Can someone explain to me New Zealand?

[idontknow54789]

Sorry for the ignorance/naivety here but can someone explain to me the reasonings behind such extreme lockdown measures in NZ? At the beginning of the pandemic they're approach was fully accepted but surely now with vaccines and omnicrom being a 'milder' form of covid they have to start setting sense? Is it about the health system? I understand there's a severe lack of ICU beds but is locking down so much really better for health? Can anyone explain it to me please?

[quote Thhhhheeeeelong]@Tealightsandd the course of the pandemic has changed. So why is NZ still closed if most people are vaccinated and omicron is less of a killer - the answer is the healthcare system. So now the borders are not close to save lives, the borders are closed because the country has not developed a proper exit plan or approach to increased need for hospitals admissions (without death).[/quote]
Death is not the only issue. Although actually omicron is not mild, and being highly transmissible, it kills many - 300-400 a day in the UK.

But, separate from death, there's Long Covid disability (which will impact on some country's healthcare systems, including the UK, for quite some time - potentially years).

Mitigations are not an exit plan unless you plan to keep them forever. You are artificially suppressing a virus that the rest of the world is living with. And all the implications of those restrictions...

And as we’ve seen even lockdown doesn’t work against omicron. So opening a window and wearing a mask won’t really cut it.

Anyway I'm off to enjoy what's left of my evening.

I hope NZ resists the vested interest pressure but I don't know if they'll manage to hold out. If they do fall, like I said yesterday I suspect the Body Count Crew will have a tougher time 'persuading' China to abandon common sense and follow suit.

Night All.
😷💉

@Tealightsandd

Anyway I'm off to enjoy what's left of my evening.

I hope NZ resists the vested interest pressure but I don't know if they'll manage to hold out. If they do fall, like I said yesterday I suspect the Body Count Crew will have a tougher time 'persuading' China to abandon common sense and follow suit.

Night All.
😷💉

omicron is spreading already

I think you’ve missed that part.

I don't believe there are thousands of NZ citizens out there who have been waiting 2 years to come home. It is difficult to come for short trip to visit family.

But this is exactly the point. Many people relied on being able to visit for short visits. Not everybody who is on the other side of the world can just can turn their lives upside down once again and go back permanently.

Most people can't afford yearly trips, that's true. But we keep talking about the 170,000 dead in the UK. I'm sure there are at least 170,000 New Zealanders who were, prior to the pandemic, taking fairly regular trips back home. Or vice versa. Many of those people have been deeply affected, emotionally, by not being able to see their loved ones like they used to.

In this pandemic some have been affected by the death of a loved one, some have been left disabled, some are suffering immensely, mentally and emotionally, with being physically separated from family or friends. They're all equally valid reasons for having had a shit time. It just so happens that you were affected by one or more of those circumstances, depending on where in the world you were when the pandemic started.

Quick reply to Delatron

Nothing wrong (and everything right) with becoming more civic minded - and keeping sensible and easy basic infection control mitigations. East Asia did, after the flu pandemic 100 years ago.

People didn't want to do as NZ did. If everywhere had, this would all have been over 14-16 months ago.

So instead we have to 'live with' it. Living with it (without dying or becoming disabled) means, like with cars and seat belts etc, mitigations. Btw Omicron is definitely not necessarily the last variant.

As for good ventilation. SARS-COV-2 is an airborne disease. Opening windows does make a difference. Like speeding limits don't prevent all deaths from cars but reduce them, so does ventilation reduce the risks from Covid.

Also, HEPA filters. In schools, hospitals, offices, etc. Makes a difference.

And like I said. Prudent patience. This is, for now, still a new and evolving disease. In the future we'll have more of the world vaccinated (and possibly a multi variant vaccine), better knowledge, and wider availability of the new drug treatments.

Right. I'm off for sure now. Goodnight 😷💉

People didn't want to do as NZ did. If everywhere had, this would all have been over 14-16 months ago.

How do you figure that?

People didn't want to do as NZ did. If everywhere had, this would all have been over 14-16 months ago.

How do you suggest the whole world could have afforded to shut down for 4 to 6 months? To close off their borders?

My job can't be done without international travel. It just can't be done. My colleagues in NZ don't leave their country to work, because the industry has evolved differently due to their geographical limitations. They were able to keep working because they're set for a national-only work plan.

My local government didn't pay full wages to freelance workers in my industry. The UK government told my British colleagues to 'retrain'. Didn't offer money before, during or after making this suggestion.

