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?

Absolutely agree. Jacinda was to the point and the rules was given in a straightforward, no bullshit way. We all knew that all hell will break loose if we dint act fast. And now we are reaping the benefits. Yes, we do have joblosses, yes, our economy has shrunk, yes the country did go into dept, but, in the longrun, this worked.

We also know that we still might get community transfer as some stage, but we know it will be tracked and traced to the extreme and that the area of the possibly transfer might go into lockdown again. But until then, we carry on and keep building back up

@laradv yes one day you could go to one country then another it was if a country has lower numbers it was deemed safe but the numbers would go up and people would find they had to quarantine when back
We were due to go to spain in juy but we cancelled in may time as knew it would be risky and lost our deposit
The thing is a lot of holiday companies were not giving people money back if the flights were on
Overall I don't actually think that much travel was achieved as countries kept being taken off list
The first lockdown was clear and precise and with daily updates they really kept us informed
I think low cases in summer lulled us in to false sense of security across europe and it was late aept things started going up , but this new strain is really pushing numbers now and many I know would rather a nationwide lockdown like march whilst we roll out vaccines rather than in and out if tiers where your still restricted

@takethereins yes it has been talked about all along having an air corridor with australia once australia were also on top of their numbers and poss some other lower infection countries
Effictively this is kind of what uk tried with europe as was only know quarantine from a few countries and mostly shortlived , generally most required quarantine on return
But as a nz do you think that had you had to keep borders shut for years to all that would of had an impact as I had read that is what some were worried about , talking years here not 1 or 2

@Laradv i think you have prob suffered less than others though and not many countries have come out totally unscathed in this
Its a lot easier to be on top of community transmission when you only have a handful of cases so you should be ok now , especially fingers crossed with vaccines hopefully helping reduce it worldwide so that nz can open up again to the world although rightly so I think your leader will play that slow and steady

Can I jump in here, the NZ borders will open to people who will have, what I call a Health Passport. Meaning that you have been vaccinated. No country, not NZ, not Aus, not Japan, not even the UK will be able to keep the borders shut. That is and why there is such a push for the vac's. No country's economy can sustain that.

Now, this is where it will get interesting, you cant force a person the get vaccinated, and there will most certainly be people against the vac, just as with the MMR and the children vaccines. So, a health paasport requirement maybe? Or 2 weeks quarentine that the person will need to pay out of his pocket.

I predict the world to be back to normal by the end of 2021.

they did have to quarantine unless going to a country with an air bubble agreed

But, from what I understand, it wasn't managed quarantine, it was just expected but not followed up on. Here you go into a hotel and you aren't allowed to leave until your quarantine period has finished. Very different.

@eaglejulesk

they did have to quarantine unless going to a country with an air bubble agreed

But, from what I understand, it wasn't managed quarantine, it was just expected but not followed up on. Here you go into a hotel and you aren't allowed to leave until your quarantine period has finished. Very different.

Indeed. ‘Quarantine’ and ‘lockdown’ mean different things in different countries.

If no vaccine was on the horizon, countries like New Zealand and Australia would be coming up with a plan to gradually open borders in a staged way, to balance the impact on the economy. It’s much easier to do that when your citizens haven’t been dying in droves. The borders wouldn’t have stayed closed forever, or even for years. Decisions would have been made to balance it all out.

As it turns out, these countries can make these decisions knowing their citizens haven’t been sacrificed as a result of ineffective policy. It’s a much more positive situation.

These threads keep coming up - NZ is about the same area as the UK BUT it has a pop of 4 million and the UK has a pop of nearly 70 million so you are not comparing like with like. We have nearly 20 times as many people as nz - it makes a biiiiiiiiiiig difference.

The area of the UK is 242,000 square Kms.
The area of Australia is 7.692 million squared Kms - it just might make a teensy weensy difference to controlling the spread of disease.
Why can't people grasp this.
They are also near to the Asian countries, and have many Asian visitors /students, where epidemics have started in the past - hence they are a bit more prepared.

@TheOneLeggedJockey yes it wasn't enforced to nz standards I think some people had checks made
It would of been easier if travel was banned aa people could of got there money back we lost a £1000 on our deposit as we cancelled in may for out july holiday to spain as we didnt want ti travel and it would of gone ahead as travel was allowed but during the dates we would of been there quarantine was imposed

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

I’m sure every countries economy will be fucked if they have years and years of covid restrictions/ death rates/ overwhelmed health care not just NZ.

What people must also understand, the managed quarentine is NZ is strict. It is specific hotels that have the army literally watching you. There is only so many beds and rooms available and if you do want to come into NZ, you need to book and pay in advance. I understand that bookings is full till March 2021. NZ dont let you self quarentine, this is goverment approved, goverment mamaged with police and army outside.

We currently do have cases in those arrival hotels, but the people get tested, I think 3 times now. And you dont leave before the 2 weeks are over and you dont leave after a negative test.

