To think people need to stop comparing the UK and New Zealand?

[RaspberryCoulis]

We have a population of 66.5 million, they have 4.9 million.

We have an area of 240,000 sq km, they have 270,000 sq km. (So less than 10% of the population in a bigger area).

Their biggest city has 1.5 million people. London has 9 million people. Their next biggest city, Christchurch, is smaller than Birmingham, Glasgow, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Edinburgh and Leicester.

And they're 2000 miles from their nearest big neighbour. (Australia). We're joined onto one country (Ireland) and 2000 miles from London takes in all of Western Europe, Iceland, a good chunk of Eastern Europe and a bit of North Africa.

So can we stop with the silly comparisons now?

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'Apparently the NZ PM has offered to advise the incoming Biden administration on containing/controlling Covid; an offer I very much hope is taken up, so I can visit family in California!!!'

You're joking. A leader of a country of 5m thinks they have anything to offer the president of a country of 332m? As I said on the other thread good that NZ are having an easy time but please don't think having a small pop, spread out in isolated islands with easily closed borders has any relevance to the US. Remember Trump did infact ban flights from China in the early days and from Europe, doesn't work if it is a high flow travel hub.

I’m going to assume the advice will be over the way the NZ government communicated with the population.

Ardern’s televised updates were incredible - they made Johnson and Trump look like bumbling fools. That’s the real reason behind NZ’s success. Everyone was on the same page due to crystal clear and confident messaging. NZ also had a pandemic plan already in place, and were to a greater extent ready for it.

Ardern’s televised updates were incredible - they made Johnson and Trump look like bumbling fools. That’s the real reason behind NZ’s success. Everyone was on the same page due to crystal clear and confident messaging. NZ also had a pandemic plan already in place, and were to a greater extent ready for it.

This. I'm astounded by all the threads on MN asking "can I do this", "am I allowed to do that" - we knew what the rules were, they were easy to understand and for the most part people followed them. We also had a stricter lockdown (we weren't even allowed to shop online, unless it was for essentials) and keyworkers were people who actually went out into the workplace - not people WFH and sending kids to school.

So, which other competent country should we compare our incompetent government to?

I was impressed with Jacinda Adern as a PM quite a long time before Covid but I do think some of the comaprisons are unfair.
We should have closed our borders and quarantined people in a stricter way from the start, but when did NZ close their borders? The day it was declared a pandemic. The virus was already here and circulating massively on that day. Even if we had closed borders then we would still be lagging behind.

@Fizbosshoes

I was impressed with Jacinda Adern as a PM quite a long time before Covid but I do think some of the comaprisons are unfair. We should have closed our borders and quarantined people in a stricter way from the start, but when did NZ close their borders? The day it was declared a pandemic. The virus was already here and circulating massively on that day. Even if we had closed borders then we would still be lagging behind.

But then you had a lockdown which wasn’t really much of a lockdown, with people confused about the rules - as evidenced by the many threads asking what to do.

The NZ response was much more than simply closing the borders.

'So, which other competent country should we compare our incompetent government to?'

France, Italy Spain all similar rates per capita and deaths per capita.
www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Germany had over 1000 deaths yesterday and up to 700 today. Are you seriously suggesting Merkel is 'incompetent' too?

I'm so glad i live in NZ. Because we have wiped out all the community cases my daily life is no different to what it would normally be. But we are all taking precautions, regular hand washing, social distancing, recording QR codes. We are being encouraged to holiday in our own country and we have just enjoyed a 3 week tour around the North Island.
We are certainly not laughing at the plight of any other country. Many of us have family living overseas.
My wonderful brother died in Australia in November and my sister and i were not able to attend his funeral due to the lack of flights, quarantine in Australia then quarantine on the return to NZ which couldn't happen until the middle of February. We are very sad as many other people have been/are in the same situation.
What a bloody mess this shit show called the virus is /has been.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to compare strategies though. The countries that locked down hard and fast, that didn’t dither, that closed their borders, and that didn’t have quite frankly insane schemes like Eat Out To Help Out, Let’s Move Millions of Students Back To University Even Though Their Classes Are Mostly Online, and Let’s Get Together For Christmas, have fared better. The government KNEW this was coming. We are an island and had the means at our disposal, but the relentless and continuing dithering have helped to make this much much worse than it needed to be.

And then Fucking Cummings breaks the rules, is condoned by the CABINET, and in doing so completely undermines their credibility. I will never forget an interviewer asking Gove whether he would drive for half an hour to check his eyesight, and he said he would. No sane person would do that, especially with a small child in the car, even if we weren’t in the grip of a global pandemic.

