarding number of people at gatherings in level 2 that were made after outcry over the limited numbers able to attend tangi. Grutness...wha? 18:08, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• Done. Andykatib 01:57, June 5, 2020 (UTC)

Summarise transmission timeline entries going forward

Since we're now going to level 2 and have very little cases, I think we should start doing weekly summaries instead, starting with this week (Mon–Sun)  Nixinova   T   C   04:33, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@Nixinova: I agree. Of course adding in the most important events announced to the paragraph, but what about the cases? We have a section regarding the cases stats anyway, so perhaps just mentioning the case increase for a specific period instead for one each day maybe? Typhoon2013 (talk) 05:03, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Just something like "On the week starting 11 May, [10 or whatever] new cases were reported, etc", "On the week starting 18 May, etc", etc.  Nixinova   T   C   23:46, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Disagree in the short term with respect to the cases table in Statistics - please keep this on daily updates for a few more days until the number of active cases reaches zero or near zero. New Zealand's situation has been interesting to track in terms of a population's endgame as large but isolated population reaches near total eradication - I have been reliant on the active cases figure to monitor this endgame - it has given guidance as to how it will apply to other populations, such as the UK where I live. Romomusicfan (talk) 07:28, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

It's not necessary to have entries to the effect of "On 18 May, literally nothing happened" as we now have so low case numbers that it makes more sense to do a weekly summary instead.  Nixinova   T   C   01:23, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 June 2020

Please change the following statement FROM: "On 24 March, the New Zealand Government automatically extended all temporary visas until late September 2020." TO: "On 2 April, following the execution of the Epidemic Management Notice, the New Zealand Government automatically extended temporary visas for all persons in country, who's visas were set to expire between 2 April and 9 July to be be extended until 25 September 2020."

The current statement is not accurate - the source of the information can be found here: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/covid-19/visa-conditions-epidemic-statusvisa-conditions-epidemic-status Celiseev (talk) 07:16, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Have done that. Andykatib 08:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

 Already done Mdaniels5757 (talk) 22:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 June 2020

Please change 'with two friends after getting lost while travelling from Auckland to Wellington in order to attend a wedding' to "with two friends after getting lost while travelling from Auckland to Wellington to console a grieving relative"

2407:7000:AA0D:3277:702A:327E:DC85:85F9 (talk) 10:18, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Splitting the article ideas

With the article growing in size, we'll have to consider creating sub-articles to prevent it from growing too big. Should we put the timeline of the cases in a separate article? Let me know if anyone has ideas. The COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia also has similar issues. Andykatib 08:35, June 12, 2020 (UTC)

I agree, the timeline should have its own article. This is not an event that will be going anywhere anytime soon for New Zealand (case in point: two new imported cases were reported today), and the timeline is just going to get bigger and bigger as a result. Having the day-by-day account of events is important to have on Wikipedia, but for the article it just creates this big block of text that you have to scroll through to get to the bulk of the content.-Air55- ^(Talk) 05:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

At the time of posting, COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand was the 170th longest article in the English Wikipedia. Of the Covid-19 pandemic by country articles, only Malaysia (4th), Ireland (13th), the UK (93rd) and the USA (164th) are longer.Lcmortensen (mailbox) 10:17, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I concur; it’s time to split this as proposed. Schwede66 09:14, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

For the title, how about something like: Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand, based on Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Could go ahead and do it before dinner. Been having trouble saving the latest Health Ministry reports on Internet Wayback Machine. It says that the requested URL was not found on their server. Andykatib 05:11, June 19 2020 (UTC)

The article has been split, but I don't see any full consensus for that having been done.  Nixinova   T   C   01:36, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Want to merge it again? Good luck obtaining consensus for that! It having been the 170th longest article pre-split is a rather good reason to get on with it, given that we haven't quite got to the end of the NZ COVID-19 story yet. And it's not that this hasn't been discussed before; you even commented on it! Schwede66 06:21, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Foreign media coverage of second wave

Hi there, I came across a Newshub article on international media coverage of the Government's handling of the second wave. The article cites several international media including The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Star, The Guardian, CBS News, and National Public Radio. Is it best to cite the original articles being mentioned. Wikipedia currently bans the citation of The Daily Mail and The Sun under Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. How should we handle this issue? Any advice? Some of the material may also be relevant to Jacinda Ardern's article. Andykatib 04:30, June 24, 2020 (UTC)