I think this is also where the difference comes in between the arrivals in the UK and arrivals to NZ.

@Schehezarade

These threads keep coming up - NZ is about the same area as the UK BUT it has a pop of 4 million and the UK has a pop of nearly 70 million so you are not comparing like with like. We have nearly 20 times as many people as nz - it makes a biiiiiiiiiiig difference.

The area of the UK is 242,000 square Kms.
The area of Australia is 7.692 million squared Kms - it just might make a teensy weensy difference to controlling the spread of disease.
Why can't people grasp this.
They are also near to the Asian countries, and have many Asian visitors /students, where epidemics have started in the past - hence they are a bit more prepared.

Thanks. Funnily enough, these points have been well and truly covered off, in the 13-odd pages of the thread. People do grasp it.

With the sort of shilly-shallying leadership shown in the UK, NZ would have had the same experience - 100s of 1000s of infections, and too many deaths.

And just to clear up, as many different numbers have been touted on this thread, our population is 5 million, not 4 million.

@Schehezarade people can't see that or how being part of europe has a big impact and will say look at singapore etc etc
Yes we got things wrong but the comparisons can't be done that easily as its all different economies , different cultures, different phycology etc

Its easy for people to judge from afar when they have no real idea how the uk works And what it is reliant on

@taketgeregions it wasn't a dig at nz i mentioned that closed borders for years would ruin a countries economy ( any ) another poster said i was talking rubbish and had no proof etc etc

@Laradv we prob would struggle to do that as we don't have the personnel for the numbers that visit
When first happened we did quarantine in a large hotel or similar some groups , under strict quarantine but that seems like a lifetime away and we never did it again as I just don't think we could manage the amount of people

@Schehezarade

These threads keep coming up - NZ is about the same area as the UK BUT it has a pop of 4 million and the UK has a pop of nearly 70 million so you are not comparing like with like. We have nearly 20 times as many people as nz - it makes a biiiiiiiiiiig difference.

The area of the UK is 242,000 square Kms.
The area of Australia is 7.692 million squared Kms - it just might make a teensy weensy difference to controlling the spread of disease.
Why can't people grasp this.
They are also near to the Asian countries, and have many Asian visitors /students, where epidemics have started in the past - hence they are a bit more prepared.

Because it doesn’t actually matter. Cities like Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne are as densely populated as anywhere else. Australia’s population is half of England’s but the population of Australia doesn’t live all spread out across the whole of its geography .

And countries and cities that are as equally or more densely populated than the UK, like Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo etc have done so much better. Why is that?

Se had very few arrivals april to june this year normally we have approx 2- 2.5 million the graph i seen for those months is close to zero so possibly in the hundreds

@donewithitalltodayandxmas, sorry I misread it as being NZ specific, I missed your earlier posts on the matter.

I have a vested interest in what’s happening in the uk as my family is there. I am luck to have been living my life as close t normal as possible ( in Aus) and wish that my family could do the same.

Sydney etc may be busy and aome other towns but most if uk is like that , have you ever been here ?
Also as said before not one of those countries is in europe , have you seem the figures in europe ?
You can't seem to grasp that and how closely europe is intwined with travel and imports and exports connected by rd , air and sea forget eu part , uk is and always will be part of europe

The fact the UK’s borders remained open to other countries riddled with Covid has been part of the problem. Lockdowns in that scenario are like trying to keep the bath from overflowing but no one thinks about turning off the taps. And people wonder why the floor is flooded.

takethereigns

It was NZ specific. The poster said - it is a lot easier for Nz to close borders but youare also going to be reliant in (sic) vaccine to ever open your borders again...” (my bold).

Yes of you had remained open it could of been worse but it is a lot easier for nz to close borders but you are also going to be reliant in vaccine in order to ever open your borders again , they can't remain shut for years and still have an economy

Also in australia you can lockdown a state we can't really do that as i can drive one end if the country to other in prob 10/12 hrs and in 4/5 hrs travel through several cities and counties
Which is why tier system isn''t great I am tier 4 , 4 miles up the rd is tier 3

Sydney etc may be busy and aome other towns but most if uk is like that , have you ever been here ?

Yes, I have been to the U.K. I have family there. Have you been to Auckland? You really have no idea. Densely packed, cold houses, areas of poverty, high population of Maori and people of Pacific Island ethnicity who already have high rates of overweight/obesity and type 2 diabetes. The virus would have run rife, Jacinda made firm, time-critical decisions that saved lives. If I remember correctly, didn’t Boris first state that his plan was to aim for herd immunity? Aka let’s just let people die.

@nolongersurprised the person can read the posts and also what post of yours it was in response to and your not even in nz
You stated that uk is pinning all its hopes or similar on a vaccine which pretty much all are in order to get back to normal , your twisting how it was portrayed