Australia/New Zealand New Thread

[Kokeshi123]

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/pandemic-australia-still-liberal-democracy/619940/

Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”

This is... really really disturbing, honestly.

I grew up admiring (and, let's be honest, envying) Australians because as a nation, they always came across as a down-to-earth, fearless lot who had a healthy skepticism of authority while also being basically very civic/community minded.

What's gone wrong?

Well yeah. Vaccines are the global way out of this, not lockdowns.

Sorry I have now gone from baffled to amused that there is genuinely someone on his forum claiming that it is any way proportionate to lockdown and close off an entire country for 2 years to protect a single medical professional? Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to, you know, get some more of them?!

"And what if they simply want to throw in the towel and move to the country and raise chickens? Are they not allowed?"
Well a lot of the drs move to the Waikato so they can still be part of a large hospital with multiple specialties and be within the on call time requirements. They can have their chickens and the specialty position in a lot of cases.

Presumably they are not allowed to drive or take public transport either? Far more chance of them being out of action due to a car accident than being felled by covid.

A lot of kiwi kids have awful respiratory issues. Particularly those at the lower end of the socio economic spectrum. The housing is shocking - black mould, damp, shoddy insulation, heat sources not always what they should be. The lower end of the private rental market is also horrendous.
There is also a lot of multigenerational housing and overcrowding In the Maori and Pacific communities. So even if transmission can't be prevented, lowering it by vaccinating children is a good place to start.

Flyornofly exactly! Some very odd perceptions of risk going on.

I imagine australia will move more towards "living with" covid and as The Fear dissipates will look on NZ as we look on at Oz now.

@PileOfBooks I agree and think that's already starting to happen with regards to thinking NZ needs to be planning more for living with it.

To be fair it does make sense to use a bigger countries specialist services for a smaller country than develop, maintain, equip and staff your own. It happens in the U.K. too, loads of Scottish and Northern Irish patients get sent to my London trust for specialist services for example. They probably wouldn’t have enough patients with the specific medical need to make it worth having their own service. Gibraltar also send many of their cancer patents to us in London for example. It concentrates the expertise in one Trust or area and it’s better to make patients travel to the ( better) service than have multiple smaller services in the 4 nations.
Major trauma is another example. Better to have expertise in a few major hospitals than a smaller service in multiple hospitals. We have an trauma consultant that comes over regularly from Republic of Ireland to work in our major trauma unit. Good for us as he’s great and good for him as it expands his skills in areas ( such as stabbing ) that he wouldn’t otherwise encounter much where he lives.

@TheKeatingFive

You're an island nation, same as many that have had zero or very low COVID.

How many times does this have to be corrected 🤦‍♀️

Not to mention that Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland all had their own different rules and responses, so its not a "UK Government" thing ( this also gets forgotten by the political posters who just want to dunk on Boris)

@Blackbird2020 in fairness you had called parents from two whole countries irrational and asserted we didn't know what it was like to parent in a pandemic, so yeah I did. You complained about my rudeness--I'm not allowed to do the same?

Re the oncologists: Oncologists are expensive. Having a spare one you can pop out of a drawer because of a pandemic isn't a great use of health resources, especially in a small tax base.

@flyornofly

Sorry I have now gone from baffled to amused that there is genuinely someone on his forum claiming that it is any way proportionate to lockdown and close off an entire country for 2 years to protect a single medical professional? Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to, you know, get some more of them?!

facepalm. This is a specious misrepresentation of what I have said. It isn't a single medical professional; it is a health system full of single medical professionals. As I have pointed out more than once. No-one on this forum is arguing to protect a single medical professional, but I certainly am arguing to protect a health system.

@CallItLoneliness

in fairness you had called parents from two whole countries irrational and asserted we didn't know what it was like to parent in a pandemic, so yeah I did. You complained about my rudeness--I'm not allowed to do the same?

Ahh... I see.... it’s ok for you to tell people to fuck off but you don’t like it when other people are apparently rude to you.

Got it.

Re the oncologists: Oncologists are expensive. Having a spare one you can pop out of a drawer because of a pandemic isn't a great use of health resources, especially in a small tax base.

Well sure, but at least have some contingency measures should they be needed, like agreements with other countries.

Vaccinating all under 12s isn’t exactly a cheap option either. I expect you’d find a fair few oncologists for that kind of money.

Fund

No-one on this forum is arguing to protect a single medical professional

Well your original post was as follows, so people could be forgiven for interpreting as such.

if the one person COVID kills is the only neurooncologist in the country, or the only specialist engineer or...those things are a real problem.

Sure you rowed back, but this was your original argument.

When I last lived in NZ - admittedly it was 2002 - it was common to send people to Australia for 'complicated' treatments such as surgery, even breast cancer. Not making any criticisms - just reflecting on the skills base relative to population, and cases seen/resources available.

Hi @TheKeatingFive plenty of contingency measures for NZ healthcare, including sending people from a country of 5m (how many in London again , with access to all those highly trained specialists) to a country of 25m for high-tech care.

Then the original argument falls down doesnt it! No need to bring country to a halt (once vacvibation rates up) to save a medical professional taking 10 days off work... there are contingency measures which don't involve keeping a whole country locked down!

including sending people from a country of 5m (how many in London again hmm, with access to all those highly trained specialists) to a country of 25m for high-tech care.

I’m not the person saying that extreme measures need to be put in place to save 1 oncologist dying.

What happens when this oncologist wants a holiday?

And if certain specialists in NZ really are that rare, surely you should be looking at importing more of them?

Though you do seem to find it challenging that a small country at the bottom of the Earth might not be packed to the gunwales with highly trained medical specialists. 🤷🏼‍♀️

All the more reason to get vaccination rates up and open up properly so people can access medical specialists outside of NZ!

Though you do seem to find it challenging that a small country at the bottom of the Earth might not be packed to the gunwales with highly trained medical specialists

I’m simply questioning the logic of CallItLoneliness argument. She’s the one saying NZ needs to vaccinate under 12s to ensure the one and only specialist oncologist doesn’t die. I don’t think that makes much sense, so im arguing on the same side as you actually. Take it up with CallItLoneliness

@Blackbird2020 I actually don't give a fuck if people are merely rude to me, but yeah, I get a little salty when they question my professional qualifications, especially when after I made a mistake they demanded I "prove it or apologise". Also, being rude to someone who has already been rude to me and every other worried parent that lives in the same country as me or indeed being rude at all doesn't disqualify me from asking whether someone would have the ovaries to tell me I was a crap scientist to my face. I won't be engaging with you further, as you're so convinced that what you said about parents here was perfectly reasonable that we have no common ground.

@TheKeatingFive people that specialised in NZ cost around $500,000 NZD/year. One year of 20 of those people would pay approximately the cost of vaccinating all 5-12 year olds in NZ (pfizerwhich is what NZ is usingis about $30/dose). 15 months to do down to age 0. There are almost certainly 20 people that specialised in NZ. This is the size of the economy we're talking about. It seems unfathomable, I know--but NZ (where I grew up) is very small, and very far away. The calculus is just different. NZ has just under half of the population of London.

people that specialised in NZ cost around $500,000 NZD/year.

Do you think keeping borders shut and vaccinating your population of under 12s is free or something?

Are people arguing to keep borders shut due to low number of oncologists? Bonkers if so

I grew up in a place with lower population than NZ. It does seem to attract people back though, even if they don’t train there.

Not sure why this is now being used as a zero Covid forever card.