If you reference the foreign sources directly (which is fine; note that The Daily Star points to a dab page), you need to skip the tabloids you mentioned (they are regarded as unreliable and are thus blacklisted). Schwede66 17:52, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Schwede66 for the advice and clarification. Have also found a Newshub article dealing with public responses to David Clark]'s recent handling of the crisis particularly his treatment of Ahsley Bloomfield. Andykatib 22:03, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

image

need to add the govt " unite against covid-19" image. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.100.139.52 (talk) at 18:58, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Typo in lead

The last sentence of the first paragraph of the lead reads (sic) Thre have been no locally-acquired cases reported since 22 May 2020. 119.15.2.10 (talk) 00:51, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

All reported cases since then have occurred in people who have recently returned to New Zealand from overseas and are in managed isolation. The statement is correct.-gadfium 02:26, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• Yah, I was referring to the typo on the first word. Now fixed. 119.15.2.10 (talk) 03:53, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2020

Change "As of 4 August 2020, the country has 22 active cases, all from people in managed isolation following travel to New Zealand. There have been no locally acquired cases reported since 22 May 2020." to "As of 10 August 2020, there are 22 active cases in managed isolation, all of which were imported. No local transmission has been reported since 22 May 2020. Sonicmario2012456 (talk) 02:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Reworded a different way. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 05:00, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

11/08/2020 - Auckland to Alert Level 3

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122416730/coronavirus-auckland-moves-to-level-3-rest-of-nz-to-level-2-as-four-covid19-cases-confirmed-in-community — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.100.128.247 (talk) 10:26, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Inconsistent capatlisation

I just noticed that there's a lot of inconsistent capitalizstion going on all throughout the page. Sometimes it's referred to as "alert level" or "Alert Level" or "Alert level". The government's use of the term is always "Alert Level X", eg we're currently at Alert Level 1 (https://uniteforrecovery.govt.nz/covid-19/covid-19-alert-system/alert-level-1/). I propose we do the same when referring to a level (ie we could refer to it as an alert level system, but if we're talking about the lockdown at Alert Level 4 then we use those initial caps. Nzgabriel (talk) 21:47, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

They should all be lowercase, it's just a description.  Nixinova   T   C   23:00, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2020

This is not accurate just yet because it is not noon yet, therefore auckland hasn't moved in level 3, therefore there is an extremely low chance it will not happen, resulting in misinformation 122.59.113.6 (talk) 23:12, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

What are you referring to with this? It happens in 20 mins: no chance it doesn't.  Nixinova   T   C   23:40, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

total number of tests completed

it is only upated to like late may, it says something like 270k when it is now 508711, taken from https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases 47.72.227.23 (talk) 09:52, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

 Done Updated that section  Nixinova   T   C   20:58, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Graph issues

The graphs, which are currently outdated, have too many X-values to be readable. In this edit I removed half of them in the cases chart, but the daily chart is still unreadable. Anyone know how to limit the X-axis without screwing up the rest of the values?  Nixinova   T   C   04:33, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Ah, just gotta widen the graph. Will add the values back when I can.  Nixinova   T   C   21:03, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Managed isolation

This article should have a section on managed isolation, given that it is a cornerstone of the health system response for containment. In fact, I'm planning on writing a standalone article on the topic (maybe titled COVID-19 managed isolation in New Zealand), but it would obviously be good for this to tie into a specific section here. I've made a category on Commons. Any thoughts? Schwede66 20:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I think you're right. The stand-alone article is serious work and would be very welcome. However a brief paragraph here would be a good link. I'll reread the article and see if I can come up with a couple of sentences to help.OrewaTel (talk) 02:25, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I've written the article. Others have chipped in to help with aspects around this (e.g. Wikidata; Commons) – thanks heaps! Schwede66 20:39, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Sputnik V

The article currently refers to Sputnik V as being "untested". This is not the right term to use and is misleading. My understanding from various news articles is that the vaccine has gone through a bunch of testing, but it hasn't passed the final round of testing that would normally be required before full acceptance.

