Potential POSITIVE effects of corona virus

[moka]

During the level 4 lockdown, for the first time ever amateur investors were more active on the stock market than professional investors.
It's largely down to the easier access brought by new trading platforms. Investment managers say KiwiSaver's made us more aware of shares and the market's been all over the news.
Between February and May last year there were only about 14,000 retail purchases each week.
But this year during the level 4 lockdown, amateur investing absolutely skyrocketed to 214,000 in the second week of April.
But while the amateurs are trading more, data shows they're still spending comparatively much less in that April peak - they spent a fifth of what wholesale investors did.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money...-lockdown.html

[kiora]

"They are green energy, digitization and the next technology wave, shaping the workforce of the future and resilience of supply chains and security of essential goods.

On green energy McKinsey says government investment in clean energy should be accelerated, with companies incentivized to improve energy efficiency. Why?"
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/1...d-19%C2%A0long

[moka]

NZ COVID Free!! Jacinda's Dance - Leaked Video
After announcing that New Zealand has zero active coronavirus cases on Monday, the Prime Minister revealed she "did a little dance" when finding out.
Ardern's face was superimposed onto the head of Hugh Grant during his iconic dancing scene from the movie Love Actually in a video created by YouTuber GCSBro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4SBb465bF0

[fungus pudding]

NZ COVID Free!! Jacinda's Dance - Leaked Video
After announcing that New Zealand has zero active coronavirus cases on Monday, the Prime Minister revealed she "did a little dance" when finding out.
Ardern's face was superimposed onto the head of Hugh Grant during his iconic dancing scene from the movie Love Actually in a video created by YouTuber GCSBro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4SBb465bF0

Would have been much better if Hugh Grant's face was plonked fair and square on Jacinda's body.

[Bjauck]

NZ COVID Free!! Jacinda's Dance - Leaked Video
After announcing that New Zealand has zero active coronavirus cases on Monday, the Prime Minister revealed she "did a little dance" when finding out.
Ardern's face was superimposed onto the head of Hugh Grant during his iconic dancing scene from the movie Love Actually in a video created by YouTuber GCSBro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4SBb465bF0

Universal Studios did most of the hard work to create the video!

It would have been better if all the portraits of the British PMs had had NZ PMs superimposed on them.

[moka]

Harsh words for Boris Johnson from Alastair Campbell. “It is not an exaggeration to say that Johnson scores zero out of 10. Literally zero. There has been, and still is, no clear strategy.”
Jacinda Ardern, by contrast, scores 10. Leadership, empathy and competence combine for a winning mix. Her handling, and her communications, will be studied in future as a masterclass in crisis comms.
We have long known Johnson is a liar. What the crisis has shown is that he is also serially incompetent. We are now up there with the US, Russia and Brazil in the death league table, with Johnson, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Jair Bolsonaro called "the four leaders of the infected world" by Der Spiegel, the influential German magazine.
What do these leaders have in common? They are nationalists, populists, liars. They reject genuine experts. They are motivated more by their own interests than those of the people. The virus of nationalist populism they share and spread is in its own way as dangerous as the virus which has killed so many of their people.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...ectid=12338276

[Balance]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...ectid=12339225

Properly managed with strict quarantine & follow up on entry into NZ, overseas students could provide much needed boost to NZ economy.

Got to strike while the iron is hot.

Went for a meeting in Queen st yesterday and it is the saddest prime CBD place - lifeless, desolate and empty.

[Blue Skies]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...ectid=12339225

Properly managed with strict quarantine & follow up on entry into NZ, overseas students could provide much needed boost to NZ economy.

Got to strike while the iron is hot.

Went for a meeting in Queen st yesterday and it is the saddest prime CBD place - lifeless, desolate and empty.

Shockingly, we don't even seem to be able to effectively quarantine the people coming back into the country now, let alone allowing a tsunami of foreign students coming here from Covid infected countries in time for the start of Semester 2.
Despite the hotels being well paid to quarantine new arrivals, it's pretty clear we can't trust the staff & management of the Copthorne & other hotels to manage this responsibly.
Allowing new arrivals to mingle with people who are about to leave, is beyond belief & only a matter of time before we have new outbreaks wreaking damage to the country.
Fairly obvious I would have thought, hotel staff who are usually low paid & trained to please guests are not the right sort of people to order around & rigorously enforce quarantine procedures on resistant guests.
The complacency & lack of responsibility is astounding when we have seen how incredibly contagious & deadly this virus is & the damage another outbreak would do to the economy.

Like many, I would be all for the return of foreign students, but only on the condition we could absolutely 100% guarantee an effective quarantine to ensure none brought Covid into the country.
This doesn't seem possible at the moment as the quarantines we currently have are as leaky as a sieve.

[Scrunch]

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/a...ectid=12339225

Properly managed with strict quarantine & follow up on entry into NZ, overseas students could provide much needed boost to NZ economy.

Got to strike while the iron is hot.

Went for a meeting in Queen st yesterday and it is the saddest prime CBD place - lifeless, desolate and empty.

Around half the university full-fee international students come from China and that market would appear to be a low risk proposition. Over the last month China has reported 145 new cases while as context Australia has reported 326 (despite a much smaller population). Australia is doing sufficiently well that we are considering a bubble with them.

With only around one in every 10 million Chinese having had tested positive in the last month, the risks of a student flying to NZ with the virus are very small (but you would still want the additional safety net of 14 days quarantine and testing negative). Other markets like India and the US?? Probably not until they start to show a material decline in new case numbers.

[Balance]

Like many, I would be all for the return of foreign students, but only on the condition we could absolutely 100% guarantee an effective quarantine to ensure none brought Covid into the country.
This doesn't seem possible at the moment as the quarantines we currently have are as leaky as a sieve.

Luckily, this is an easy problem to fix.

Quarantine must mean total quarantine - into a hotel room for 14 days (paid for by the student) and not allowed outside the room for the entire period.

If they are not prepared to accept the condition, don't come.