To be shocked at how normal everything looks in New Zealand?

[GoldenLabbie]

Huge crowds seeing the New Year. No masks, no social distancing. You wouldn’t know that the rest of the world is in the grip of a pandemic looking at those scenes. How did we manage to get it so wrong but they got it so right? When you look at that you realise how the rest have screwed up so badly don’t you? I wonder what they make of all?

@EarringsandLipstick

Huge country, small population, significantly dispersed, and it's about a 3 hour flight to anyone.

Of course they can do it - no-one can get in or out.

It's not comparable with eg Europe

I agree, really unfair comparison

They could have closed borders to everything except urgent freight travel (food and medicines), and set up quarantine & testing centres in port-side hotels if absolutely necessary.

They could have let the NHS run the test and trace, rather than given it to their mates to create from scratch. They could have ordered PPE from all the internal companies offering to make it, instead of giving orders to their mates.

They could have talked to other countries with this experience for help in how to tackle it successfully, what precautions to take with imports/exports etc.

Jacinda vs Boris.

Nuff said.

Given how stressy everyone is about not getting cheese from France after Brexit, I’m astounded so many people want the borders shutting! Aren’t we meant to be terrified of losing our trade deals? And yet people want all trade to cease completely?

Hopefully, with a reasonable amount of herd immunity growing, along with the vaccines we should be fairly safe by the end of 2021. Just sad we've had such a high toll so far.

I thought immunity after contracting the disease, has been found to last approximately three months?

@Bagamoyo1

Given how stressy everyone is about not getting cheese from France after Brexit, I’m astounded so many people want the borders shutting! Aren’t we meant to be terrified of losing our trade deals? And yet people want all trade to cease completely?

Uh? closing borders doesn't mean no trade, we might not die of CV but we would of starvation.

Ironic isn’t it, that “getting back control of our borders” was such a big part of Brexit wank.

Even when we SHOULD have closed our borders, we didn’t 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦‍♀️

They could have closed borders to everything except urgent freight travel (food and medicines), and set up quarantine & testing centres in port-side hotels if absolutely necessary. They could have let the NHS run the test and trace, rather than given it to their mates to create from scratch. They could have ordered PPE from all the internal companies offering to make it, instead of giving orders to their mates.

Even in a pandemic, the Tories just had to do what they do -- pour public money into their friends' pockets. And when that proved a total failure, just throw them some more money. Even in a genuine emergency, they couldn't put their responsibility first.

I totally agree , the Torys just could behave like decent human beings even in this emergency

I live in NZ. We did go hard and go early back in March to try and eradicate the virus and it worked for us. Foreign news sites at the time were calling us out, making fun of how seriously our government was taking the virus. it’s interesting now seeing that it worked for us while the countries where those journalists are from are in the grips of the pandemic still.

On another note, I think it is hard here to understand just how bad it is overseas. Sure we can read the news sites and forums like these to get a bit of an understanding but we aren’t (and haven’t) experienced anything nearly as bad in terms of outbreaks and numbers. From the bottom of our hearts though we feel for the rest of the world and what everyone is having to go through. It’s going to be a long time before the world is normal again.

Life here is pretty much there though - wearing a mask on public transport isn’t even compulsory anymore, But many people do. We also have a track and trace system in place that everyone is using as well as free and easy to get Covid tests.

Yes our economy isn’t in a great state with no overseas tourism but NZers are travelling our country more than ever. Everyone I know has been booking holidays around the country. Our job losses at this stage haven’t been huge (to my understanding at least - I don’t know anyone personally who has lost their job due to Covid).

Again, the focus on the differences and the reasons why "they're not as great as they think they are".

Closed borders and population density yes obviously different (are we saying that this is an excuse for the complete absence of border control - no airport temperature monitoring, no onward travel monitoring, nothing) (and also look at Auckland's population density - very different to the rest of NZ - and how it was managed there) but did we handle things any differently on account of being MORE densely populated? Mass gatherings? No, the Cheltenham Festival went ahead. Clear guidance on mask wearing? the four tier system (only recently introduced here but introduced in NZ in March), early action requiring international arrivals to self-isolate for 14 days - introduced in NZ in March (here it went from 7 to 14 and now back to 10 - hope Covid got that memo).

Also just a wild guess here, I don't think their track and trace system was set up on an Excel spreadsheet, even with the relatively few people they have. Again, you'd think with the volume of people that we have in the UK we'd have built a more robust system.

It’s also hard for us to understand how and why so many people are breaking lockdown rules in the UK and US. I’ve lost track of how many “celebrities” have jetted off to the Maldives, Dubai or Ibiza. Seriously??

