Is the government preparing is for a New Zealand scenario?

[lockdownbreakdown]

Does anyone else think we are going to be locked down until the majority are vaccinated and then the borders are going to be closed indefinitely to prevent new strains? I definitely get this vibe from all the stuff leaked in the press. It seems to be the only way we can stop new variant from ruining the vaccination programme as we cant vaccinate the kids if we let in new strains from abroad we will be going back into lockdown indefinitely. Thoughts?

NZ locked down before a single death.

They did but there is also another way to look at the timeline.

NZ locked down one day after the UK. Our lockdown was announced on March 23 effective March 24. NZ lockdown started on March 25.

The reality is NZ had one major advantage - time. They saw what was happening in Europe (including the UK) and acted on this data while the level of community transmission was very low.

Our community spread had picked up well before we knew about it. Previously we thought the first COVID death in the UK occurred on March 5. Now we know that by that time there had been at least five confirmed deaths in four different regions. These are only cases verified by the positive test. There might have been others (or many others) we missed.

Zero covid strategy looks attractive on paper but I do not see how it can be implemented in the UK. We are too connected to the continent. Thousands of lorry drivers cross the border every day. Even if we close all the airports and ban all tourism, one wrong test or one asymptomatic transmission will result in the virus being brought back and we will have to start again... It is not very different from the chain of multiple lockdowns we have been through over past 10 months.

Exactly. It hit Australia and New Zealand a lot later than here. We would have needed to shut our borders in Jan. There was zero appetite for that then.

We, in NZ stayed home. All of us. For 7 weeks. At home. No work. At all

Just wondering, @Athrawes - since it involved all of you and there was no work at all, how were essential services provided? Emergency medicine, utilities, food distribution and the like?

@wintertravel1980

NZ locked down before a single death.

They did but there is also another way to look at the timeline.

NZ locked down one day after the UK. Our lockdown was announced on March 23 effective March 24. NZ lockdown started on March 25.

The reality is NZ had one major advantage - time. They saw what was happening in Europe (including the UK) and acted on this data while the level of community transmission was very low.

Our community spread had picked up well before we knew about it. Previously we thought the first COVID death in the UK occurred on March 5. Now we know that by that time there had been at least five confirmed deaths in four different regions. These are only cases verified by the positive test. There might have been others (or many others) we missed.

Zero covid strategy looks attractive on paper but I do not see how it can be implemented in the UK. We are too connected to the continent. Thousands of lorry drivers cross the border every day. Even if we close all the airports and ban all tourism, one wrong test or one asymptomatic transmission will result in the virus being brought back and we will have to start again... It is not very different from the chain of multiple lockdowns we have been through over past 10 months.

Winter exactly time. Tg I’m reading posts like this. So many don’t get this major factor

@IcedPurple

NZ and the UK are island nations.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not an island nation.

It is unbelievably depressing that it would seem that about half of people on MN think the UK is an island... I honestly don't know if we need a public information campaign: 'Northern Ireland: it exists'

Yes, the zero covid strategy would entail:

• Close borders / ban tourism,
• Convince Ireland to bubble with the UK and cut out the rest of Europe or cut out Northern Ireland or introduce the hard border between NI and Ireland,
• Stop / drastically reduce freight traffic between the UK and the continent.

Generally people only seem to think of the first point and forget that this is in fact the easiest of the challenges. It is amazing that so many of us have already forgotten about the "Irish border" debate that got so much air time during the Brexit negotiations.

Not sure which ridiculous comparisons are more annoying at this stage - NZ or WW2.

I dont see why Ireland wouldn't follow the same strategy as the UK. Then it's not an issue. After all we are both islands!

@RachelGreep87

Not sure which ridiculous comparisons are more annoying at this stage - NZ or WW2.

Yep i can choose one but both annoying

No. We locked down to stop the NHS from being overwhelmed. Not to save every single life.
Nor (as some on MN would like) to stop every single person even getting ill.
Once the NHS is out of danger, they need to open back up.

I dont see why Ireland wouldn't follow the same strategy as the UK

But that could involve closing the border between north and south, and I think you'll find there are quite a lot with very strong views about that

@Athrawes

No, because you still refuse to do lockdown properly. You are still all visiting friends and family and going to school and work. We, in NZ stayed home. All of us. For 7 weeks. At home. No work. At all. You lie keep refusing to do this.

7 weeks?? 7 bloody weeks?? What do you think the vast majority of us did here? Me and everyone I know didn’t leave the house except to get food or medicine for 12 weeks!!? Then after that, we had very low cases but there was no proper tracing, testing or border controls so cases just went up again and now we have been in this shit since October. The people of the UK can do nothing about how this is being managed, nothing to make the rules, nothing to organise this better. It’s absolutely shit and the helplessness is driving so many into forms of depression

It's too late for that- we are perfectly capable of breeding our own variants with our infection rates.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I dont see why Ireland wouldn't follow the same strategy as the UK

But that could involve closing the border between north and south, and I think you'll find there are quite a lot with very strong views about that

Why, if they were following the same strategy? Do you need to close the borders between England and Scotland and Wales?

Not that I think Ireland need to follow the same strategy as the U.K. It’s not like we’re a shining example of how to control the virus!

