Some good news about Coronavirus!

[KenDodd]

Eighteen countries and territories around the world have completely eradicated coronavirus and have no more known cases. Several other countries are looking like they're heading the same way probably most famously New Zealand were the number of active cases (not new infections) is reducing by about ten a day. Hopefully in two to three weeks they will also be CV free. This is such good news.

They just need absolutely cast iron border controls

Sorry meant to say how can they have that when tourism is such a big part of their economy? Unless they have Aus only as somone on another thread said.

NZ has almost eradicated Cv by a very active approach, the UK has not done this.

You really cannot compare the UK with NZ. Anyone going to NZ is going there as a destination. The UK is a major international hub. We also have very ferry links with an entire continent's worth of people. And there are more than 10 times as many of us squashed into a similar sized area.

(That's obviously leaving aside Adern's decisive and humane approach compared to the inexcusable shambolic dithering of our government)

According to the express, no new cases reported in London and the south east in the last 24 hours too 🙏🙏

Unless they have Aus only as somone on another thread said.
I'm not sure about the outcome, but it was being discussed by the two countriesa couple of weeks back www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/05/australia-and-new-zealand-travel-bubble-coronavirus-safe-plan-to-reopen-border

I also don’t think it’s as deadly and scary as the news have made out. Yes sadly people have died from it and at first it was a lot of people, but how many people actual die a day from other viruses?

Yeah it's not scary at all, oh and a bit sad too 🙄

OP thank you for sharing some positivity! It's nice to hear some good news.

I have every respect for what JA and NZ have achieved. However, comparisons with the UK are meaningless.

NZ has a population of less than 5 million, and is not an major international hub for anything. YOu would impact more people closing TfL than you do closing NZ. It have low population density and communities are more isolated and self reliant in a way which much of the UK isn't and doesn't have to be. It is also only secure as long as it denies or heavily restricts international travel - how sustainable this is will depend on how quickly the rest of the world gets on top of this, but with 1.5 million cases now in the US I can't see us being virus free for some time.

I don't excuse the total shit show which has been the UK handling of this situation, but we cannot aim to emulate NZ and people need to consider the very different contexts in which decisions were made.

Great thread.

@ITonyah

Sorry meant to say how can they have that when tourism is such a big part of their economy?

A joke surely? The tourist industry is dead, everywhere, for the time being, I think you can write off this whole year. If NZ is successful in eradication at least it will have a domestic industry which will be some compensation, unlike most other places that won't even have a domestic industry.

However, comparisons with the UK are meaningless.

No they're not. Extinguishing multiple outbreaks of CV in the UK would have been harder but not impossible. If fact it was possible in just about every country. If only we had leaders with the ambition, vision and determination to fight this. Instead our leaders (not just in the UK) throw up their hands and surrendered. Only now in the last few weeks in the UK have we started taking a more aggressive stance against the virus. I'm not saying eradication wouldn't have been hard, and our leaders might well have failed, but they didn't even bother to try.

I have every respect for what JA and NZ have achieved

She hasn't done it yet, it could easily slip out of their control. I really hope JA keeps her absolute lazer sharp focus on this virus until it's completely gone.

Oh and it's not just JA who has the goal of eradication, leaders in lots of other countries are pursuing the same goal. Lots of countries have already been successful and lots of others are on track. Good luck to them, they're doing brilliantly!

22 countries now covid free! And eight with just one or two active cases.
It looks like Iceland is also going for eradication. It has four cases left and has had over 1800 in total.
This really gives me hope! Some places are winning this battle. Hopefully when the next pandemic comes after covid we will have learnt from their example and be able to completely extinguish and outbreaks. I wonder if Jacinta Arden (or a similar leader) had been POTUS or China if covid would never have been able to take off?
Sadly, I think if that had been the case huge numbers of the electorate, business and politicians would have been slagging her off for overreacting and she would have ruined her chances of reelection and we'd never recognise what she'd saved us from.

God! I sound like the JA fan club! I'm sure i would think she has made many shit decisions as well, it's just it looks like on covid, she's been shit hot.

I can foresee a situation where more and more countries get this situation under control and start to open their borders to each other.

But it's fine that we'll be excluded from that. It's fine to continue with thousands of new cases and hundreds of new deaths per day. Just so long as it's at a level the NHS can cope with, right?

PowerslidePanda
Yes I think there has been talk of travel between safe countries.
As I said, I'm optimistic, even though our leaders here (and in many other countries) have completely fucked this up, not all leaders have. Hopefully they will be an example for next time.

The problem is, were only as safe as the country who manages it least well. So NZ may have cracked it, but if it's rampaging through Brazil, USA, or Sudan, unless we lockdown all borders indefinitely, the virus will inevitably find a way back in.

Although I sometimes ponder the irony of lots of different counties introducing travel bans to Americans. Or possibly Mexico building a wall to keep Americans out...

Covid19 requires a genuinely global response to knock it out, and so far it seems mainly to be countries dealing with stuff in their own way. Even here, England, NI, Scotland and Wales aren't following a united approach.

Great post. We need some positive news amongst the blanket daily doom coverage!

KenDodd - I don't want to take away frmo what JA and NZ have done and continue to do, but it is in such a different context to the UK, that it is not reasonable to simply try to translate what they did to the UK.

More people use TfL each day than live in the whole of NZ - surely they challenges are different and therefore the answer might need to be?

I don't deny, it's an enormously ambitious task, but look what they've achieved in South Korea or Hong Kong. I do not believe that preventing covid from getting a foothold or spreading, even in a country as busy as the UK would have been impossible. With the right leadership, it could have been done. Our leader didn't even try, he wasn't even interested in the beginning, he was on holiday.

Anyway, I don't want to turn this thread into a slag off of the leaders who have failed. It's a celebration for the leaders and countries that are succeeding.

Perhaps other countries have a more intelligent populace.

I wonder if Jacinta Arden (or a similar leader) had been POTUS or China if covid would never have been able to take off?

I don't think leadership is the only difference between a massive, fairly poor country of over a billion people, full of crowded cities with over 10 million inhabitants, and an island in the middle of the South Pacific with under 5 million people living mostly in small towns.

NZ has done very well, but to compare it to countries like China or Britain is nonsense.