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.

@sashagabadon

It seems to me a bit that the rest of Australia is looking at NSW the same way Australia in general looked at the U.K. in 2020. NSW will then get through the Covid tunnel to good immunity in the same way the U.K. has done and will in turn achieve the same mindset the U.K. has now. The tables will then turn again to NSW looking at the rest of Australia with a “well what are you going to do now? We want to open up” attitude, similar to how the U.K. looks at Australia now. Australia will eventually then look over at NZ still trying to maintain zero Covid and say “ well what are you going to do now?” It’s the Covid attitude circle of life

I love this - let's see this play out! 😆

This makes for fascinating reading I must say

Flyornofly it's a bit of a nightmare isn't it.

27 hours on a plane and it lands in March 2020 😆

Hope you get home okay. I'm pretty miffed about the change in legislation about leaving. And I worry if something happened to a parent. I could throw some money at the problem and get a business class slot, but they they can not let me leave! Ffs. At that point I'd probably renounce my citizenship but I won't stress about the hypotheticals

Just to add, lockdowns are like crash diets. They work, temporarily, then they rebound.

And the more of them you do the less motivated you get to do them.

Just to add, lockdowns are like crash diets. They work, temporarily, then they rebound.

And the more of them you do the less motivated you get to do them.

Excellent observation

@TattyDevine

Just to add, lockdowns are like crash diets. They work, temporarily, then they rebound.

And the more of them you do the less motivated you get to do them.

Very astute!

In a blast from the past, I’ve seen some Aussie politicians calling for a “circuit breaker” lockdown. Remember those?!
Obviously not been following the Wales circuit breaker experience last year, where case numbers sprung back the moment it ended.

@Darkchocolateandcoffee

I also remember your post *@flyornofly* and am so glad you ignored everyone telling you not to go. Well done, precious time you and your parents will treasure.

It's mind-boggling about wearing a mask on the beach. I don't understand the reasoning for that at all.

Reminds me when we couldn't sit on a park bench last April in the U.K.! Australia is

.... where the U.K. was last March 2020 it seems. NZ still back in January when Covid wasn't even a thing.

@lljkk

Daft question, it affects Friend of a Friend...

What economic support are NZ or Aus. giving to businesses that were heavily dependent on international tourists -- and haven't been able to rustle up a lot of domestic customers in pandemic era?

When I read NZ proposed policy I thought "They are presuming that almost the only type of person who ever wanted to travel (or could afford to travel to) NZ will be double vaccinated. That they can afford to lose the types of tourists who are vaccine resistant."

Not sure re Oz but the domestic tourism economy is pumping here in NZ. There was financial support given to businesses at the start of the pandemic, I imagine there are some still doing it tough but there haven’t been the mass closures anticipated. Air NZ obvs still struggling a bit. It’s bloody hard to get accommodation in the school holidays atm!

Re losing the vaccine resistant tourists, the government had been pushing to reduce high volume low value tourism for a while. Think freedom campers etc. Likely playing on a general public sentiment around reducing mass tourism. The majority of our tourists come from Oz anyway so it’ll be interesting to see how that goes re vaccine rates.

www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/can-nsw-s-gamble-lead-us-out-of-the-pandemic-20210812-p58i1z

Interesting article here presumably from a more economy POV but positive on Gladys plan to lead Australia out of a zero Covid mindset and the positives for NSW if it can be achieved.
I also think it is the best route forward. If it proves successful for NSW to “live with Covid “ whilst vaccinating at speed ( as the U.K. has also done) then will the other states follow?

@dane8

You wanna try doing 18 mths of different lockdowns like us in the UK Don’t know what your moaning about !

Whilst I'm not into the competitive element of who's done it worse or whatever, and it may be that eventually Aussies will end up locked down for way longer than the UK in total days, I did enjoy this meme back when things started to rumble again in NSW before things got more "serious"

I still have to remind my mum sometimes (Melbourne) when she starts talking as if I've never locked down (UK)

Actually sometimes I think there's the odd Melbournian who think they are the only person who's ever done a lockdown but they did have a tough Winter last year (yeah who didn't!) (but it's not a pissing contest)

As a nurse living and working in northern nsw, the attitude has been that we "should be fine". As from last night we are now in lockdown with two hours notice.
So terribly managed and Gladys can't even tell us herself. Gets her deputy to do it. We haven't had a case here got 480 days now so this is ridiculous.
Kids getting "homeschooled" for what they say is a week but we all know they lie and it'll be longer.
As for saying we want to protect Indigenous communities, good luck with that. Even in normal times there is a massive distrust of white medical help so much that we have dedicated Aboriginal medical centres. I doubt the uptake of vaccination will be high unless there is huge " encouragement" from their own leaders.
I live in an area with the highest amount of aboriginal people so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

I think being extended a week at a time must be horrible.