It’s all very well to spout the Captain Hindsight line, but it wasn’t hindsight. It was predicted, there was strong evidence from elsewhere, and we still didn’t take it seriously. We are truly Led By Donkeys.

From the beginning I have found this laughable. If those people comparing the UK to NZ had ever been to NZ they would understand why their comparison is so ridiculous. Where I live in the UK I’m within 10 minutes’ drive of 3 fairly major cities and lots of smaller towns. In NZ you can drive for 2 hours and not come across a city. You might pass through 3 or 4 ‘towns’ (which are really what we would call villages), literally blink and you’re out of the other side. Even the cities, with the exception of Auckland, are not what we would class as cities. You can spend a full day at one of the most beautiful beaches in the country in the height of summer and not see a single other person. There are VERY few indoor activities given that so much time is spent outdoors. Supermarkets are about the same size as your local Co-op. If you haven’t been you can’t possibly understand how isolated it is. It is easy to cancel all flights when the only people coming through your country are the tourists who are probably banned from leaving their own countries anyway. You can’t compare that to Heathrow’s major international transit. I’m not saying they didn’t do a great job, hats off to them and their government. But it’s nowhere near as simple as comparing them to us, it’s like comparing apples and bananas.

@Wiredforsound
We are not isolated though. We are a country of over 60 million people. As soon as the first person had it in the UK that was it for us, we’re too densely populated and movement around the country is too easy.
NZ did not lock down at the first hint that this was coming, they just managed to contain the spread within their own country, which is easy when you consider what I have said above.

@Wiredforsound please have some respect for donkeys.

I agree condoning Dominic Cummings was the straw for many that meant they stopped caring about following restrictions.

'agree condoning Dominic Cummings was the straw for many that meant they stopped caring about following restrictions.'

Oh with respect, bollocks. Compliance has always been a bit hit and miss and this just gave flouters an excitable excuse to do more flouting. The Cumming's thing was more remainers channelling their Brexit rage than any concern over restrictions.

@GammyLeg
Yes NZ did more than close the borders and strict quarantines which we could have implemented here but what I'm trying to say is even if we did all the same things at the same time, we were starting on the back foot because it was already here and spreading before a) it was properly identified and b) declared a pandemic.
The genie was already out of the bottle.
We could have locked borders in January like a lot of MN claim they would have done if they were in charge ...but at that time it wasn't obvious that it wasn't going to be like SARs, MERs Swine flu etc which we didn't feel the full impact here.

Abso fucking lutely. In NZ there is little council housing (which is short term anyway), houses are bloody expensive, healthcare for most is not free, wages are not high but the cost of living is high, Education is very poor and in the world stage NZ is lot a player economically.

Add to that the appalling quality of much of the housing and the dire healthcare system with lack of access to innovative treatments we take for granted in the UK - I speak from personal experience. Ridiculous comparison on every level.

towns. In NZ you can drive for 2 hours and not come across a city. You might pass through 3 or 4 ‘towns’ (which are really what we would call villages), literally blink and you’re out of the other side.

^ this. Easily a hour or more to the nearest city, which was about the size of Brighton, more in bad weather and in the winter sometimes I wouldn't bother unless it was essential because the icy conditions on some of the roads were lethal, fine on a main road but when you are driving on twisty roads on the edge of a steep hill with little or no barrier and it's icy you really do think twice about if your journey is essential.

@Lily193

Abso fucking lutely. In NZ there is little council housing (which is short term anyway), houses are bloody expensive, healthcare for most is not free, wages are not high but the cost of living is high, Education is very poor and in the world stage NZ is lot a player economically.

Add to that the appalling quality of much of the housing and the dire healthcare system with lack of access to innovative treatments we take for granted in the UK - I speak from personal experience. Ridiculous comparison on every level.

Glad someone gets it. Housing is, I'm afraid to say, deeply unattractive on the whole (Imho). Almost everywhere are streets and streets of bungalows (like Australia) and there is NOTHING within walking distance. 'Villages' (towns) are in no way charming. Forget about local pubs!

Someone I know had a hip replacement privately and ended up semi disabled with permanent nerve damage because the surgeon doesn't do enough of these operations to be truly proficient. There appears to be no way to sue/get compensation. In some ways NZ is great. You pay for gps (not that much) so very much can choose a good one. GPs are less rushed and more available. It's all clean and very similar to the UK. Until you need something complicated.