@DdraigGoch

Oh look, yet another thread where people have difficulty grasping that New Zealand and the UK have very little in common beyond a flag, Queen, language and sheep. New Zealand is more than a thousand miles from its nearest neighbour, itself one which has seen comparatively few cases. The UK on the other hand is 20 miles from its nearest neighbour and has plenty of traffic to and from several countries who were hit badly in the early stages.

Every year, the UK has 300m air passengers, 10m Eurostar passengers, 10m Le Shuttle passengers, 10m ferry passengers and 2.5m accompanied lorries arrive. I am struggling to find the relevant statistics for New Zealand but I can assure you that the air passenger numbers are a small fraction of the UK's, they have no undersea tunnel, and that there are next to no passengers or accompanied freight arriving by sea. They are also self-sufficient in food.

You reckon that the UK should have copied New Zealand and closed the borders completely? Not only no passengers but no accompanied freight either? I think that the recent scenes at Dover are a clear demonstration of why that is a stupid idea.

Any discussion needs numbers like this.

I’d like to see if alternatives were even possible but at least start with facts like this.

I don't think their track and trace system was set up on an Excel spreadsheet, even with the relatively few people they have. Again, you'd think with the volume of people that we have in the UK we'd have built a more robust system

That was quite unbelievable, everyone in IT knows that excel has line restrictions. It's why many DB programs exist outside of MS.

Again goes to show this govt's incompetence.

And that’s one small part you’d have to do the same for each factor to get complete picture.

I wonder what our rate if reduction was after first peak. It did work and we complied pretty well.

GB is an island. We could have done the same as New Zealand.
I agree with the poster who said we aren't compliant here and many of us are entirely unwilling to work for the greater good. Our current situation is what results from selfish and immature attitudes like that. Sad.

The UK government tried too hard to keep the testing and test and trace central to London.

They should’ve given the counties responsibility to respond and implement.

Closing the borders doesn’t mean turning away freight - it can be dropped off.

Mask wearing early on, washing hands, supermarkets limited.

Isolation for 14 days for anyone leaving with permission to return. Fines for those not complying.

Better simpler communication from government.

People who actually give a shit about others safety. That would be a huge help.

@MarshaBradyo

And that’s one small part you’d have to do the same for each factor to get complete picture.

I wonder what our rate if reduction was after first peak. It did work and we complied pretty well.

I think we did brilliantly during the first LD, the mistakes were made after that. I will give that BJ had no experience of CV in Feb March so its understandable mistakes made.

' I live in NZ. We did go hard and go early back in March to try and eradicate the virus and it worked for us. Foreign news sites at the time were calling us out, making fun of how seriously our government was taking the virus. it’s interesting now seeing that it worked for us while the countries where those journalists are from are in the grips of the pandemic still.'

@Kiwiinparis I'm agog that you believe 'going hard' is the difference here. Who 'made fun' of you?

Seriously look at the isolated location, the massive difference in population size difference and put your cheerleading pompoms away.

@mbosnz

I thought immunity after contracting the disease, has been found to last approximately three months?

That's antibodies, not immunity.

Wished i lived there tbh. The uk is a s* show and still Boris hasn't learnt sick of this life for me and my kids and the fact i have to send my dc to school monday in Thanet & it isn't fecking safe. I'm in awe of the way New Zealand has put it's citizens first!

@GetOffYourHighHorse

' I live in NZ. We did go hard and go early back in March to try and eradicate the virus and it worked for us. Foreign news sites at the time were calling us out, making fun of how seriously our government was taking the virus. it’s interesting now seeing that it worked for us while the countries where those journalists are from are in the grips of the pandemic still.'

@Kiwiinparis I'm agog that you believe 'going hard' is the difference here. Who 'made fun' of you?

Seriously look at the isolated location, the massive difference in population size difference and put your cheerleading pompoms away.

LOL, if positions were reversed, I'm buggered if I believe you'd be putting your cheerleading pom poms away. . .

Yeah, just spoke to a mate there last night - it is life as normal, but with vigilance in case anything appears to be brewing.

TBH, I don't think even with good management we could have had the kind of controlled situation NZ had - far fewer people pass through NZ, population much less dense and using less public transport. But absolutely that was combined with realistic, honest, wise leadership - none of which we've had here.

@GetOffYourHighHorse @mbosnz lol, it’s ok! I’m allowed to have pride in how my country handled this and I’m not going to hide that.

I’m sorry that you aren’t in that position, it is really awful. That’s no need to downplay another countries success because we have a few factors that made it easier to shut out the rest of the world 🤷🏼‍♀️