Finding this discussion a bit patronising to be honest. Australia didn't spend 2020 blithely ignorant of the rest of the world. Our lockdowns saved us from mass deaths and bought precious time to get us vaccinated, protect our First Nations communities and learn more about covid treatment. Now the Federal government has squandered that time by not procuring vaccines (saying it's not a race) and NSW has put millions of unvaccinated people in danger through its arrogance.

It won't work. But I think as other posters have noted there is a rhythm/script for this and we are making our way through it.

Honestly, indigenous communities are stuffed. The government(s) will say the words and make the noises but when it gets too expensive/too hard it will be clear that they don't care, they never have before, at a time like this? No chance.

Can I ask how the Aussies regard the UK now? I know with our opening up completely almost a month ago, the eyes of the world really were upon us, how is our seemingly ok progress being viewed over there?

Can only speak for myself and of course glad that progress is ok and people are getting their lives back. Somewhat surprised because Boris has seemed so hopeless. I have a cousin in the UK suffering from long Covid and a couple of old friends who were really sick so I have seen some of the impacts.

I think he was hopeless at the start but eventually even he got the measure of it

This is from today. twitter.com/nakarithorpe/status/1426339889537114114?s=19

So Mark McGowan has already stated that he won’t abandon zero Covid for WA after 80% vaccinated just like I predicted (was just on Insiders on ABC). I have at least one friend who will be looking at leaving WA due to this. If my state bring in the same I’d consider leaving too. What a fucking joke this country has become.

This was a grim read:

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/15/we-feel-intimidated-residents-in-south-west-sydney-covid-hotspots-say-police-are-making-things-worse

“I feel uncomfortable, it makes me feel like we are in a police state. And now, with the apparent increased presence from the military, it just doesn’t make you feel like you’re in Australia any more. Makes you feel like you’re in some sort of dictatorship.”

He says his parents, who live near Bankstown airport, are constantly hearing helicopters fly around them, hovering over houses and ordering people to stay at home.

“That’s just intimidation, it’s not about safety. You see that kind of shit in movies. There’s nothing comfortable about having more police and army involved. There’s nothing nice about it.”

I remember being a little frustrated by the lack of enforcement here in the U.K. at times, but I’m very glad the military were only used for logistics and not enforcement. I don’t recognise Oz (my home country) at the moment.

@Planesandflying

Can I ask how the Aussies regard the UK now? I know with our opening up completely almost a month ago, the eyes of the world really were upon us, how is our seemingly ok progress being viewed over there?

I’m jealous.

Zero Covid is going to tear Australia apart. I don’t even recognise my own country any more. If I was eligible for citizenship in another country I’d seriously consider leaving. Sadly the only country I can easily move to is NZ ...

@IndigoC

This was a grim read:

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/15/we-feel-intimidated-residents-in-south-west-sydney-covid-hotspots-say-police-are-making-things-worse

“I feel uncomfortable, it makes me feel like we are in a police state. And now, with the apparent increased presence from the military, it just doesn’t make you feel like you’re in Australia any more. Makes you feel like you’re in some sort of dictatorship.”

He says his parents, who live near Bankstown airport, are constantly hearing helicopters fly around them, hovering over houses and ordering people to stay at home.

“That’s just intimidation, it’s not about safety. You see that kind of shit in movies. There’s nothing comfortable about having more police and army involved. There’s nothing nice about it.”

I remember being a little frustrated by the lack of enforcement here in the U.K. at times, but I’m very glad the military were only used for logistics and not enforcement. I don’t recognise Oz (my home country) at the moment.

Snap IndigoC!

It’s like zero Covid has become a religion here.

@flyornofly

I’m in australia atm (am an Aussie who’s been living in the U.K. for 20 years) - ran the gauntlet and made it into fortress australia and went straight from 2 weeks hotel quarantine into lockdown in melbourne and have been here ever since.

The whole country is BANANAS and it’s been like stepping back in time going here. Utterly dysfunctional - residents being locked out of their homes indefinitely for having the misfortune to travel to another state. There is a shanty town popping up on the vic/NSW border ffs. South Australian Olympians having to do another 14 days of quarantine after completing 2 weeks of hotel quarantine in NSW - I mean wtaf. Millions of people locked down for tiny numbers of cases. Nothing, and I mean nothing, in the news other than covid. An utterly ridiculous mindset that if people just locked down harder/stronger/better/longer this will all go away. And that’s before you get to the discussion about the international border, where australia has shamefully abandoned hundreds of thousands of its own citizens.

I am grateful to be here with my family, but will be equally grateful to leave. This is not a country anyone with an international outlook wants to be in right now (which is clearly reflected in the outbound migration figures - massive brain drain in the last 12 months, limited only by the fact that any are locked in and haven’t been given permission to leave the Hermit Kingdom).

Can I come back with you flyornofly You sound like my kind of person. The madness is doing my head in.

I can stay with you as an Aussie Covid madness refugee. It’s just me and my adorable whippet. We’ll be no trouble I promise.