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?

I agree the population size makes a massive difference. Have any of the posters comparing us to NZ actually been there?

We drive north from Auckland on the main carriageway and didn't even see another car for 3/4 hours! Not at all comparable to here.

NZ are also massively hot on the foreign species coming in (our walking boots got an amazing clean by NZ staff at the airport) and are so hot on immigration in a way that wouldn't be tolerated by the average Mumsnetter!

Plus they had a massively different culture to health and safety ( which I think is great). At one the the volcanic parks with boiling hot lakes of water there are no barriers or warning signs and it's all open. One of the rangers was astonished at any suggestion warnings might be needed ' it was obvious the water was boiling and therefore dangerous'.

The population seemed to be much more trusted and treated as adults and therefore likely I think that people took their own decisions to not mix/ wear masks without needing detailed guidance from the Government. That I think makes a big difference. You only have to read threads on here from posters who can't possibly come to their own decision about a matter without checking up what the Government says the rules are, and then bemoaning that it's not specific to their situation.

If the covid-control formula was that easy, then Japan, Malta, Iceland, Indonesia, tiny island states east of Indonesia, whole Carribean -- would have done same

I don't think anyone is pretending it's easy, it's not, it's hard. It's not impossible though as some seem to be saying, our leaders just weren't up to the job, they aren't good enough and have failed us on this. Pandemics are known events, any, even half way competent, government would have had detailed, up to date, plans in place. Hopefully when this is over, lessons will have been learnt and we will be better prepared next time, unfortunately, I doubt we will be though because of the way we are just letting leaders of the hook instead of holding to account for letting this virus slip though their fingers (and in Johnson's case, went on holiday for two weeks in February).

Everyone can always do "better". I'm wonder if people in Norway or Finland lament how 'badly' they did, too.

We will all learn from it this time. Even the WHO might change its border stance for the next one.

@JayAlfredPrufrock it isn’t shite. They did surveys and announced at some of the press conferences that the compliance rate was well above the U.K., and well above what they had predicted.

The leaders here never thought we’d get eradication as predictions on compliance were lower. Turns out that the results showed high compliance.

Sorry that irritates you.

For the best because NZ is also, overall, not a wealthy country or highly education - a lot of people probably wouldn’t have been followed a strict lockdown.

I beg your pardon? You are showing your lack of education right there - just in your grammar, if nothing else.

I suggest perhaps you don't comment on what you clearly lack knowledge on. It's embarrassing. Well it should be. To you. . .

We will all learn from it this time.

I bet we won't. Especially with the 'theres nothing they could do' attitude.

We will. Look at his countries reacted to new U.K. variant. Over 40 reacted.

It’s easy to say in hindsight they did the wrong thing, thinking that you alone would have done differently.

In January the picture was very different even for the organisation everyone was following.

It’s easy to say in hindsight they did the wrong thing

It wasn't hindsight, people were jumping up and down screaming at them to act at the time. Back in January and February.

'It’s astounding to me though the amount of people out there who have got their backs up because of where we are now. Funny how jealousy can make some people act that way'

Oh dear. I'm not 'jealous' it is just factually incorrect to say NZ has got anything right because they 'went hard'. Granted compliance seems to be a big factor however for the trillionth time an isolated location with a relatively tiny population is far more relevant than 'going hard'. As I say I'm pleased NZ had it easy but the smuggery and self congratulating is a bit silly.

They are an island, thousands of miles from the nearest country. Oh and there's 4 million ppl!!

People complied with the lockdown rules in NZ. No one searched for exceptions to see their parents or to go to the supermarket if they had a sore throat or justified their teenagers meeting friends etc.

No one had to ask it if was justified to not comply like the constant AIBU threads on here.

Same in Melbourne in Australia. We had a long second lockdown with compulsory masks even outside and on bike rides and schools/childcare closed April -May and again August - November. An 8pm curfew and a 5km travel restriction. When DCs returned all high school students were in masks all day. Not one complaint or excuse.

We did not try to find loopholes in the guidance or justify non-compliance or claim mask wearing exemption (and, yes, the MH impact was severe, but we coped as best we could).

Melbourne had 3 Covid cases yesterday after two months of 0 cases. New local measures were announced within hours. No one is happy and many summer holidays are now cancelled, but it will be worth it to prevent a third wave here.

Our masks are now back on again at all times indoors except when eating or drinking. Limits again on numbers in our homes with little notice (despite previously arranged NYE parties). States have suddenly re-imposed travel bans.

We are all in strict compliance as despite the inconvenience (eg DCs haven’t seen grandparents for 9 months now because of internal Australian travel restrictions), we know these sacrifices work to save the lives of other people.

