Who thinks Australia and NZ have got it right ?

[marilenagrace]

What do you think ? Do you think that keeping everyone out of the country is the right approach long term to deal with covid ? Do you wish we did that here in the UK ?

@marilenagrace

What do you think ? Do you think that keeping everyone out of the country is the right approach long term to deal with covid ? Do you wish we did that here in the UK ?

If you 'keep everybody out' you also have to 'keep everybody in'.

For the UK that would mean no going abroad, and we have to go abroad at least once a year to get replacement straw donkeys and large sombrero hats, and fags of course.

I live in Melbourne and we did go through a long and intense lock down last year. We seem to have been able to eradicate the virus. There are currently no active cases in the community but there are some in the quarantine hotels where international arrivals have to stay for 14 days. Obviously they do not get out of quarantine unless they have negative tests.

We are getting vaccinated but nowhere near as fast as the UK.

It is possible to travel to Australia but it is not easy because the number of quarantine rooms is limited.

Life is pretty much back to normal here and the pain was worth the gain.

While vaccination is free we still have a sizeable proportion of anti vaxxers who may present a problem as time goes by.

Cocogreen look at the Gvt stats coming out. Both healthcare provider fees over 50yrs and general pop over 50yrs and the decrease in uptake and cancellations.

There is now limited confidence in AZ and gvt is using this in contemplating new roadmap.

@HoppingPavlova
That's so depressing.
I can't believe people are cancelling when you consider countries who have so few doses available they would love to have ours!
The majority of the the population are more likely to get a blood clot from taking the pill or flying.

Sounds like the Australian government have done a proper propaganda job from the posts on here. I am astounded that so many who live there are comfortable with being cut off from the rest of the world.

Someone posted about "putting the majority at risk of illness or death" if the borders were open.

Get real. Lots of people have died, but percentage wise the figures are tiny. Absolutely tiny. Majority?

It is all over the news in the UK at the moment how terrible it is that 1300 people a day are dead in India. How awful.

17 percent of the entire world's population live in India. 1.4 BILLION people. The same catastrophic situation unfolding in India would equal 25 deaths a day in Australia. To me that is not worth a whole country giving up their right to travel.

I am amazed so many seem OK with it.

I haven't been able to travel without isolation on return and family haven't been able to visit for over a year. We are no restrictions at all where I live.

The government are under great pressure to open the borders and we will be fully open in about 6 to 10 weeks. The residents don't want to live without our families any more and I am amazed so many Australians seem not to care (the ones I know in real live do, and are selling up and leaving, but are far worse off as a result as what they will get for their nice house in adelaide will buy them virtually nothing here)

Why is it depressing? People have a choice. I agree, not backed by science and stats but it’s understandable. You are essentially asking them to take something with a minuscule (but real) risk to avoid something that we don’t have in the community. You can’t see why people would be making this choice. What incentive do the vast majority have to immediately opening apart from postponing a holiday (and meanwhile swapping to domestic)? There’s only a minority with incentive. I’m not agreeing with them by the way, I’m just giving the current public summary. People don’t see that budgets and deficits and so forth directly relate to them on an individual level, they can’t see a tangible connection and that’s understandable.

I agree the AZ stock is a waste, not to mention a potential stand off where CSL has been contracted to produce millions no one wants and they want their money (product or no). At some point a sensible person would think to pass it on to countries where risk/benefit is far from ours at present and cop a loss if need be.

I am a British ex-pat living in NZ. I have no criticism of the approach this government has taken. We have been living a normal life and I am so grateful for this. The economy has not visibly suffered and tourism is benefiting from Kiwis taking holidays in the country rather than abroad. The vaccination roll out could be faster, but I suppose there is less sense of urgency. It is planned to be 100% Pfizer and should be completed by the end of the year. I can't see what benefit herd immunity would bring that a vaccination programme won't offer instead. I expect we will open up when the population is vaccinated.

@Bifflepants

I am a British ex-pat living in NZ. I have no criticism of the approach this government has taken. We have been living a normal life and I am so grateful for this. The economy has not visibly suffered and tourism is benefiting from Kiwis taking holidays in the country rather than abroad. The vaccination roll out could be faster, but I suppose there is less sense of urgency. It is planned to be 100% Pfizer and should be completed by the end of the year. I can't see what benefit herd immunity would bring that a vaccination programme won't offer instead. I expect we will open up when the population is vaccinated.

It must be a distance and mindset thing.

The first half of your post applies to me and where I live, but we are all used to hopping to and from the UK several times a year.

People here are desperate to get unhindered travel back and have been lobbying the governemnt to open up (and they have happily listened. There would have been riots if they had kept us locked up any longer and most people are more than happy to open up to the UK and accept the levels of infection they have (which are incredibly low) to get our right to travel and see family back.

Good for you @ButtonMoony, you must be very happy.

The people I know in Australia are not unhappy, and depressingly see UK as a cautionary tale

@ButtonMoony - not sure if you've read the thread, or just don't care about the very real impact on indigenous communities, but particularly in WA, we are very remote, Perth at the moment has a real shortage of hospital beds, nurses and emergency room waits are obscene, any kind of outbreak would potentially extremely serious here, and being so far from any other cities, it would be difficult to get assistance. It really is only the most privileged minority who can afford even yearly flights back to Europe, the absolute vast majority are not impacted and are perfectly happy travelling domestically for a while. It just feels so selfish to be whining when we see what's going on elsewhere.

We're expecting an announcement any minute now about a potential new lockdown while we figure out how someone has got it in Victoria after a 2 week stay in Perth quarantine, but everyone I know is onboard with the approach.

@SaturdayRocks

It’s really interesting that those of us actually living down here - and personally impacted by it - are understanding and accepting of temporary (for we all know it is only temporary) closed borders.