Otherwise, this is a pretty impressive summary of New Zealand's response, and very up to date! Well done to all involved! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.236.237.140 (talk) 22:46, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

The wording was changed to "insufficiently tested".  Nixinova   T   C   01:02, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Trump's comment

On 18 August USA President Donald Trump made some very incautious comments about NZ's COVID-19 response. These were reported here along with NZ's Deputy Prime Minster's scathing reply. Wikipedia editor Nixinova reversed that edit with a reasonable comment that "Trump's idiocy isn't relevant here." However Trump's comments triggered a massive Twitter Response under the hash tag 'New Zealand Hell-hole'. The Twitter feed started with Trump supporters repeating their leader's thoughts (and I use the word 'thoughts' very loosely) but it rapidly became an opportunity for Kiwis to exercise their sense of humour. The response was so huge that I wonder whether Trump's comments AND the twitter hash-tag together make a significant international voice. Meanwhile there were many Facebook posts. Do these justify a section, 'International Response'? Thoughts please. OrewaTel (talk) 00:11, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

If the only notability is twitter spam then I don't think it has notability at all. Trump rambles about complete nonsense every time he opens his mouth; we don't need to have that on this page.  Nixinova   T   C   00:56, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

On reflection, I think that's a good call by Nixinova. That said, I haven't followed whether the #HellholeNZ response has attracted some decent media attention. Personally, I find that very amusing. Ideally, there's enough in it for it to be notable, somebody could then write this up, and the whole issue could be covered here in one sentence with a link across. If it's not separately notable, then I'd say it's not worth mentioning here either. Schwede66 05:29, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Schrödinger's graph

is there any way of removing the fractions from the daily deaths graph? Seems unlikely we'll register 0.5 deaths on any day soon... Grutness...wha? 09:10, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The graph doesn't work great for low number, if I set it to integers it just rounds the values so you get 1,2,2,3,3,4,4 instead of 1,blank,2,etc. This is the best option.  Nixinova   T   C   05:17, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Ah well. Just a glitch in the graphics. Grutness...wha? 07:17, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Map update

Could someone please update the second map to reflect Counties now having over 200 cases? Cheers. Grutness...wha? 07:17, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Add current alert level for Auckland (and all of NZ) in main intro

The way the page currently reads implies that Auckland is still at Alert Level 2 but it moved to Level 1 on 5 Oct 2020. This should be added to the intro to properly reflect the current state of affairs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2404:4408:6709:A100:1C13:A657:7A66:D7C0 (talk) 04:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

 Done.-gadfium 05:53, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Fix the information about recovered cases

Dear Sir/Madam

Please fix the section of recovered cases of New Zealand.

Kind regards Tommy To — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:6E00:E4F:9300:5D69:B1A5:C513:B61 (talk) 06:21, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

1. Done. Andykatib 02:18, January 8, 2021 (UTC)

Split responses section into a new article

This page is now the 52nd longest page on the wiki at 409KB. The responses section has gotten too big to be navigable on mobile, even desktop. Splitting the responses section into e.g. Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand would trim down this article quite a lot, and then we could just have major responses listed here, as people probably don't care about delays in animal transportation processing etc while reading through the main article. The transmission timeline was split a few months ago, and that has worked fine. This would make the article a lot more readable.  Nixinova   T   C   06:37, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I support that proposal. Schwede66 18:39, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I second this proposal. Andykatib 08:34, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Creating more satellite articles

Just wanted to let everyone know that the New Zealand article is presently the 15th largest Wikipedia article. This is also the second largest article on the COVID-19 pandemic after the COVID-19 pandemic in Kerala. This is a testament to the passion for Kiwi Wikipedians and others covering the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. However, I think we could create a few satellite articles:

• One way we could save space is creating a New Zealand government response to the COVID-19 pandemic along the lines of the British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This would focus on the central government response. We could then replace it with a brief summary section that would link to that article.
• Another issue is the graph at the bottom of the page, which has not been updated since June 2020. Perhaps spinning it off into a separate article like Statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand.
• Another idea is to create an Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the New Zealand economy, which would be a first of its kind. We could also have a brief summary section linking to that article.

Let me know what you think of these ideas. Andykatib 02:25, January 8, 2021 (UTC)

How about a Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand to start off with? We have a ton of H2 sections on here that can be split out. Then we have 2 big articles and can go from there.  Nixinova   T   C   02:39, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

See also #Split responses section into a new article.  Nixinova   T   C   02:42, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @Nixinova:, the Responses article sounds like a good idea. Andykatib 08:36, January 8, 2021 (UTC)

Fully agree. Government response needs to be its own article. The sooner the better. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:38, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes! On other pages on my Watchlist there is far too much vandalism and so I try to audit this page whenever it is edited. But it's too big for an easy audit. We haven't had any vandalism here but I'm afraid that someone might slip a nasty into the article and we miss it. Please split it into more manageable pieces. OrewaTel (talk) 11:04, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Okay, having multiple responses sections focusing on the government, economy and civil society responses could work. Could see what other articles such as COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland are dealing with it. Andykatib 22:06, January 8, 2021 (UTC)

