What will New Zealand do long term?

[Missingsockswheresotheygo]

What do people think will happen in New Zealand long term?

I initially thought they were in the best position but now I'm not so sure.

A vaccine won't eradicate the virus it will only suppress it to manageable levels (I think?)

But with their population having no immunity will it not just wreak havoc the minute they open their borders?

You can’t compare New Zealand with the UK If many Chinese travelled to NZ the amount of people they would meet in NZ would be so much lower than coming to the UK

65 million UK to 4.8 million NZ

The population of London is nearly twice as many as in the whole of New Zealand and spread over

and spread over a country nearly twice the size of the UK

Not only can you not really compare because of the massive difference in population size but I also think you can't compare because the makeup of the population is very very different. IMO NZers are more likely to pull together, they feel strongly about their country whereas the UK is just a mixed pot of people and unfortunately the old British spirit of pulling together is long gone. It's very sad to see but this pandemic has laid bare the lack of integration.

Aren't we comparable population size and density of housing to some of the Asian countries who've also taken effective measures to contain Covid?

@MarshaBradyo I can't move back to NZ or Australia. I'm British.

@Oliversmumsarmy - where have you got this idea that NZ is nearly twice the size of the UK? It's very slightly larger, not twice the size!

I don't think Oliversmummy is one to let facts get in the way of her opinion.

The other thing on how easy or hard it would be to reduce numbers to elimination looking at thread 770 students test positive at Northumbria but only 10% showed symptoms.

That is already 7 times what NZ were dealing with at lockdown in just one setting. Shows how hard it is to trace once it gets past 100ish total cases as you have to get everyone symptoms or not.

Also when pp said numbers were low in July no where near that low.

I was trying to say that the UK is similar size to NZ but it has around half the population of London

What I was trying to get a scale of was that it is like saying the “whole” population of London in an area twice the size of the UK.
Not that NZ is twice the size of the UK

IYSWIM

I was trying to point out that any influx of tourists in what would have been the summer months (DecemberJanuary Southern Hemisphere) in a sparsely populated country wasn’t going to get the same sort of infection rate as if only a few tourists arrived in Britain in Winter and made their way to London

The results are going to be wildly different.

Japan is a densely populated country.
They've effectively tackled Covid.

Also, New Zealand might have a smaller population than the UK but it's not all sparsely populated countryside. Auckland, for example, has housing density.

Melbourne had an outbreak of cases (more than 102). They didn't throw up their hands and say 'oh well too late...we can't we can't we can't'. Instead they took effective action to deal with it - and their effort has paid off. They've now got to the stage pretty much of containing it. And short of intentional sabotage they won't be making any further quarantine fuckups.

@Oliversmumsarmy - okay, I see what you were getting at. Obviously NZ has a much much smaller population than the UK, but most of the people here do live in cities, they aren't scattered around the countryside.

@SheepandCow

Melbourne had an outbreak of cases (more than 102). They didn't throw up their hands and say 'oh well too late...we can't we can't we can't'. Instead they took effective action to deal with it - and their effort has paid off. They've now got to the stage pretty much of containing it. And short of intentional sabotage they won't be making any further quarantine fuckups.

What are the numbers?

There’s no point in speculating based on your opinion. It comes down to comparative numbers.

Korea’s spike in March was over 1000 cases per day. It’s second wave had a few hundred cases per day.

Singapore’s numbers of cases per day were over 1000. For a tiny population that’s a lot. Numbers are now under control.

But I agree that the type of measures that would have to be taken to get it under control would have to be much stricter now.

I think our best bet if we really wanted it would be to road block off low infection areas and institute quarantine going in. However - I think if we managed it, these areas would be able to get back to normal.

@MarshaBradyo melbourne was recording in the 6-700's per day. They are now well below that with 7 cases reported for Friday, and 8 cases for Saturday.

@Namenic Melbourne did similar with trying to isolate certain areas. While most were trying to follow the rules it really became a protest point for a select few. They were filming themselves getting through check points when they really shouldn't have been, refusing to answer police questions etc and posting it all to social media.

This country is odd: we can’t shut borders... but we want to if it’s illegal immigrants... it’s too hard... but we can build hospitals in weeks...we had rationing during WW2 and conscription...

UK has the talent, the resources, but not the will to make these things happen. I guess not enough people in the population are willing to make very large sacrifices to get thing under control. Implementing the strict measures isn’t just about enforcement. It is about the whole support package - distributing food to people, electronic devices to teachers and disadvantaged kids for learning.

Those numbers don’t sound high, quick google

An estimated 116,000 people within communities in England had the coronavirus between 18 and 24 September, according to the latest results from a random swab testing survey by the Office for National Statistics.

New Scientist

I really don’t think it’s people throwing their hands up. Not by March onwards.

It’s the sheer scale of the issue. It’s where countries were on the curve when action was taken and for Aus and NZ this was later.

Post SARS SE Asian countries did do well. Taiwan, Japan. Taiwan had good central systems in place, but be interesting to know lore about Japan and how they did it.

Yup - but we had loads of chances in July and sept to reduce the spread. Let schools go back gradually or partially online, delay universities, shut borders, not advertising for people to go back to office. But the govt persisted with all the rapid changes at the same time.

We had a lull in June and July - if we had held on with restrictions to reduce numbers down even further and only gradually opened stuff up, we would have been able to cope.

They did overdo the go back to work. Now we’re back to wfh.

We’re also battling the worst economic hit so the pressure from the other direction surfaced.

It all is awful I agree. I look at family having a lovely time and it’s hard.

But I can see why we’re in the mire. It’s two opposing very strong forces and it’s all we’ve got for winter anyway,

@Guineapigbridge

New Zealand produces healthy food which is being exported all around the world - demand is through the roof as our already premium customers realise that they want food that is fresh and covid free. We don't really need all that low-value tourism as much as we thought we did. We have our pick of immigrants - all Covid has done has made our little slice of paradise look even more attractive to people wishing to move here. I think shutting the border was one of the best things to happen to this country. We were getting ourselves into a pickle allowing too many people in.

Low value tourism? It's worth millions What a crock. I do not wish to open boarders to Australia they way they protested and behaved you can keep yourself over in Australia Mate

I think the economic hit will he harder because we did not reduce restrictions gradually. I’m a fan of science, but the govt uses it in the wrong way.

In order to keep the virus under control, you have to be prepared to over-react. Which is why I wouldn’t criticise building the nightingales. But in many other ways, the govt was behind the curve - it waited until there was scientific strong evidence: to wear masks, open schools, quarantine, Before it took action. A better option - like many of the successful countries - would have been to do all of those first, and then relax things one at a time if things were going well.

Auckland, for example, has housing density

But still nowhere near the population density of London.

More like Solihull.