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?

Germany and France both have huge land borders that are not possible to police.
Both have much lower population densities.

I was in NZ for part of their first lockdown. The only things open were big supermarkets, hospitals and pharmacies. Not DIY stores, small grocers, takeaways. There was no internal travel - planes, trains (not a big thing) and interisland ferries were cancelled. In some parts of the country there were roadblocks to prevent driving into an areas.

The borders were closed. For the first few weeks it was extremely difficult for foreigners to leave, or NZers overseas to get back. Its still quite hard.

Every day, the PM got on the TV and told everyone what was happening and what was expected. Police, medics, the entire establishment supported her. Even the opposition got with the programme (more or less). She's trustworthy.

The UK has not had a lockdown at all like it.

Whether we could or not, I'm not sure. We haven't tried.

They have a leader they respect.

She took quick and firm action.

Everyone did as they were told.

Job done.

Surely we need to compare countries with similar demographic but also people not willing to comply with strict regulations. Even if we had a world beating track and trace system would people comply?

I don’t think Japan is a good comparison as they are a country that has good social etiquette when it comes to wearing masks and have fairly recent history in dealing with SARS . We haven’t dealt with a pandemic in a century. We’ve had swine flu and bird flu but neither of those were anything like Covid.

@jasjas1973

Germany and France both have huge land borders that are not possible to police. Both have much lower population densities.

I feel there isnt a good comparison country, we are unique...and not in any kind of a good way:(

@KrisAkabusi

They had a proper lockdown and shut the borders. Strict rules that the UK decided would be unacceptable.

This.

We let thousands of people in weekly, all reported on government website missives

Shit show springs to mind, and that’s not a phrase I would ever use

I think that youn all forget that loads of our food and other supplies comes in every day on trucks from mainland Europe.

We have seen lats week what happens when that is delayed.

Those trucks and all the pther people who work back and forth over the channel mean that we can never ever 100% lockdown like NZ did.

NZ doesn't have 1,000 of daily connections to another landmass just 23 miles away does it?

No only food, but all our industry and factories. So we could have locked them down for a bit, but it woudl have been just as disactrous to the economy in the long run to close all borders for what is likely to be one whole year.

I am not saying our government got it right, I am saying that to equate NZ and UK just because we are islnads shows massive naivity.

'always think that people who say 'look how well NZ have done with Covid compared to the UK' just aren't very bright tbh. There are so many factors at play, it's just basic critical thinking to understand they are not comparable.'

Basic critical thinking. Exactly.

Look how well the Orkney islands have done compared to New York, that type of thing.

Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea all have high population densities, all are highly interconnected for trade and tourism with the rest of Asia. In many ways very comparable to the UK. All have managed this much better than us. Japan has managed even though their legal system doesn't allow them to implement lockdown.

What I want to know is, why haven't we learned from them? Why haven't we just realised that they know what they're doing, and taken on board their methods? Is it a kind of racism? I keep hearing that 'oh well they're different from us'. How, exactly? They're all liberal democracies, same as us.

I must admit, I haven't heard anyone say they'd far rather be in the UK than Aotearoa, right at this point, lol.

I'm done with the comparing. They did, from the top down, what was right for New Zealand and New Zealanders, hard as it's sometimes been on those outside her borders.

They've got a good outcome, which they can reap the rewards of, and enjoy this Christmas and New Year.

Tumeke, Aotearoa! Tau Hou hari!

Taiwan spent time and money on central infrastructure after SARS for future pandemic before it hit and also one of the few that override WHO on travel. SK have systems that many here wouldn’t accept.

Japan is an interesting situation and yes their cases are very low.

They have a competent leader, not one who didn’t take it seriously to begin with at all and didn’t close the borders. Remember when he said he was still shaking hands with people and it was ‘business as usual’? The experts told him to lockdown much sooner than he actually did, he was hellbent against it. We locked down too late so the first wave was a disaster. We haven’t got on top of it since because the government had bizarre ideas like the eat out to help out scheme in the summer, it took them 4 months to even implement masks.

It’s honestly been blundering fiasco after blundering fiasco. Even now with deaths and cases higher than April he won’t lockdown, he’s pissing about with an ineffective tier system instead. No stay at home order and until yesterday half of the country could still go to the bloody pub (plus people crossed tiers in order to do this). Just a joke.

@WhatIsGinLiqueurAnyway

Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea all have high population densities, all are highly interconnected for trade and tourism with the rest of Asia. In many ways very comparable to the UK. All have managed this much better than us. Japan has managed even though their legal system doesn't allow them to implement lockdown.

What I want to know is, why haven't we learned from them? Why haven't we just realised that they know what they're doing, and taken on board their methods? Is it a kind of racism? I keep hearing that 'oh well they're different from us'. How, exactly? They're all liberal democracies, same as us.

So you think Japanese people and culture are very similar to the UK populace? If you do I think you’re daft.

