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?

If we are doing “how much does it cost to have back up capacity in your medical system so your only oncologist doesn’t catch covid” (are people really doubling down on this bizarre argument?!) then the sealed borders has already cost the NZ hundreds of millions of dollars due to the loss of season 2 (and possibly more) of lord of the rings. Think how many HCPs you could have bought for years on end with all that lovely Amazon money!

I always assumed the nhs was on the brink of collapse which made me naturally worried about ending up in hospital but boy oh boy it sounds even more perilous in nz. It’s easy to get complacent about the level of privilege we have in Britain but this has really brought it home how lucky we are. Staff from overseas particularly the Eu are absolutely vital and we couldn’t be without them here. This really brings it home.

It really does. We are so fortunate. I think that too about kids going back to a normal school year (well so far to be fair...)

Isn’t this really an argument about Resilience? The larger the country the more resilient it is in every way possible. And smaller countries do better (in things like healthcare) if they are geographically near larger countries as they can piggy back off their expertise/ services with needing their own.
So NZ is a less resilient country generally due to its very small population and in top of that it is very far away even from its nearer neighbour Australia.
And this in turn means it’s behaviour and approach to things is naturally less risk averse than say we are here in the U.K..
That’s the way I look at the different approaches anyway.
I listened to a podcast about borrowing money and the U.K. can borrow money on the money markets very very cheaply in a way that NZ just can’t. That had never occurred to me before.

Yes that’s right I totally agree. It’s a whole different perspective.

Australia have fucked this up big time.

@Wakeupin2022would you be so rude in real life? Living with a scientist doesn't make you one. The UK response to COVID is globally recognised as one of the poorest, and one of the worst for everyone--it's torched your economy, alongside the loss of life. In contrast, New Zealand has had almost no restrictions internally throughout the pandemic, so I'm not sure what "loss of freedoms" you're talking about there, and their economy has been one of the least hit.

Wow! I am the rude one here....... just go back and read your posts.

Saying you are a scientist doesn't actually make you one.....

I get it - you are consumed by fear over Covid. It is scary and does cause an awful lot of people to be scared. But sometimes you need to take a step back........

Oh and Call I was the one who said something like prove it or apologise. Because you made some comments about me that were untrue. You did then apologise but actually have been quite rude to me since. On all occasions completely uncalled for.

It's actually getting a little tiresome now. I am trying to ignore it because you so seem a little het up.

But maybes you should take a breather and just think before you target me yet again.

Gosh UK mums must be so tired of listening to this shit.
We (AU and NZ) are still at the beginning of the pandemic in terms of fear and response, it must be so boring reading all this shit again.
I do want to say thank you for taking ten times to respond, it helps my anxiety greatly (I’m not fearful of covid, just the governments response to it) which I feel is disproportionate.

You should read about some of the restrictions we’ll have when we get to 70% double doses. Spoiler, it’s not much.

Sorry. Some typos in that.
Also eased restrictions is not much.

@Ineedsomebody

Gosh UK mums must be so tired of listening to this shit. We (AU and NZ) are still at the beginning of the pandemic in terms of fear and response, it must be so boring reading all this shit again. I do want to say thank you for taking ten times to respond, it helps my anxiety greatly (I’m not fearful of covid, just the governments response to it) which I feel is disproportionate. You should read about some of the restrictions we’ll have when we get to 70% double doses. Spoiler, it’s not much.

In the nicest possible way, UK MNers don't have to read this. The title makes it clear what it's about.

I'm in NZ and am at some of the utter drivel posted on this thread.

Hmm I don't understand saying we're at the beginning of the pandemic. We have lived through it like everyone else, even though there were times where it felt like it was happening far away because day to day life was normal.

Cases are down in NSW really good news. Walk-in vaccination hubs in QLD, huge efforts in indigenous communities and Moderna on the way soon too. The end is in sight for those in lockdown, it is tough but not long to go now. Most parts of Aus are not in lockdown. It's school holidays and business as usual within our state.

Ineed - quite a few "UK mums" posting here are either actually Australian in the UK or have family in Australia/married to an Australian so have a vested interest!

It is so fantastic that Australia is planning to open up at 70/80 % and how fast the vaccination programme is going. And the initial shutting down of boarders bought so much time so are able to do this now.

If it helps before I was vaccinated I was terrified of hearing of a case at our school/our local area and had initially avoided supermarkets/had everything delivered for months as I am vulnerable. Kids didn't go outside (apart from garden) for 2 months at the beginning.

Its honestly changed so much - kids all at school normally. A friend's youngest child has covid and didn't even know (picked up by lateral flow tests at home) so some children in the lower school have it and yet everyone is fine and I am not worried.

I'm only saying this as an example how much things can change when vulnerable people (myself included) are all vaccinated if they wish to be. Not that I'm necessary right etc- but just that The Fear goes with time and with seeing its mostly okay.

Disco123 I don't think people mean you haven't lived through it, of course you have, just that it hasn't spread through most of Australia yet and become something to "live-with" - that's what'snot been experienced yet. It's a fairly recent thing in NSW comparitavely and much of Australia isn't here yet. So we are seeing responses in Australia that we had when it started here, and going through similar emotions and some similar fear rhetoric.