NZ is set up so the vast majority of the population can survive without having to leave their country. Europe isn't. How do you suggest an European country should have approached this? Where on earth would the money have come from? So the 4 million (out of 80m) of people in the country I live in, who work in the same industry that I do and are freelance, could pay bills and food?

Realistic suggestions only please. Not ones that would require a country to rethink their whole economical and social model, which would take decades.

@VikingOnTheFridge

And there's also now asignificantminority - over 1 million - of newly disabled people in the UK. Felled by Long Covid.

This stat doesn't get any less daft with repetition. Why the ONS use such a wide definition is mystifying. As if someone still having a cough 29 days after a positive test amounts to disability.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/15/damage-to-multiple-organs-recorded-in-long-covid-cases

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/27/consultant-infectious-diseases-long-covid-not-mild-illness-seriously-debilitated-new-clinics

www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/study-reveals-longterm-effects-of-covid19-worse-than-cancer/news-story/5765e6c1ce9903445f0492644785b4ae

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/long-covid-wife-suicide-give-others-hope

New, gigantic study on Long Covid in children:

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00431-021-04345-z
Incidence was 0.8% compared to controls. Most symptoms were resolved in less than 5 months.

@shiningcuckoo I imagine they were referring to the governments shameful amendment to the BDMRR legislation that has allowed for self sex identification - effectively destroying the rights and protections of women as a sex class.
Along with a complicit media they snuck it through without a full discussion of the implications with the public - despite some 2/3 of submissions being against.

like I said yesterday I suspect the Body Count Crew will have a tougher time 'persuading' China to abandon common sense and follow suit.

Er.... if the world had any ability to "persuade" China to do anything, we wouldn't be in the middle of the Second Cold War, Tea.

Christ, is this going to be the latest Tankie Twerp talking point? Ie, when China does eventually find omicron impossible to be control, we're going to hear a load of "Oh look! The wicked eugenic west has FORCED poor, weak, helpless China to open its borders!!"

Have you ever lived or spent time in China, Tea? I have. Like all tankies, you wouldn't survive five minutes there.

I would pay good money to watch a documentary following the experiences of China defenders who move to Beijing in a rapt haze of enthusiasm and then discover what living under the CCP is actually like.

@shewillhaveherway

Again not really something to lay at JAs door. There was a lot of cross party parliamentary support for the amendment. As for submissions, well that's the deeply conservative underbelly of NZ showing itself. Many of the same people who object to the use of te reo Māori from NZ broadcasters or have an issue with the use of indigenous place names or scuppered one of the recent referendums.

Couldn't help checking in before bed.

No idea what a tankie is. If you think I'm a twerp, no problem. It's a rather catchy word. I like it. Rhymes with chirp, which makes me think of birds.

I neither condemned nor condoned the CCP btw.

Simply pointed out a fact - that it won't be as easy as with some countries, to pressure them to let it rip.

Whatever individual or government views on morals and eugenics is, is irrelevant to my point.

Self interest and common sense means that China (and for now, NZ) doesn't want the long term consequences, including economic, of a significant proportion of the population disabled with Long Covid.

Not to mention that for now there remains the very real risk of a more vaccine resistant mutation. Which would be, as well as causing mass death and disability, devastating to any nation's economy.

New Zealand's compassion for the vulnerable: denying a pregnant journalist's return home who instead has to rely on the kindness of (checks notes) the Taliban who offer her support www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-omicron-new-zealand-journalist-charlotte-bellis-pregnant-and-stuck-in-afghanistan-denied-emergency-miq-spot/M5CYHAFNIEXPGRHW6EKAXXPJVA/

EileenGC

Very clearly a 2-3 month temporary pandemic border closure - obviously with genuinely essential travel continuing (but with testing, and real quarantine where necessary) is preferable to what we have as the alternative.

The alternative of course has, as well as killing millions worldwide, caused huge numbers of people to lose their jobs - long-term - either because of the economic disruption, or because of Long Covid disability.

Talking of the economy. 'Living with it' has (long-term) consequences for the economy.

Not least the billions spent so far including on healthcare - which will of course continue to require heavy spending. Because:-

a) the pandemic is not over - 300-400 dying from Covid a day in the UK, hospitals still overwhelmed, staff ill with Long Covid or PTSD, the cost of many many in ICU, increasing delays to NHS treatment with an enormous backlog.