It's not really fair to compare the two places. NZ is much bigger with a smaller population than Scotland. There's a lot to like in the cities and it is beautiful. But in terms of comparisons covid wise it's like comparing apples and pears.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'So, which other competent country should we compare our incompetent government to?'

France, Italy Spain all similar rates per capita and deaths per capita.
www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Germany had over 1000 deaths yesterday and up to 700 today. Are you seriously suggesting Merkel is 'incompetent' too?

Look at the vaccination rates in Europe way behind the UK.

Iirc France had barely 100 done so far

Someone I know had a hip replacement privately and ended up semi disabled with permanent nerve damage because the surgeon doesn't do enough of these operations to be truly proficient.

Unbelievable They've been doing hip replacements in NZ for decades. Maybe the "someone you know" should have gone through the public system. A hip replacement is hardly complicated.

Housing is, I'm afraid to say, deeply unattractive on the whole

Each to his own - I personally find much of the housing in the UK is extremely unattractive, which was just what I was thinking last night after watching a news item, and a TV programme.

Also wondering how NZ is "much bigger" than the UK?

Oh dear. Well I don't disagree they should have gone public but the wait was too long. And sadly it was someone I know very well. Proficiency comes through doing hundreds of these things. Day after day. 3 point Whatever million people in the country is not ever going to give you that especially when you live in a town of maybe hundreds of thousands.

Each to his own re housing, I like older properties, brick, and decorative elements, and continuity. And nice gardens. There are some lovely modern properties in NZ. But oh my god they are expensive.

If you look on a map geographically nz is a lot larger. You could drive the whole uk in less than the time than it takes to drive the north island.

It's really not hard. Nz is different. Some people move there and love it some don't. A couple I know moved there (music solicitor and music industry person, 1 child) moved there and lasted less than a year - horrified at flip flops everywhere and people going to the supermarket with no shoes. Silly things but they can matter.

@Myshinynewname2021

Oh dear. Well I don't disagree they should have gone public but the wait was too long. And sadly it was someone I know very well. Proficiency comes through doing hundreds of these things. Day after day. 3 point Whatever million people in the country is not ever going to give you that especially when you live in a town of maybe hundreds of thousands.

Each to his own re housing, I like older properties, brick, and decorative elements, and continuity. And nice gardens. There are some lovely modern properties in NZ. But oh my god they are expensive.

If you look on a map geographically nz is a lot larger. You could drive the whole uk in less than the time than it takes to drive the north island.

It's really not hard. Nz is different. Some people move there and love it some don't. A couple I know moved there (music solicitor and music industry person, 1 child) moved there and lasted less than a year - horrified at flip flops everywhere and people going to the supermarket with no shoes. Silly things but they can matter.

They disliked NZ because of flip flops and bare feet?! As push factors to leave a country go that is hilarious! 😂

I mean most countries have dealt with covid better than the UK, to be fair. Not only NZ... I am an expat in a country where we haven't had any covid restrictions since March. And it is very different to NZ.

And as an expat with friends and colleagues from all over the world including NZ, i agree that i havent heard anyone laughing at the UK, as the situation is simply not funny. But people HAVE been noticing, discussing, and asking me about my thoughts, with a mixture od shock, horror, sadness and disbelief.

Most colonial post ever.

Yes NZ is terrible for not being exactly like England.

The horror at the flip flops 😂

Let me guess... they emigrated after buying the outdated and Colonial view that NZ is “England with beaches” and found a country with its own culture.

Oh dear. Well I don't disagree they should have gone public but the wait was too long. And sadly it was someone I know very well. Proficiency comes through doing hundreds of these things. Day after day.

Surely the fact that the waiting lists are so long shows just how many of these operations they are doing? Are you telling me that no surgery in the UK ever goes wrong? - wow, perhaps everyone should move there.

I believe the UK is around 90% the size of NZ. The countries are different shapes.

Some properties in NZ are expensive, but so are some in the UK. It depends what part of the country you are buying in - as it does in most countries.

As for "nice gardens" - generally gardens in NZ are bigger than they are in the UK, although having said that people are tending to live on smaller sections these days. I've seen some bloody horrible looking gardens in both countries - surely that depends on the individual, you can't tell me that every single person in the UK has a nice garden!

Your friends who left the country based on the fact that people wear flip flops and went into supermarkets with - shock, horror - no shoes sound like prize prats, and no, they wouldn't fit in here.