Depressing but interesting reflection on New Zealand...

[Ohbabybab]

If only we’d followed a similar path

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/jan/05/watching-new-zealands-covid-success-from-britain-has-shown-me-nations-make-their-own-luck

No country in the Asia Pacific has had a really bad epidemic, whatever measures were taken. I think there's a geographic factor (I don't know what it is) that's skewing things.

It could be that they have more immunity due to previous exposure to other corona viruses.

Japan is the very interesting one. No lockdown, no testing, no wfh, older population, yes masks (but hardly a silver bullet in themselves).

Yet until recently, they were relatively unscathed.

But the obesity figures for Aus are interesting as they skew away from the cities.
It will be so interesting to see the work done on this in a few years when they figure out actually what worked and what didn’t and why. Good to plan for the next one, which could be another coronavirus or a flu.

X post

Perhaps there is some simple unknown factor, as you say, like in Asia Pacific we have more general corona viruses around and so our children are exposed to them in childhood?
We have more bats here than in the U.K., so perhaps we get exposed to a very mild case through fruit or something and that’s enough?

NZ didn't just close its borders, it has literally stopped its people from travelling or returning to nz.
They arw OK as long as they maintain that.

Again, Kiwis have been allowed to return home. It has been difficult, due to the lack of flights coming and going, but anyone with an NZ passport can come in. I don't know why this keeps coming up in these threads!

Kiwis can also leave, but must pay for their quarantine if they return.

@PurePeppermint
Because that is what is being publicised.
When the first commercial flight left nz a few weeks back, it was very clear that anyone on it could not return, even nzanders.

It's now being reported that the government is considering confining people to their homes for a week at a time. Leave house max once a week, limited exercise, masks outside and no support bubbles.

Doesn't closing the borders to all but accompanied freight (and actually essential services, no piss takes like lottery and meetings fit for zoom)?

I'd rather not go on hols to Europe than deal with that shit.

You can hardly compare the uk to New Zealand!
They have 50% greater landmass and less than 1/10th of the population!!
They are several hours away by plane from their nearest neighbours. They could slam the borders shut in a way the uk never could.

This!

Then compare the U.K. to Japan.

"Then compare the U.K. to Japan."

Yes. That is a fascinating comparison - but I'm not sure what the conclusions are for what the UK should have done/be doing. Am I right that Japan didn't really do track and trace, didn't have a major lockdown? Is mask-wearing the difference? I wonder if diet has anything to do with it - has anyone investigated that at all, I wonder?

OzGirl75 you're in Sydney right? because pretty much the rest of the country DO want elimination, even if they aren't calling it that.

There's a fair bit of misinformation floating around on this thread. Kiwis (and Australians) can go home, if they can find a way to get there. The Hague Convention (to which both NZ and Aus are signatories) requires that citizens be allowed to return home. Spaces in iso are limited, and have been especially hard to get around Xmas, but you are allowed home. Australians need permission to leave, but Kiwis don't.

Yes I’m in Sydney. I know we’re handling it slightly differently here but I must say I hadn’t assumed that Qld and Vic were actually hoping for elimination (WA maybe). I don’t disagree with their policies but I’m very glad to be in NSW.

Am I right that Japan didn't really do track and trace, didn't have a major lockdown? Is mask-wearing the difference? I wonder if diet has anything to do with it - has anyone investigated that at all, I wonder?

Japan threw out the Covid playbook and didn't really do any of the things considered sacrosanct elsewhere. Except mask wearing, which clearly isn't a silver bullet by itself.

Given their dense population, older population, small homes and so on, there's clearly something else going on.

Cases are on the rise in Japan arent they? I saw an article yesterday that their hospitals are under pressure now

link about Japan. I dont think its possible to avoid covid. Even for australia and NZ, unless they stay closed forever.

I really wish the media would bugger off with fallacious equiveillances between the UK and New Zealand.
Comparing New Zealand to the UK is like comparing a terraced house to a skyscraper.

The UK is the largest aviation hub in the world, this hub and other smaller regional hub celebrated the new yr with the citizens of China, prime time spreading event.
That's just one perfect example of why using comparative examples is a complete waste of time. The UK's GDP surpasses New Zealand's total GDP in just over a month.
Just like comparing locking down the province of Wuhan and again locking down the UK, populations are similar, ones a constituent part of a country one is a nation.

I wish these journalists would fuck off now with this nonsense reporting.