@Puzzledandpissedoff

I dont see why Ireland wouldn't follow the same strategy as the UK

But that could involve closing the border between north and south, and I think you'll find there are quite a lot with very strong views about that

Someone last week compared it to closing the border between two states in Australia. Amazing that people don't understand how highly sensitive the Irish border is. It was basically a war zone not so long ago.

@wintertravel1980

NZ locked down before a single death.

They did but there is also another way to look at the timeline.

NZ locked down one day after the UK. Our lockdown was announced on March 23 effective March 24. NZ lockdown started on March 25.

The reality is NZ had one major advantage - time. They saw what was happening in Europe (including the UK) and acted on this data while the level of community transmission was very low.

Our community spread had picked up well before we knew about it. Previously we thought the first COVID death in the UK occurred on March 5. Now we know that by that time there had been at least five confirmed deaths in four different regions. These are only cases verified by the positive test. There might have been others (or many others) we missed.

Zero covid strategy looks attractive on paper but I do not see how it can be implemented in the UK. We are too connected to the continent. Thousands of lorry drivers cross the border every day. Even if we close all the airports and ban all tourism, one wrong test or one asymptomatic transmission will result in the virus being brought back and we will have to start again... It is not very different from the chain of multiple lockdowns we have been through over past 10 months.

This is absolutely true, but it's also worth pointing out that time and geographic isolation weren't two separate factors in Australia and New Zealand's favour. The virus reached them so much later because they aren't major hubs in the same way, so their relative isolation gave them the gift of both time and a much easier way to address the problem.

I'm not in any way trying to defend the UK response, but it's just silly to pretend NZ's approach was a realistic option for the UK. NZ played a strong hand (in terms of factors that made responding to coronavirus) well, while the UK played a weak hand badly.

NZ had 105 cases on lockdown

The comparable date for U.K. was when? Late Jan? Who knows but there was the ROW to say look we do this or that happens

Amazing that people don't understand how highly sensitive the Irish border is. It was basically a war zone not so long ago

Exactly

I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs - it feels too much like nailing rain to a wall if you even ask - but it seems pretty clear that a closure between north and south would involve, shall we say, a certain amount of angst

People saying that NZ had the benefit of time... didn’t we? Posters on the prepping board of mumsnet were warning about it from at least mid January 2020, you can’t tell me that those women had more information than the U.K. government.

I also don’t really understand the point about the U.K. being an international hub. If they’d shut it down in the beginning, it might have disrupted things for a month or two or even three, but, coupled with a competent track and trace system, we could well have been in a much different position a year on.

@PinkSparklyPussyCat

Do you prefer 100k dead and counting? basic freedoms removed? hospitality shutdown and destroyed, people dying without family around them?
Trillions in debt, mass unemployment?

So yes i would give up my privacy to prevent all of the above... once back under control, privacy restored.

Just as i hope, our basic freedoms will also be restored, eventually.

There is no way we would have shut the borders in March. Heathrow is a huge international hub. Is New Zealand the same? Didn’t think so

In a pandemic, no airport stays an international hub... by keeping flights open, we just delayed the inevitable, at great cost to ourselves.

So those couple of days when traffic to EU was stopped and it caused utter chaos, shortages and made Kent into a lorry park - you looked at that and thought 'yeah, totally viable for a year plus'?

And of course it was easier to make NZ's decision in March than it would have been in January when we knew almost nothing about the virus, hadn't yet seen Italy, and - quite importantly! - the WHO was advising against travel bans. Shutting all borders then would have looked like an extraordinary act of self-harm.

Personally, I'm no fan of our current government but I think one of the few things that would not improve them is to listen to the advice on the MN preppers' board... Again, closing the borders in January would have been done against actual expert advice, including the WHO.

@AlohaMolly

People saying that NZ had the benefit of time... didn’t we? Posters on the prepping board of mumsnet were warning about it from at least mid January 2020, you can’t tell me that those women had more information than the U.K. government.

I also don’t really understand the point about the U.K. being an international hub. If they’d shut it down in the beginning, it might have disrupted things for a month or two or even three, but, coupled with a competent track and trace system, we could well have been in a much different position a year on.

The earliest thread was linked the other day. Very interesting by a poster called MissPoldark iirc

Also another very perceptive poster on there but overwhelming the thread is derision. The government could have said no one else is doing this (bar a few) but we are shutting everything down. Obviously it’s far easier if you can point to carnage in Italy to get public acceptance.

Also the WHO had only just declared emergency, can’t recall date. And didn’t advise on closing borders.

Worth reading - around 21 Jan

If no one went to work in New Zealand for 7 weeks who looked after all your care homes residents? GP services provided? What about water supply? Were there any fires needing to be put out? Emergency vet care? People clearly did go to work in your lockdown. Just like key workers did over here in March.

So yes i would give up my privacy to prevent all of the above... once back under control, privacy restored.

If you think you can just give up your privacy in an emergency and then get it back then I assume you don't know much about history...

I think it's shocking enough the way that human rights have been curtailed with no serious discussion, I find it mind blowing that people would like voluntarily to extend that. Concepts like privacy or right to family life or right of free association aren't just there for the good times if you want them to hold any value or weight at all.