But the biggest difference with NZ and Australia vs the UK is the mandatory 14 day hotel quarantine for overseas travellers. Where anyone who enters the country is held under strict quarantine in a hotel (at their own cost) and Covid tested at day 1 and day 11. This is where the positive Covid cases arrive and are stopped from entering the population. And we can’t leave the country.

I can’t see how the UK could enforce this kind of incoming travel quarantine, and it’s too late in any case.

I think people going on about NZ being a backwater etc forget some things. They are remote but people DO travel. It’s not fucking 1920.

But if you want to compare other things then maybe Vietnam? Or China? (I think China has some business stuff going on that they seem to be managing but maybe it’s not the same as important British business stuff. And I think they have a fair sized populations with some cities and things?)

Or Australia? Yes we are an island but we managed to cut off STATES. They are not islands (mostly) Apart from NSW everyone has been pretty militant about it and people obey the rules. And yes just like in the Uk people live and work in different areas and we worked around it. We went to zoom for everything, had permits for cross state border travel for essential workers, cancelled conferences, stopped going overseas and if there is an outbreak everything is into strict lockdown until SCIENCE tell us it is safe (apart from fucking NSW but we just cut them off) The state premiers listen to their medics not the federal government. Melbourne had the longest hardest lockdown in the world and post that they now get to live without fear in a pretty normal world. Apart from not getting on planes every two minutes for work etc (which is bliss) my life is exactly the same as pre pandemic with the addition of QR codes and a bit more hand sanitiser at work.

Yes some countries have huge advantages. But some use those advantages and some squander them. Britain was doing well at one point. Then everyone decided they needed to go on holiday and the government encouraged people to fuck it up.

It’s rarely individuals fault that this is happening. But the UK and the USA are a combination of really really bad leadership and a culture that doesn’t allow for it

Oh and nothing fucks up an economy like a population all in hospital so no, being cut off hasn’t really hurt our economy so much

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'It’s astounding to me though the amount of people out there who have got their backs up because of where we are now. Funny how jealousy can make some people act that way'

Oh dear. I'm not 'jealous' it is just factually incorrect to say NZ has got anything right because they 'went hard'. Granted compliance seems to be a big factor however for the trillionth time an isolated location with a relatively tiny population is far more relevant than 'going hard'. As I say I'm pleased NZ had it easy but the smuggery and self congratulating is a bit silly.

It must be so hard for the Empirical exceptionalists to see that a poor little oik of a colonial upstart of a country has got something right. Compliance and NZ culture being inline with that, given that with the second World War, it was well known that an order given by some pillock of a British commander, particularly with the Maori Battalion was treated as 'a good suggestion' to be discussed, debated, and ultimately agreed or disagreed with.

I'm glad that NZ did it well.

We just did our best for us and ours.

Also, being an island would have helped . And less dense population. And less pressure on public health systems.

It’s impossible to compare countries really.

'It must be so hard for the Empirical exceptionalists to see that a poor little oik of a colonial upstart of a country has got something right. '

There's a rather unpleasant xenophobic tone to this comment. Weve had 'British arrogance' earlier too. It is none of these things, we have one densely populated country and one sparsely populated country, an infectious disease needs lots of people in close contact to transmit. Does that help?

We have family in Queenstown which depends hugely on tourism. That area at least is nowhere near back to normal. The town is deserted, many people have lost their jobs and from what they say the general atmosphere is very flat. They aren’t meeting friends for Christmas parties even though they could because no one is really in the mood.

'I'm glad that NZ did it well.'

Yes of course I'm glad they had it very easy, I wouldn't wish this on anyone even those who have a huge chip on their shoulder and use bigoted terms like 'empirical exceptionalists' and talk about 'some pillock of a British commander' from ww2 .

@Circusoflove that’s a shame to hear! It’s nowhere near how busy it was when our borders were open that’s true. But in saying that about 80% of people I know have had a Queenstown holiday over the last few months, so we are trying to put $$ back into our local economy.

@GetOffYourHighHorse I wouldn’t jump in and say we had it easy. We too had level 4 lockdown for a month. We weren’t allowed to leave our homes or see our family. Yes the timing of it has been shorter than the UK lockdowns, but it was nowhere near easy.

I’m in Australia and my mum flew back to the UK the day that Australia shut the border. They also introduced a 14 day hotel quarantine.
When my mum landed, she had no checked and just went home. I remember being so shocked that she was not asked to at least stay home for 14 days. I know that was then introduced but you would have had people getting off planes and straight into public transport. My take is both NZ and Aus acted quickly and the UK just didn’t act quickly enough. Also the large horse race in Cheltenham should have been cancelled.

The geography and population has a huge impact.

But I do think that JA has been exceptional and Boris has been a very different type of exceptional.

My instinct is that if JA had been our PM then we would be doing much better but wouldn’t be clear (maybe a couple of thousand cases a day) and if Boris had been the NZ PM then he’d have botched it!