Presumably it will spread once you reach 70/80 %, which is so much better than it spreading earlier! Of course that will bring with it a lot of unwell people etc but nowhere near what it would have done if it had spread earlier. And then hopefully the talk will move towards opening up and plans to live with etc...

I think we are the beginning. Again.
We locked down March 2020 then were able to live pretty freely with covid hovering in the background. I didn’t do any interstate traveling in case of border closures, but here we are again (NSW/VIC/ACT) in lockdown with the carrot being dangled in front of us.

The government says we’ll open at 70-80% but the roadmap tells a different story, for instance Melbourne people can travel 25km, hospitality venues will be capped and possibly only outdoor service.
In NSW Schools won’t return until November for most.
No visitors to your house unless fully vaccinated.
Restaurants, cafes and some retail will only serve the vaccinated.
This is the sort of eased restrictions they are talking about at 70% vaccinated and beyond.
Indeed Dan Andrew’s is now discussing what “Christmas will look like”

Whereabouts are you Ineed? Are you scared of catching COVID? Are you vaccinated?

It isn't looking likely before christmas is it?

I found this interesting from Berejiklian today. (Not saying I agree with her politics/she just has an interesting jib lesding her state through covid before the others, so is in a very different place to say Tas!)

"So again, I remember when NSW first spoke about living with Covid-19 and not be able to have zero cases, it was quite confronting and shocking for people. But I think now that weeks have progressed and people appreciate what that means, that other leaders are starting to also think about what life with Covid-19 looks like, even if you don’t have any Covid cases, eventually it will come." ...

Re other states -"Once you start opening up, you will get Covid-19 in your community. So please accept that and get ready for that.

"The Doherty report predicts that the case numbers that we will see are likely to be the highest [that] we have seen in Australia. But the benefit will be that people be protected with the vaccine."

"It is important that we look at ICU capacity and that is why, as scary as it was, we wanted everybody to know what we think, what the health experts believe, the intensive care numbers will be like, what the hospitalisation rates will be like. It is really important for us to be prepared for what we will see because ... the health system will be working in a way that we have never seen it before. Things will be – we will be seeing things unfold before our eyes that we have not seen before in Australia because of the pandemic."

This is really interesting. She has seen where it is going for Australia I think and is preparing people. That zero covid isn't a long term possibility and that even with high vaccination rates it will spread and to be aware figures will increase etc.

I think it is such a huge turnaround from zero covid and thats a huge psychological shift (that's obviously something we didn't have to do over here so not somehting we've experrinced/lived through in the same way. )

@PileOfBooks

Disco123 I don't think people mean you haven't lived through it, of course you have, just that it hasn't spread through most of Australia yet and become something to "live-with" - that's what'snot been experienced yet. It's a fairly recent thing in NSW comparitavely and much of Australia isn't here yet. So we are seeing responses in Australia that we had when it started here, and going through similar emotions and some similar fear rhetoric.

Presumably it will spread once you reach 70/80 %, which is so much better than it spreading earlier! Of course that will bring with it a lot of unwell people etc but nowhere near what it would have done if it had spread earlier. And then hopefully the talk will move towards opening up and plans to live with etc...

That's just not my experience though. I think everyone was terrified in March 2020 when it was spreading through the world and everything was so uncertain. When Boris was in hospital and looked like he could die, it was so scary, it felt like every ing could go crazy. There was no vaccine and few treatments.

However we've all moved on since then, we have a number of excellent vaccines , treatments and more knowledge of the disease, and the public here has followed what has happened elsewhere.

We've been through lockdowns in the past, we're all set up in shops etc with check in codes and plastic screens and dots on the floor for distancing, we wear masks etc. we've adapted to all this. I don't see widespread fear or uncertainty. We can see the way out on the horizon.

Certainly we've not seen covid spreading here and I don't know anyone who's had it but we don't live in a bubble! We can see from elsewhere that if you're vaccinated it's likely not a big deal.

@PileOfBooks she's not saying anything radical or unexpected though. Everybody knows that already.

I agree! It was just the same point I was making really - and would have seemed radical a few months ago/orher state leaders would have been cross etc. That's the difference.

And in earlier threads many Aus/NZ posters would have been upset if we had posted thinks like that (and did), as perspective was different.

I think lots of Australians do still fear covid in a way the rest of the world doesn't anymore. That's why I come to this forum to talk about it because I can't deal with the mindset of some many people that there's really no hurry to end lockdown and border closures. Australians overseas and interstate can wait longer and people who suffer from lockdowns are acceptable collateral because there's no hurry to get out of lockdown until everyone will be safe.

Melbourne in particular is suffering so much from periods of extended lockdown aren't they... I think like in the Uk time will show all sorts of long term effects of this.

@PileOfBooks

And in earlier threads many Aus/NZ posters would have been upset if we had posted thinks like that (and did), as perspective was different.

Well, when nsw first went into lockdown I think we expected that they could get back to zero in the meantime, as other states had, , but that's not the same as zero covid forever. I think that's a distinction some in the uk aren't appreciating.