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

@bluetongue
This shows that keeping the virus out gets harder as populations get larger

Of the top 9 countries who have the most deaths per million of population, 5 of the 9 are under 7 million.

" it’s not like Japan has loads of cases but very few deaths, they don’t have the cases in the first place."

How much testing do they do in Japan? If they don't do as much they may appear to have fewer case than, say, UK, France - so difficult to make accurate comparisons when there are different testing policies.

How much testing do they do in Japan?

Extremely little. They’re the testing holdouts of the world.

So yes, good point.

We may have loads of cases here. Not much testing.

I am confident that there are few deaths. The excess mortality stats show that fewer people have died (of all causes added together) since the start of the pandemic than before, year-on-year. Flu deaths have almost disappeared this year. Fewer overall deaths from pneumonia too, which suggests that nothing is being covered up or misdiagnosed. The pandemic has not always been very well handled here, but for whatever reasons, the number of deaths seems genuinely low.

@PicsInRed

We could still close the border and lockdown to erase as much new strain as we can, as well as "traditional" covid. We won't though, we'll just bleat on about what a super important transport hub we are and let ourselves continue to be flooded with new strain.

Did you not see the queues of lorries at Dover in December? The UK cannot cut itself off. We are not self-sufficient.

Did you not see the queues of lorries at Dover in December? The UK cannot cut itself off. We are not self-sufficient.

What has that got to do with stopping tourists?

Many people have repeatedly pointed out how accompanied freight could still proceed to such an extent that I now believe opposition to border closure to be ideological. Too "Brexity".

New Zealand isn't self sufficient either. NZ relies on imports, including food and the equipment to grow food e.g. fertiliser and pesticide and industrial equipment.

Australia has also closed land borders between states and even invented a border around Melbourne and shut it off to regional VIC. Only the main highways were policed and it was easy to get around through back roads but it still worked because most people do the right thing. And Melbourne also showed that you can eradicate covid from relatively high levels, it just takes longer and combined with the closed borders you have to stick with lockdown for a couple of weeks passed 0 cases.

Of course it can be done.

But we have too many lazy, negative naysayers who are angry at reality and don't want to try, and a government who would rather outsource vital TTI to a private company with a track record of disaster than pump money into public health.

The government chose repeated lockdowns over crushing the virus.

And that's why we have the fifth worst death toll in the world and the second worst economic hit.

@Kokeshi123, you are talking about Japan?

Deaths per million Japan 29. Deaths per million of population, 1,172 [dates 8 Jan 2021]
The differences between countries are staggering.

The 1,172 is UK

Remember the world cup and the Japanese fans staying behind to clear up their stands? And the photos of how the team left the changing rooms? The Japanese could teach us a thing or two about doing things for the greater good and politeness.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Remember the world cup and the Japanese fans staying behind to clear up their stands? And the photos of how the team left the changing rooms? The Japanese could teach us a thing or two about doing things for the greater good and politeness.

Masking up and social distancing is just good manners as far as most Japanese are concerned.

I've been horrified to discover that so many British people just wanna do what they wanna do, and they don't care if it's good for our country.

In hindsight... maybe. The thing is can you remember what people were saying in Feb? I don’t have Facebook but on LinkedIn there were endless comments about how ‘ridiculous’ it all was and what an over exaggeration it all was even thinking of shutting things down. A lot of comments about Italy over reacting. Comments about Trump being xenophobic for shutting borders to China. Hindsight is all well and good, but the majority of people were not for shutting borders in late February (which is when it would have been necessary to do so). Now suddenly the government are idiots for not doing it. People seem to forget very quickly.