Go for it. You’ll do a good job! With regards to vandalism, there are so many eyes on this article that it’s simply not a problem. Also, it’s semi-protected anyway. Schwede66 22:22, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

• Have created the New Zealand government response to the COVID-19 pandemic article. That has helped cut down the size of the article considerably. It's now the 288th largest article on Wikipedia. Feel free to tackle the rest. Can also do the others over the rest of the month and year. Andykatib 11:54, January 9, 2021 (UTC)
  • I have created the Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand. I have renamed the Business responses section "Economic impact." The Economic impact section keeps the introduction. The new article has an expanded version of the introduction. Feel free to work on them. One area that is beyond my competence is updating the "Progression of cases" section at the bottom of the article, which hasn't been updated since July 2020. Anyone willing to put their hand up to tackle this? Andykatib 11:41, January 20, 2021 (UTC)

Genome sequencing

Hi folks, I have added a section on genome sequencing. Feedback is most welcome and the information could be updated. Realitylink (talk) 04:09, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

This article may of use to you if you haven't read it already https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/apr/04/how-new-zealands-covid-success-made-it-a-laboratory-for-the-world Beeveria (talk) 12:04, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Vaccine group 4 split by age

Vaccine group 4 is split by age, should this be reflected in the article?

The vaccine rollout for Group 4 will be in age bands:

The first age band is people aged 60 years and over — they will be able to book their vaccinations from 28 July. The next age band is people aged 55 and over — bookings for this age band will open 2 weeks later, on 11 August.

Depending on vaccine supply and progress with other age groups, invitations will open up to people over 45 years from mid to late August, mid to late September for people 35 plus, with everyone else being eligible from October.

https://covid19.govt.nz/covid-19-vaccines/our-covid-19-vaccination-plan/covid-19-vaccine-rollout-groups/#group-4 101.100.128.165 (talk) 08:39, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

For sure, this is relevant and should be in the article.OrewaTel (talk) 09:50, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Reports of Covid-19 case numbers in New Zealand misrepresented

I am new to this and is my first ‘talk’ please feel to give any suggestions.

At the start of this content the reported COVID-19 cases in my view would lead the reader to think that New Zealand has had numerous and continual community cases since the first case arrived in New Zealand in 2020.

Clarification that almost all cases are in fact at the border and contained within quarantine and not released into the community until both quarantine duration has finished and numerous negative test results have been completed.

The fact is there has been 169 days where the entire Country has had zero community cases up to the current community outbreak.

I live in New Zealand and during the months we have been “Covid-19 free” is important information to complete the knowledge on the subject.

I can understand and empathise with people who live with COVID-19 in their communities that the focus is now vaccination and how to live with the virus, but New Zealand’s situation is very far from this and should be represented with greater clarity.

Thank you.

Mel Boîte is correct. Living in New Zealand, it is easy to forget the reality that is happening in other countries. Here we read that there are 4 new cases and we automatically assume that they are in managed isolation. When other places report new cases they are generally in the community. Here we went for over 100 days without any cases in the community. There are very few people anywhere that can relate to that.

Now we do have community cases and we do not, as yet, know what is going to happen. But we should declare the way the pandemic has gone so far so that when it all resolves itself, we can put the events in true context.OrewaTel (talk) 00:05, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 August 2021

Pandemic cases for august 2021 have nearly quadrupled since last update. Government talking about regional alert level changes with the potential for Auckland being in lockdown for many weeks. So needs update saying cases have now reached 72 for this cluster. Also needs mentioning this is now thought to have escaped MIQ somehow but they dont know how yet Idk12344321 (talk) 05:15, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. —Sirdog (talk) 07:21, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

See Also Bit

I’m not logged in so I can’t but could someone add COVID-19 pandemic in Australia in the see also section? Similar country, similar virus. Yes, this was written by an Australian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.229.146.15 (talk) 20:29, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I dispute that Australia and New Zealand are similar. For sure they are Southern Hemisphere, Commonwealth countries that speak English but in other matters they differ greatly. It's not as if they are near each other, Wellington and Canberra are as far apart as London and Athens. Furthermore their responses to the pandemic were very different. New Zealand and Australia are often lumped together without cause. Wikipedia should be better than that. OrewaTel (talk) 00:24, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Full agreement with OrewaTel. Kauri0.o (talk) 05:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Full agreement, New Zealand 🇳🇿 is very different from Australia. There are no states in New Zealand. Culturally we are also very different with 1/5 the population of Australia native Maori & NZ sign are official languages & commonly used. The New Zealand multiethnic population are socially closer like Singapore 🇸🇬 - social segregation is commonplace in Australia. New Zealanders have more trust in government because of better transparency & privacy laws, freedom of speech - consequenntly greater compliance of COVID-19 rules. New Zealand 🇳🇿 is working towards eliminating COVID in the community whereas Australian government is working towards “living with” COVID when vaccination numbers are at a high level.