Cases are on the rise in Japan arent they? I saw an article yesterday that their hospitals are under pressure now

yes, but only very recently. They escaped for a long time for some mysterious reason.

Study by Birmingham University on the genome of the virus is ongoing, initially to find patient zero. What they discovered was that the infection entered at multiple points via travel. An insignificant percentage came directly from China. The biggest source was from France,Spain and Italy, common destinations for people holidaying/skiing at Christmas and Feb half term. Also a significant number of retired people take advantage of the low costs to spend Jan/in Spain.
The virus entered the community simultaneously pretty much everywhere.
New Zealand were able to contain the infection because they have very few points of international entry. It would have been logistically impossible here.
Also shutting borders would have led to major civil unrest when food shortages ensued. Remember the fuss over loo roll and we source all our loo roll in this country.

[quote trulydelicious]@Sethy38

WHO actually advised keep borders open

Yes, back in March. Most countries followed their guidance - although many people intuituively thought it was a bad idea.

Same with masks - first the WHO advised against wearing them, then they backtracked.[/quote]
WHO reminded all member countries that they were bound by the International Health Regulations - a piece of international law that they had all signed up to:

www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241580496

The IHR says that you need a strong public health rationale to close borders. New Zealand had that because they had no community transmission, just isolated cases that were directly related to international travel.

The UK had community transmission from around the middle of February and we were not doing very much of anything to control it, even within our own borders. We could have made a case for closing borders in early February but how would that have gone down, back then? By half term it was too late.

Right back in January WHO produced guidance for exit and entry health screening at airports, ports etc. We didn't even bother doing that.

WHO didn't backtrack on masks. Their early guidance said that medical masks should be reserved for healthcare workers and they didn't yet have enough evidence to make recommendations for or against the use of non-medical masks in the community. They said they would update their guidance when enough evidence was available.

apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/331693

Evidence became available and they updated their guidance at the beginning of June to recommend the use of non-medical masks in the community. They re-emphasised that medical masks should be reserved for healthcare workers but also, where supplies are adequate, for people with symptoms and those who are particularly clinically vulnerable.

apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/332293

Also shutting borders would have led to major civil unrest when food shortages ensued.

Stopping tourists has nothing to do with freight. Accompanied freight could still proceed.

How would that have gone down, back then?

Well - if they stopped tourism at the start. I remember people were absolutely that flights weren't stopped.

They cant just stop all passenger flights to a major hub like the UK because they will lose the slots and may not be able to restart them when the time comes. Also, there are always essential reasons to travel and citizens have to be allowed back.

I can understand why the U.K. didn’t close their borders to travel - but this failure to regulate people coming in from areas where Covid was already widespread (Italy and Spain) was the main cause of the initial spread in the U.K. They could easily have stopped all tourist travel back in March, even for a short period of time.
Also, watching from overseas, what has surprised me about the U.K. is the feeling that rules are there but only if they’re convenient. It’s interesting, I hadn’t really noticed it when I lived there.
I guess on a good note, we can learn from the U.K. what NOT to do in the face of a global pandemic, ready for the next one.

@PicsInRed

How would that have gone down, back then?

Well - if they stopped tourism at the start. I remember people were absolutely that flights weren't stopped.

Some people were but it was a very small minority. Most people just wanted their half term ski trip and would have been outraged if it was cancelled.

Government guidance at the time went no further than wash your hands and use a hanky.

I changed the newspaper under the cat bowls yesterday and it happened to be a page of the ES from early February. There was a great big full page charity appeal for the terrible situation unfolding in Italy.

In early February most people in the UK thought covid was a terrible thing that was happening in Iran, Italy and S Korea (also China, but 'they caused it in the first place because they eat bats ' so ...)

In the UK in February most people thought that covid was a threat in other countries but they didn't think it would affect their own life much. They thought it would be like SARS or MERS or swine flu or bird flu.

The Coronavirus Act was not made law until 25 March. Until that date, any legislation such as banning international travel would have required all the usual debates back and forth between the house of commons and the house of lords before it became law.

A bill to stop travel in and out of the UK in early February would not have passed.

Before mid Feb, Sky News already had its daily coronavirus pandemic global emergency show, and declared that within 1 to 2 weeks covid would be seeded into the major British cities.

We knew. We all knew. It was reported everywhere like a Fox News Republican Convention, maximum salivation.

People would have dealt with stopped flights as we dealt with lockdown 6 weeks later = acceptance.