2 new Covid cases in New Zealand

[nowahousewife]

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-73050497.html#

Fingers crossed it's nipped in the bud but does show how difficult it is to keep anywhere free of this disease. If a small country that has pretty much shut itself off from the rest of the world can't stop Covid, what does that tell us?

CrowdedHouseinQuarantine because this is the first thread I've started on mumsnet and basically cocked up my link!

100 new cases in Beijing too

I saw on the news about the new cases being reported in Beijing and how they were dealing with the 'second wave' but, given that out of the 80,000 tests they have carried out as part of this new wave, and that only 100 or so came back as being positive with the majority of those having shown no symptoms, I don't really see how they can class it as a second wave.

I don’t think what NZ did is an exemplar and their leader is being let off the hook for some dodgy decisions. It is ridiculous to compare their situation in March to any densely populated European country. Doing that means questions are not being asked as to why NZ had to impose a hard lockdown.

Many countries did what NZ did. They locked down early and hard whilst closing their borders. They did this because they didn’t have health systems that could respond. Either to treat the disease or contain through test and trace. Germany, S Korea and Taiwan did well in this respect. They were prepared and confident in what to do.

The questions for Nz is why weren’t they better prepared and why did they impose such are hard lockdown when they had manageable prevalence and transmission. Lots of unnecessary damage to their economy and their population’s wider health needs.

It is irrelevant whether they are British citizens or not. The fact is they obviously live in the uk (somewhere that isn't in control of the situation) and carried the virus to an area which had stamped out the infection before it took off. except that plane didn’t just go to Britain and didn’t just contain British citizens. It stopped on the way in two other countries, added to which the women didn’t present with symptoms until after they entered the country.

They could have contracted the virus literally anywhere because the people boarding at other airports could equally have been transiting through from somewhere else. It’s just convenient to label them as being British.

Now they’ve been on a plane with hundreds of people, in an airport, to a funeral with others, there is no knowing at this stage how many people they may have infected, I presume that the funeral wasn’t socially distanced, since NZ have now done away with social distancing.

unfortunately I think you’re wrong. I worked (finished last week) in a large hospital. We’ve all undertaken the antibody testing and unless people have had covid- 19 they are testing negative for the antibodies. It puts paid to the herd immunity argument. I think there is huge second wave coming. the key here though is that unless they’ve had COVID.

Of course herd immunity is a long game, I don’t believe for a second there is going to be a second wave along the lines that some people are almost hoping for. I still think that countries such as NZ and China have made themselves far more vulnerable by shutting down quite so early, and that if there is a second spike, those will be the countries hardest hit.

people also need to think very hard before suggesting that we do not create immunity to this virus, because no immunity means no vaccine, as this is what the vaccine aims for. If people do not become immune to COVID having caught it, then a vaccine will not be successful.

Its what's happening in India too. They lockdown early much harsher than here, very strict comparable to China. But since they have started reopening cases have increased quite alot

What happened to the people on the same airplane - have they been quarantined too?

Good points @LemonTT. The NZ Alert System states that a level 4 lockdown would be imposed when there is community transmission and widespread outbreaks and clusters. It is certainly questionable whether the situation when we went into lockdown meets that criteria. Arguably a more directed response to clusters and areas with cases could have controlled the situation without the pain (both economic and social) caused by what certainly felt like a very harsh lockdown.

But on the other hand, maybe taking a lighter response wouldn't have controlled it? Impossible to say at this early stage whether the government made good or bad decisions.

While I don't want to heavily criticise the government because it's must be so difficult to make these decisions when the science is unclear, so much is unknown, I also don't think we should just applaud without questioning.

I know this is mn so RTFT is unlikely, nevermind an article in a link but this does not suggest a failure of the NZ approach. The people were not necessarily Brits. They did not attend a funeral.

There was an error in how they were questioned, which, had it been done properly would probably have resulted in a test and they wouldn't have been allowed to then travel to Wellington. They did travel from the UK, but via Doha and Brisbane. It can't be known they had The virus in the UK. They then had contact with various airport staff etc. but only one other family member plus the deceased.

The article is very calm and measured as is the response from the NZ authorities.

Personally, I don't think they locked down too early, and I think the death stats prove that, but I agree they'll have a tough time in the future as the economy gets harder hit and it's unrealistic to get tourists to quarantine for two weeks. But with Australia being the biggest source of tourists, the bubble could be the stop gap before the vaccine.