Mel Boîte please remember to sign edits on talk pages with ~~~~. The previous edit was made by Mel Boîte at 01:19, 26 August 2021. OrewaTel (talk) 02:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Infobox — first outbreak

Should the first outbreak of the “COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand” not be a place in New Zealand? — HTGS (talk) 20:38, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

No because the standard template requires that the 'First Outbreak' be the global origin. But having said that, it is useful to plainly state the New Zealand origin. I think this has been adequately done in the introduction.OrewaTel (talk) 23:34, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Alert level changes

The latest alert level changes (September 2021) for the rest of the country outside Auckland should be described and charted as 2.5 rather than 2.0. The PM referred to the new level 2 as "Delta level 2" or "new level 2" as they include new requirements making it much stricter than past level 2. --BroadArrow (talk) 22:02, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 December 2021

A bubble is defined as a group of people with whom ones has close physical contact.

Please change "ones" to "one". 122.150.71.249 (talk) 21:39, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Omicron in New Zealand

There is talk about the Omicron variant. It has been detected today in New Zealand. A traveler from the UK has the variant. If you want a source, here it is:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/29/new-zealand-reports-first-community-exposure-to-omicron

49.178.86.147 (talk) 08:45, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. We cover this at Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand (2021)#December 2021, and it probably won't get additional coverage unless this is the index case for a wider outbreak.-gadfium 18:26, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

If there are more cases, will this page also be updated? Thanks.49.178.86.147 (talk) 00:56, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

PEIS warning

The following warning appears on the page when you preview it:

Warning: Post-expand include size is too large. Some templates will not be included.

To reduce the amount of content that contributes to the issue, I suggest switching the daily source data for the charts found in the "Progression of COVID-19" and "New cases and fatalities" sections to something more practical like weekly or monthly. If this doesn't resolve the warning, then I also suggest doing the same to the daily Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/New Zealand medical cases chart. Jroberson108 (talk) 13:48, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

The 2020 and 2021 charts could be made into SVGs instead as they don't need to be updated. Unsure how to turn a canvas element into an SVG though, right-click says its PNG.  Nixinova   T   C   21:08, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

@Nixinova: Seems like SVG is the preferred format when not photograghic per CAT:SVG. Changing the source from daily to weekly data points would greatly reduce the size and may still give the desired curve for the monthly presentation. Jroberson108 (talk) 07:02, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@Nixinova: Maybe WP:HCGWA will help in creating a SVG? Jroberson108 (talk) 07:19, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Panic Buying

The article COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand#Social impact states that there was panic buying. Whilst there were one or two individuals who were silly, there was no significant panic buying. There are 4 citations to the statement. Two of them stated that there was a shortage of hand sanitiser. True. The country went from very few people wanting sanitiser to everybody wanting one bottle. This was not panic buying but people taking sensible precautions. The same could be said about face masks. They didn't quite sell out but they came close. Then a week later more stock came in and everyone was happy.

The other two citations were more relevant. One was about Government messages not to panic buy and included third hand reports of witnesses hearing about other supermarkets being cleared out. The last one talked about a retail warehouse being besieged by crowds. This was not panic. It was a case that the public was warned that lockdown was about to happen and people went out to get staples before there were travel restrictions. Typically customers travel long distances to get to discount warehouses and buy a substantial amount to pay for the travel costs. The lockdown rules allowed travel to local food outlets, which never closed, but banned travel to adjacent towns. That would put the discount warehouse beyond reach.

Media always report panic whenever there is an incident. Careful reading of the actual reports often show people behaving sensibly. OrewaTel (talk) 07:17, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

There was a picture taken 20 March 2020 showing empty shelves. This was a Sunday night and most supermarkets run down their stock of perishables - NZ supermarkets do not stay open overnight. I could take such a photograph any Sunday before closing time. And the picture after the Monday early morning delivery would be very different. I have removed the picture. OrewaTel (talk) 07:28, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree with that assessment and support the actions suggested by OrewaTel. Schwede66 10:39, 8 April 2023 (UTC)