@mbosnz Tau Hou hari!

We could have been clear too if we had closed the borders promptly and kept them closed!

Does anyone know why the UK government didn't do this? Everyone I know was expecting it.

Australia has done pretty well too, by closing internal borders (between states) as well as external. It has 25 million people compared with 66 million in the UK. Australia has had 900 deaths compared with 72,000 here.

completely shut our borders.

As has been pointed out upthread, we have a land border with Europe. That border has been very heavily restricted and patrolled in the past but this had adverse as well as beneficial consequences. To close it down hard in modern times- to enforce a ban on the free movement of Irish citizens across it- would cause very severe, longlasting harm.

One method of dealing with it would have been to cut off that part of the UK and ban UK citizens residing in Northern Ireland travelling to other parts of the UK. And possibly also to section off other bits of the UK in similar fashion- for example, huge concrete barriers across all the small roads crossing the Scottish border and armed police or army checkpoints at the remainder, to prevent spread.

That would have gone down like a shit sandwich. And possibly illegal?

New Zealand made the right and correct choices based on geographical, cultural and social factors plus a leader they trust.

I would also say even though it looks normal it is very much a new normal. One I suspect that most New Zealanders are happy in the current times to be living in but they start 2021 with restrictions they didnt have at the start of 2020.

I think in fairness to the UK as well the variant has changed things quite dramatically

Close borders. Close schools. Close large shopping centres as well as non-essential stores. Proper social distancing and queuing enforced at supermarkets. Amongst other things.

I'd hate it but 6 months minimum of this would have helped. The going back & forth doesn't help at all. Tiers are stupid.

It could all have been done here, but lack of decisiveness and slapdash government put paid to that. As well as the sense of entitlement of people who want to do whatever they want.

Big queues outside shopping centres, people still meeting up for dates with someone new they met online, travelling across country etc, none of this has stopped.

I'm not a Covid-zealot, they annoy and bore me with their scaremongering and thinking they know the ins & outs of everything.

But we can't compare with NZ who took decisive action, when Boris didn't and hasn't. If we're going to have a Lockdown then do that and stick to it.

Doesn't matter if NZ or anywhere else has a smaller population etc, it's decisiveness that is key.

I'm outside UK at the moment and same here re what amy2021 has said. 7 months complete lockdown was tough, but worth it.

The problem with making laws is you need either police or military on hand to enforce those rules. Plus the will of the people is also useful. We had none of those things.

@justanotherneighinparadise

I don’t think Japan is a good comparison as they are a country that has good social etiquette when it comes to wearing masks and have fairly recent history in dealing with SARS . We haven’t dealt with a pandemic in a century. We’ve had swine flu and bird flu but neither of those were anything like Covid.

Our population did very well in the spring lockdown, we got infections down to a few 100 per day, its from that point onward we have screwed up... who the xxxx thought Eat out to help out was a good idea?

@helloxhristmas that's odd because I know a family who travelled over there. They did their managed isolation and are now having a blast. The did have to acquire a visa to go but they still got there.

"Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea all have high population densities, all are highly interconnected for trade and tourism with the rest of Asia. In many ways very comparable to the UK. All have managed this much better than us. Japan has managed even though their legal system doesn't allow them to implement lockdown.

What I want to know is, why haven't we learned from them? Why haven't we just realised that they know what they're doing, and taken on board their methods? Is it a kind of racism? I keep hearing that 'oh well they're different from us'. How, exactly? They're all liberal democracies, same as us."

Exactly. And in NZ, while they have more space per person, they still have cities and towns, they're not all spaced out a few metres apart.

I think there is a lot of exceptionalism and xenophobia in the government at least in this country. It needed fast, decisive action, really honest communication and some thinking outside the box.

The difference with Asian countries is that they have faced serious virus outbreaks with SARS. The governments learnt from that, and the citizens had a much clearer idea of the implications of disease spreading. It's similar in several African countries, which have extremely low or no cases/deaths for that same reason of their governments being prepared and following scientific advice quickly.

I'm sure if we have another pandemic looming in 5 years' time, everyone in the UK will start wearing masks and washing their hands from the off, the government in charge will treat it very seriously, close borders, etc. But if we'd actually said "let's learn from countries who have experience and more expertise" from the beginning this time, we wouldn't be where we are now.

@WhatIsGinLiqueurAnyway

Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea all have high population densities, all are highly interconnected for trade and tourism with the rest of Asia. In many ways very comparable to the UK. All have managed this much better than us. Japan has managed even though their legal system doesn't allow them to implement lockdown.

What I want to know is, why haven't we learned from them? Why haven't we just realised that they know what they're doing, and taken on board their methods? Is it a kind of racism? I keep hearing that 'oh well they're different from us'. How, exactly? They're all liberal democracies, same as us.

This exactly. So many countries have done so much better than us but I somehow feel like we can't see that because we always think we're better than the rest of the world and I do think racism is part of it

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.