It’s people looking in from the outside who are describing it as ‘barbaric’ and ‘inhumane’.

Why?

Yes we get zero commentary on the situation in the U.K. too from people who live o/s. I

Except it’s been present this whole pandemic. Unfortunately.

It’s not just people living there dealing with it is it? Can you not think why Australians outside Aus have an interest?

And if people who are not Aus are commenting, well we’ve had a deluge of opinion in the situation in U.K. from others not here.

I live in Australia and they definitely got it right. Life has been pretty much back to normal since June last year.

Hospitals are running normally, so are GPs and specialists. We've been seeing friends and going to restaurants like normal. You can even stand drinking at the pub without having to sit down in a table for safe distance.

Footy is going back to normal with 100% full capacity crowds from next month, and with the exception of international flights we are pretty much as it was prior to Covid.

Economy is doing well too.

It’s not just people living there dealing with it is it? Can you not think why Australians outside Aus have an interest?

So how do you think the Australian government should be handling it, in terms of borders and containing transmission?

I’m not Australian, for the record, and can’t comment on Australian policy or what it’s like to live there or be expatriated elsewhere.

It is planned to be 100% Pfizer and should be completed by the end of the year.

Except it won’t - because a sizeable proportion of the population (children) can’t be vaccinated. I’ll admit not knowing whether the NZ govt has already published on this but I know Australia has been happily ignoring it - will the NZ government be willing open up in a risk based way to having potential ongoing community transmission without the barrier of vaccination? It feels like a big shift but as I say (and with apologies for ignorance) NZ may have made policy on this.

@SaturdayRocks

It’s not just people living there dealing with it is it? Can you not think why Australians outside Aus have an interest?

So how do you think the Australian government should be handling it, in terms of borders and containing transmission?

I’m not Australian, for the record, and can’t comment on Australian policy or what it’s like to live there or be expatriated elsewhere.

Expedite the vaccine rollout and hopefully we can enter without hotel quarantine.

I don’t think it will happen before the population is vaccinated.

Having more varied stock would have been good but you can’t go back, hopefully supply will be increased and it’s not too long.

But do you really think Australia and NZ should get priority for vaccines over other countries? Genuinely, don't you think areas where it's spreading and people are dying should get it before us?

I haven’t posted that the strategy wasn’t right for Aus btw. Just that you can be impacted if you’re not there.

There’s no doubt for me that it was the right way to go. But also that U.K. was not in same position geographically to do the same.

@DetMcNulty

But do you really think Australia and NZ should get priority for vaccines over other countries? Genuinely, don't you think areas where it's spreading and people are dying should get it before us?

Yes true this is a factor. As much as it’s hard for those who are waiting.

However the ROW will always need vaccines - as boosters.

Production of AZ was in Aus wasn’t it? So maybe that is the differing factor.

@Alondra

I live in Australia and they definitely got it right. Life has been pretty much back to normal since June last year.

Hospitals are running normally, so are GPs and specialists. We've been seeing friends and going to restaurants like normal. You can even stand drinking at the pub without having to sit down in a table for safe distance.

Footy is going back to normal with 100% full capacity crowds from next month, and with the exception of international flights we are pretty much as it was prior to Covid.

Economy is doing well too.

It is exactly the same where I live. Zero restrictions other than the borders and hospital visiting is a bit restricted.

The difference is we have moved from elimination (not sustainable) to mitigation, which is an acceptance that the virus is here for the rest of our lives and dealing with it.

Isolation drops to 7 days with testing next week, then one day in June, then none in July.

There will be cases but vaccinations are now at a point where the risk to life or overwhelming the health service no longer outweighs the distress caused to people by not being able to travel.

No restrictions on gatherings etc but if people want to wear a mask they can and those who do are given the space they want. The rest of us just crack on. Pubs were packed yesterday, my daughter is performing in a 1500 seat theatre in a couple of weeks which will be full for four nights

Personally, I couldn't live somewhere where I was being prevented from travel and with no end date.

It worked here the same as it has in aus for a year and a bit. Now people need to learn to move forward and accept it with better understanding of treatments and vaccines.

If people in Aus are happy then good for them. The ones I know have had enough as they normally come hone every 18 months and have a different set of family or friends visit them every couple of months

Is the strategy going forward still zero Covid? Because that will only work with a huge percentage of the population vaccinated as there is no natural immunity.
Close the borders and vaccinate everyone is a great strategy.

Close the borders and vaccinate some is less of a good strategy. You’ll be looking at restrictions forever? Because whilst most pandemics burn out don’t they finish because they’ve run through a population? Or we’ve developed herd immunity through natural immunity plus vaccinations.
How did the Spanish flu burn out? Did it run through those susceptible until there was enough immunity? I know older people had natural immunity from other flu...

There will be cases but vaccinations are now at a point where the risk to life or overwhelming the health service no longer outweighs the distress caused to people by not being able to travel.

I don't believe Australia are at that level of vaccinations yet, so you can't expect them to do the same as where you are.

But do you really think Australia and NZ should get priority for vaccines over other countries? Genuinely, don't you think areas where it's spreading and people are dying should get it before us?

To be fair, though, the Australian strategy has not been ‘we will delay or slow our vaccination programme so that worse affected parts of the world can take priority.’

It’s been to vaccinate at a fast (but not emergency) rate but have put all their eggs in too few baskets and have now fallen victim to the AZ panic.

The strategy has never been altruism. It would be quite a PR coup if they managed to spin their errors that way though.

I doubt Sco Mo would ever do anything altruistically, but I don't think Australia should now be top of queue for any other vaccines just because the AZ one isn't working out as planned. We can wait it out.