Sorry I've gone on a bit!

I dunno, I reckon for 16 and a half million I'd want something a little bit less like an office

I fail to understand why anyone tries to compare the U.K. to NZ, as plenty have done recently - ‘Oh, if only we’d done the same as NZ...’.
It’s not comparing apples with oranges - more like apples with bloody great Halloween pumpkins.

Bottom line in any case, I feel, is that we’re all going to have to learn to live with this horrible thing, since I doubt that it’s going away for good any time soon.

Lovely house - a little above my price range though!

It doesn't even include my gran as she wasn't in hospital angry

You realise that the UK (unlike many other countries) reports covid deaths in care homes and the community, not just hospitals?
It's something the govt were criticised for early on, but have been doing it (and backdating it) since sometime in April.

'fail to understand why anyone tries to compare the U.K. to NZ, as plenty have done recently - ‘Oh, if only we’d done the same as NZ.'

Yes it's crazy. This Morning are just interviewing Iceland's PM and congratulating her on her success in containing the virus. Iceland with it's 300,000 population. I'm no epidemiologist but density of population is surely the biggest factor not how NZ or Iceland with their tiny populations handled things

These women were potentially out and about with coronavirus, in a country with no immunity for 4 or 5 days. NZ will be very lucky if this can be contained. Given they travelled with symptoms they chose not to disclose, I wouldn't be so sure about where they've been and what contacts they've had. There was enough stress in Bloomfield's voice when talking of their movements that I think he knows there could be more to come.

I for one would love to see the end of mass tourism here, it’s been horrible seeing beauty spots increasingly littered with toilet paper and rubbish.

Totally agree with this. Hopefully the country will have time to recover before the next onslaught of idiots.

Totally agree with what AlternativePerspective said. New Zealand's early shutdown mean that they are now completely dependant on a vaccine being produced
We are all dependent on a vaccine unless Covid19 fades away on its own. Herd immunity will never work outside of a vaccine. We have had thousands of unnecessary deaths, trashed our economy , there were no positives to a later lockdown.

The house was in Silent Witness

Here in Australia we are cut off from the world yet still have restrictions (albeit not as harsh as many places in the world). The states won’t even open borders to each other in fear of the backlash from even one new case.

My state (South Australia) has no active cases yet restrictions continue. The government is starting to allow bigger numbers to gather but are still stubbornly sticking to the 1 person per square metre rule for cafes and restaurants which is hitting smaller venues really hard.

We are all dependent on a vaccine unless Covid19 fades away on its own. Herd immunity will never work outside of a vaccine. We have had thousands of unnecessary deaths, trashed our economy , there were no positives to a later lockdown
YY this.
I also don't understand why posters are saying 'oh we can't be like NZ'. There is no doubt that if we had closed our borders. Established strict quarantine. And locked down earlier. That we would have had less deaths and would be in a much better position economically.
We may not have eradicated it. But to pretend that the complete and utter shambles in the UK was the only response and we could never have been organised and responsive as NZ was, well, that's putting Tory politics over reality.

ATomeOfOnesOwn

It's nothing to do with tory politics. it was science. Labour would have went with the science as they'd have used the exact same scientists. If you don't believe that then your letting you politics brainwash you

People also need to think very hard before suggesting that we do not create immunity to this virus, because no immunity means no vaccine, as this is what the vaccine aims for. If people do not become immune to COVID having caught it, then a vaccine will not be successful.

Exactly this AlternativePerspective. The lack of joined up thinking by the public has been the biggest surprise to me in this whole sorry mess.

As you can imagine, this has created a bit of a storm in NZ!

Two people (probably returning NZ citizens) were allowed out of managed border isolation facilities early on compassionate grounds without a negative test. Initially it was to visit a dying relative but the relative died before they left the facility. So then they were still allowed to leave to visit the remaining family member (I am guessing from various details that it was sisters visiting their surviving parent).

This involved driving ~650km without being allowed to use petrol stations or toilets. Not sure who thought this was a good plan.

Thankfully the government has now cancelled exemptions from border isolation but we will have to wait and see if it came too late.

I hope there is a great big outbreak. I hate that smug prime minster.

Outbreak but not people dying that would be horrible.