And,

b) The long-term costs of Long Covid including but not only healthcare.

obviously with genuinely essential travel continuing (but with testing, and real quarantine where necessary)

I don’t know anybody who travelled during March and June 2020 for anything other than essential reasons. It’s not like there were flights to choose from and open hotels at the destination…

Where I live quarantine was definitely required, starting from March 2020, when coming back into the country. Europe didn’t have testing capacity for those ill in hospital, so we can’t expect them to have made tests available for travel.

The country I live in took all the precautions you’ve described. Our overall numbers, 2 years later are not ‘as bad’ as the UK’s, but we’re still a loooong way off NZ’s success as you may put it. Current 7-day incidence is 1,000 and we’re having 200k cases a day in a population of 80 million.

We did what you said. It didn’t work. It wouldn’t have worked because our demographic is vastly different to NZ’s. Our society is vastly different to China’s.

Yet our country is still functioning and we have relative freedom right now. Our healthcare system has coped and is still coping, because it was properly funded.

Don’t blame the lack of restrictions, blame a lack of funding and a lack of reacting by certain governments on this side of the globe.

Not letting doctors and ICU nurses to the front of the queue to get in is billy bonkers but I expect that will change swiftly as soon as community transmission starts to dwarf potential influx of covid from the borders.

Ditto the 24 day isolation- it makes sense to be ultra cautious while case rates are still low but I expect they have modelled how much they need to reduce the in contact isolation period by at each stage to keep enough key workers at work to maintain supply chains, healthcare and teaching...so reduce it a bit at first then down to 5-7 days as the wave peaks.

Spare capacity in the healthcare system may be zilch but NZ could use its small population to its advantage. Pop size is small compared to the UK and tiny compared to the USA. As respiratory disease cases in the northern hemisphere fall coming into spring and early summer, surely the UK, Ireland, Canada and the US could lend NZ some very covid-care experienced doctors and nurses (once the poor buggers have had a couple of weeks' of their annual leave) when the Omicron wave starts to hit. The NZ military could knock up a few temporary nightingale hospitals (or wards in existing hospitals) and NZ military docs could do logistics and lead the hospitals with the northern hemisphere flying squad of medics under them. Northern hemisphere countries could lend some spare respiratory gear for the NH summer/ SH winter.

It might be harder to spare medical staff from other specialities over the NH summer but you might get some who could go... enough to bolster the existing NZ medics so that the rest of the hospital care specialities couldmore easily be split into SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative as far as possible.

Are we still suggesting that we could have closed the borders in the uk given the fact we aren't self sufficient in food and have a long and complex land border with the eu? By the time we'd given the virus a name it was already here

If the strategy is to open borders very soon in 2022, what is NZ's govt predicting is going to happen?

www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/460436/what-new-zealand-can-learn-from-omicron-outbreak-in-australia

This article explains the strategy in NZ very clearly. It makes sense, and as we have been living with very few restrictions for most of the pandemic, it seems bearable to the majority.

The long-term costs of Long Covid including but not only healthcare

Do you believe that vaccination protects against LC?

If you believe vaccination does protect against LC--most Kiwis are now vaccinated.
If you believe vaccination does not protect against LC--then everyone including Kiwis is fucked anyway, because covid will eventually be everywhere including NZ.

@Thhhhheeeeelong - I do understand how distressing it is to not be able to see your parents, but when I was young people who moved to the other side of the world might see their family once or twice in their lifetimes (unless very wealthy) and that was it. Now I do realise that times have changed since then, but some of us are able to understand that life can throw curveballs just when you least expect them and factor those into any decisions we make. This is one of those curveballs.

Incidentally, my friend in the UK didn't get to see her mother (also in the UK) for two years, and then her mother died. A combination of lockdowns and other circumstances caused this. Not everyone is in the fortunate position of being able to travel whenever it suits them to visit family.

BTW - there is no need to reply to my post. I'm bored with the whole thing and am leaving the thread. You can argue amongst yourselves - I have a life to lead and haven't got any more time for this rubbish!

@greenteafiend

The long-term costs of Long Covid including but not only healthcare

Do you believe that vaccination protects against LC?

If you believe vaccination does protect against LC--most Kiwis are now vaccinated.
If you believe vaccination does not protect against LC--then everyone including Kiwis is fucked anyway, because covid will eventually be everywhere including NZ.

There will be future improvements in treating covid, so for any individual in terms of physical health the best time to catch covid is never, the next best time is later, the least good a available option is now.