Australia in a mess - NZ with a plan

[StartupRepair]

More than half of Australia is in lockdown now, sparked (imo) by the intransigence of the NSW Premier who ignored all warnings about Delta. Our procurement of and messaging around vaccines has been dangerously incompetent.
It all feels a bit bleak today. At least NZ seems to have a plan.

To be fair, masks outside are pointless unless you're in a big crowd. Even then, it's being in a big crowd that's the issue rather than putting a mask on.
18.7 times less risk outside: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.28.20029272v2.

I am following the rules. I’m not wearing a mask when I’m exercising. My walking is exercise.

Walking isn't exercise

That's a bit insulting. There's millions of people who walk for exercise because they can't or don't want to do anything more strenuous

Walking is certainly exercise. Strolling too. I remember postpartum in the first few weeks I was very wobbly just ambling. Still important to get out and moving.

It’s sensible to require evidence and want stricter rules in certain high impact areas and laxer rules where they make less or no difference.

I think, in reality, it's much more nuanced than this simplistic take. This is a Facebook-driven parody with no depth.

There does definitely seem to be a group,
doctors included, who are wedded to an elimination approach, despite this being virtually impossible with Delta and current vaccines unless you commit to isolate and lockdown forever. This mindset will take some shifting.

The shit will really hit the fan in Australia and NZ when they are fully vaccinated and they ask "what next?" as the rest of the world has learnt to tolerate and live with community infection. At some point their isolationist, zero-tolerance approach will have to crack, and politically there will be a price to pay for the likes of Jacinda Ardern as it dawns on her and the people that they have to learn the lesson of King Canute that the tide can't be held back.

What I think the U.K. did well was back up the rules with evidence from Sage. Dan Andrews in Victoria has refused to back up his rules with any kind of evidence at all. This means people are less likely to follow it because it sounds like (and often is) bullshit.
Our premiers seem to be under the delusion that they can just make any old rule up and we have to follow it. The courts may decide otherwise. Already in NZ it was found that Jacinda was not able to call a curfew as this was not in her remit.

Anti vaxxers now causing a riot Just what they need to at the moment

Walking is an olympic sport.

@Ozgirl75

What I think the U.K. did well was back up the rules with evidence from Sage. Dan Andrews in Victoria has refused to back up his rules with any kind of evidence at all. This means people are less likely to follow it because it sounds like (and often is) bullshit. Our premiers seem to be under the delusion that they can just make any old rule up and we have to follow it. The courts may decide otherwise. Already in NZ it was found that Jacinda was not able to call a curfew as this was not in her remit.

Not the UK.....the 4 nations had different rules. In Scotland for example children over 5 had to wear masks in indoor public places but under 12 they didn't actually have to socially distance. So my kids could hug granny but had to wear a mask in supermarkets. In England they didn't wear masks but had to socially distance from those outside their household / bubble. It did at times appear that some mandates seemed to be made to be different from England rather than being based in common sense.

So not really that different from what you are seeing in Oz now.

Kids not having to socially distance was actually one of the best decisions made in Scotland. And it never seemed to impact the cases (although it was previous variants).

Wales / NI also had different rules, but I don't pretend to know about them as much.

Oh I didn’t realise that - I knew Scotland had a few different rules but didn’t follow it all that closely. I only watched the Boris briefings occasionally.

Wales had a rule about not travelling more than 5 miles from home, except some people live further than that from a shop, so they said obit to go to the shop.

Outdoor rules have always seemed the craziest to me. Locking playgrounds up was ridiculous but at least it stopped in July 2020, I'm astonished Australia are doing that. Nobody tell them Royal Parks and some councils thought it was clever to remove every other swing or they'll do that when they reopen. They are apparently unaware that people have more than one child, who use swings next to each other.

@Ozgirl75

What I think the U.K. did well was back up the rules with evidence from Sage. Dan Andrews in Victoria has refused to back up his rules with any kind of evidence at all. This means people are less likely to follow it because it sounds like (and often is) bullshit. Our premiers seem to be under the delusion that they can just make any old rule up and we have to follow it. The courts may decide otherwise. Already in NZ it was found that Jacinda was not able to call a curfew as this was not in her remit.

Do you honestly believe that the Premiers just "make shit up" on their own, without any backing advice from their medical advisors, and without using any evidence?

Do you believe they have time for that? Right now?

They don't. They delegate. They use advice. As any leader would.

Tbh Gladys gives the appearance of making it up on the run.

If they have the evidence they should show it. It would make people much more likely to follow the rules and not question them - this is why I can’t understand why he doesn’t back up his rules with evidence.
If he said “we are closing playgrounds because X number of transmissions have been found here worldwide” then people would accept it.
At the moment rules are being made for the convenience of the state, and that’s not proportionate to the risk. As I discuss further up the thread, there are loads of things that could be banned for convenience of the police, doctors, lifeguards etc, but we accept that we balance risk when we do certain things.
Anyway, I’ve made my point and now I’m just repeating myself. I’m very clear that I support a proportionate response and proportionate rules to the level of risk (I’m not a “let it rip” person at all) but I do not support rules made for the convenience of the police. However, I will follow them, purely to avoid a fine.

We've just had flights to Australia in November and February cancelled, and DS has had his return home in December cancelled - all by BA . We knew the trips wouldn't happen (8 trips cancelled so far), but it's still horrible to get confirmation.

Feels like I'm never going to see DS again at the moment!

It will pass ajandjjmum, right now the "lockdown/closed borders" voices are the loudest. As the lockdown starts to effect the middle classes more, as more people get vaccinated the tide will change. Even Andrews' tune is starting to shift now.

We apparently must follow the script for this pandemic. But at least we are starting from a point of vaccines/better treatments being available so perhaps that will speed up the process.

I v much doubt Dan Andrews has evidence for closing playgrounds . .

Lots of the rules in the first lockdown made no sense. Yes the shutting of playgrounds was silly. And the only leave your house once a day. We should have been able to freely exercise outside as often as we liked. I guess early on in the pandemic we were just finding things out about transmission. It became clear quite quickly though that transmission outdoors is negligible and also the virus degrades very quickly on surfaces outside.

So Australia should be able to use the science now as it’s there.

I do hope Spain regret keeping children locked indoors for weeks. That was one of the worst (and unnecessary) things of the whole pandemic. Well apart from all the stuff that happened in China.

I'm surprised at some of you being so critical of the protesters. The Australian lockdowns to my eyes look insanely harsh and draconian. Almost like something the Chinese would implement. Would you not be more surprised, concerned even, if there wasn't some sort of pushback?

@MaxNormal

I'm surprised at some of you being so critical of the protesters. The Australian lockdowns to my eyes look insanely harsh and draconian. Almost like something the Chinese would implement. Would you not be more surprised, concerned even, if there wasn't some sort of pushback?

What about the Kiwis ‘securely transporting’ positive cases into quarantine? It’s scary that people are not protesting!

PinkTonic absolutely, that as well. I find that far, far more frightening than the threat of illness itself. It's a hard slog to win back a free society once it's gone.

Here in the UK supermarkets closed off aisles (our Tesco closed the upstairs. I took a short vid on my phone because i know history will be rewritten later on) You cant see any supermarket staff in my vid. Its just a vid of the upstairs blocked by pallets of Christmas chocolate. This was last November. Yes i know this was to make it "fairer" for high street businesses who had to close but not being able to access certain goods affected poorer people the most, those who cant or dont want to shop online etc.

Who"s Gladys?

NSW Premier.