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?

Oh @happystone have a mince pie and calm your Johnson hating jets.

This isn't about Jacinda versus Boris.

It's a massive crammed population versus a tiny spread out pop and a highly infectious disease.

Do you think Cornwall is doing lockdown better than London? Have you no understanding of transmission .

My sister lives in New Zealand. She said that anyone entering the country has to stay in a hotel that's been taken over by the government. You pay £3k for 14 nights and all your meals are brought to your room. If you try to leave you are arrested. This policy has effectively stopped people bringing the virus into the country. She says everything is back to normal there apart from this and is horrified with how bad things are here

They are still researching Japan as there may be genetic , or other reasons for the low numbers. Apparently they already do have more corona type viruses in their population than us and they are wondering if that is a factor . As I say research going on . No firm answer yet as far as I know .

The acted quickly and fiercely. We're a country of ditherers.

I think a massive problem here and America have been the population complaining about their "rights" being taken away. Everyone complaining about not being able to do what they want and Boris doesn't have the balls to say tough shit so didn't want to implement restrictions and eased them too early.

I don’t know Germany’s numbers other than they had a very high death count recently, nearly 1000

Yes we know how to get it under control and have done. Will be harder now though.

Borris job is to keep its citizens safe. He has not done this he has done the opposite.

@crochetcrazy1978

They don’t have the road freight that we rely on for everyday life and work and manufacture .

The UK is an island.

An ISLAND. Like NZ.

Ideal place to shut the borders.

New Zealand is very sparsely populated, and miles from anywhere. I lived there and it's so different to the UK in this regard. Here in the UK we are so interconnected with Europe. There you are a 3 hour flight from Australia, and anywhere else is a lot further.

Lots of other countries have done as well as NZ too without border closures and Government restrictions. South Sudan, Yemen, Somalia etc, but these never get mentioned as countries we should have emulated for some reason?

Getoffyourhighhorse. I don’t hate boris. He has done a shit job. Do you really think this government has done a good job

They have a leader who can string a few words together?

Because they're black, starfro

New Zealand 🇳🇿 Had a proper lockdown.
Also NZ are shit hot at bio security.. a relative went from U.K. to NZ in a foot and mouth epidemic- he took a mountain bike, washed and disinfected, but NZ customs still disinfected it and their shoes to stop potentially lethal disease affecting their livestock.
Very wise.

U.K. let’s every fucker in.. hence foot and mouth, Dutch elm disease and Elm dieback let alone Covid.

We should be strict like Aus and NZ

They have a female prime minister. She had the balls to close the borders, early. ( tits of steel)
Boris has his balls stuck in any female around. Apparently this prevented him from doing anything sensible, or even attending crisis meetings.

The lesson, tits of steel are better.

It doesn’t matter if you ask people to think impartially and rationally about facts. They can’t

Why don't you practice what you preach?

Compare the UK to similar or heavily populated countries, like Japan or Germany?

the Govt had a clear message at the start of the first lockdown... STAY IN and we did, i could have ridden my bike the wrong way up the M5 and not seen a car.
But then came the confusion and the rule breakers in power, the change in the slogan.. eat out to help out, foreign hols allowed, a terrible TnT and we started to question what the message was.

Also hate to say it but as a nation we aren’t compliant and don’t do things for the greater good in the same way some other countries seem to. So many people haven’t followed government guidelines as it is, don’t think enough people would have gone along with stricter restrictions

This!

Getoffyourhighhorse. Are you Johnson’s family member

Do you really have to ask 🙄🙄. Hard, fast, proper lockdown, same as China. We could have done that, but England is governed by incompetents and populated by a large percentage of stupid, ignorant arseholes.

@jasjas1973

It doesn’t matter if you ask people to think impartially and rationally about facts. They can’t

Why don't you practice what you preach?

Compare the UK to similar or heavily populated countries, like Japan or Germany?

the Govt had a clear message at the start of the first lockdown... STAY IN and we did, i could have ridden my bike the wrong way up the M5 and not seen a car.
But then came the confusion and the rule breakers in power, the change in the slogan.. eat out to help out, foreign hols allowed, a terrible TnT and we started to question what the message was.

Because that us precisely what I am asking to do compare with Germany. Not NZ.

Scroll back and see first post

I think it is valid to question why people are defending the government.

And I think if you're spending your time and energy thinking of reasons as to why the actions of an openly compassionate and humane leader (as opposed to a leader who referred to the current horrors as "Operation Last Gasp") do not apply to us rather than looking at where the similarities and lessons to be learned lie, then you are effectively defending the government's actions.

I think we all deserve better, quite honestly.

Here in Guernsey, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from mainland UK, you wouldn't know there was a pandemic. Life is back to normal with the exception of travel and having to self isolate when you come in to the Island. This is properly regulated and people have been fined up to £10k or imprisoned for breaking self isolation.

Admittedly we are a small Island but so is Jersey and it's out of control there. We were very fortunate that our Director of Public Health had trained for a pandemic her whole life and she knew straight away was was going on and set things in motion. Equipment was ordered for on island testing, teams of people were redeployed for track and trace and the island went into lockdown in March.

We completely eradicated the virus and were COVID free for a few months. Life went back to normal pre COVID.

Since restrictions were lifted we've had a few new cases, our number went up to 8 (I think) and has fluctuated below that. All of our new cases are people coming into the Island and being tested on arrival and again at 13 days. Everyone goes into self isolation on arrival so the positive cases have been contained.

Being a small island has been a big advantage but it's also having clear leadership and people making hard decisions.

We are incredibly lucky to have this relatively normal life.

Iris5543. Well said

It’s not defending the government it’s - look at comparative countries.

Pointless otherwise.

I hope that by now people understand that international hubs would naturally be hit very early on and with asymptomatic transmission.

Unlike NZ

Also helps that it’s the middle of summer there.