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?

We can't explain it. Our own government can't explain it. And keeps changing the goalposts, daily.

We're not locked down at all - restrictions are on people in the same spaces - but we can go to the movies, and events, and live a normal life if vaccinated, as long as we mask up, track our movements, and keep some distance.

The isolation thing - the 24 days (or longer) is for the healthy ones who don't get COVID. The infected get to go free after 14 days. In big families if people take turns getting sick the healthy ones who don't could end up isolating for more than a month.

@VanCleefArpels, the Jacinta thing is a red herring, the opposition government would have done exactly the same thing, as there was literally no other choice. What’s happened in the interceding 2 years, that’s another story. BUT the opposition is even more averse to public spending, so I don’t really think they would have made any better inroads into solving the infrastructure issues that have forced policy for COVID.

They are all fuckers.

It just isnt logical.

@Hollyhead

24 days isolation!!!!

Wow! I’m shocked by this.... think it’s because almost everyone I know has now had Covid , including me, and I’m just a bit ‘whatever’ about it now

160k needless deaths in the UK. Know where I'd rather live!

re the 24 days - it's actually - for the close contacts who don't get sick - 10 days after the last sick one recovers. In a family of 5/6/7/8 that could be one hell of a long time... really just punishing the healthy ones.

I think NZ has been absolutely brilliant on covid and I dearly wish the whole world had followed the same strategy. Covid could have been extinguished very early on, globally, not now. Going for zero covid worked short term while waiting for vaccines and treatments, or even just to see what happens, and have thinking time. I think they should open up now though, people are vaccinated and there are better treatments. Even with all that, covid is still covid, it can still fill hospitals and morgues though. If they open up and covid sweeps through, I still think they'll come out of it with far less death and disability than other countries.

Wow! I’m shocked by this.... think it’s because almost everyone I know has now had Covid

I think only something like 27% of the population have had it.

@Kendodd

Wow! I’m shocked by this.... think it’s because almost everyone I know has now had Covid

I think only something like 27% of the population have had it.

Doesn’t stop me knowing lots of people who’ve had it🙄 Me, my 2 sons, my DD, my 3 GD, my SIL, 4 DNephews ( and partners), 3 sister in laws and 2 brothers in laws, 4 nieces, 2 great nephews, my 4 closest friends and their partner, 15 people at work..... that’s to name a few My DM who is 85 has not had it.....or my DP ....that we know of anyway

6 have had Delta, the rest omicron....no one has been significantly ill ( luckily).... we are a mix of fully jabbed, half jabbed and unjabbed.

North and South Island have opened up a while ago.

DD and her DP have been there for nearly three years as they were on the South Island when lockdown happened and only 6 km travel was allowed. They have been granted second visas and are now working on the North Island. They had no chance of flying home and are now waiting for the chance to fly to Australia. They have had second vaccines.
We think they’re are safer there than here. We live in a small village outside a small city which has had a high rate most of the time and a hospital which has struggled to cope.

Australia - NZ opened briefly and some NZ people were allowed home. Australians could go back to OZ but not return to NZ even if they had jobs there.
Their adventure ended up being a lot longer than anticipated. They have been doing a mixture of Workaway and paid work like fruit picking. DD is working in a restaurant at the moment and her DP was able to get some work. We miss them but they look healthy and have certainly seen a lot of NZ and made a lot of new friends.
DD said most people were happy to comply with the lockdown on the South Island where they have spent most of their time.

I also don't "get" it.

Freezing the virus out altogether for 18mo or so, to buy time to develop the vaccine, roll it out, and get some good drug treatments into the shops and hospitals, made sense. There was a valid reason for doing this.

Continuing with zero covid at this point just feels like kicking the bloody can down the road. They will surely have to let the virus in at some point, omicron seems milder than other variants, and it's summer at the moment in New Zealand. If there was ever a time to let the virus have a runaround, it's now.

Oh well. Their choice. But I feel very sorry for my Kiwi friends here.

If they end up having an outbreak they can't stifle six months from now (when it's winter in New Zealand and pressures on hospital beds will go up a lot for various reasons), they're going to be kicking themselves. I'd rip the plaster off now, to be honest; the timing isn't going to get better than this.

Errrr, omicron is here. We are just trying to slow the spread, flatten the curve. Some of you seem a tad over invested.

@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?

There's no 'extreme' lockdown in New Zealand.

And in fact, unlike here, life has been much more free.

Sensible basic infection control measures against a still new and evolving disease that kills and disables many? Well yes, that's New Zealand.

You don't get why NZ isn't ageist and ableist? Why they don't want to be like us - with 173,000 killed, and many more newly disabled?

They decided to put lives, health - and the long-term economy first. Long Covid disability, in addition to wrecking individual lives and health, will impact on the NHS and economy heavily.

And omicron is not a milder form. Particularly not when you take into account the risk of Long Covid.

I wish people would stop writing boarders instead of borders.

Unfortunately however there's an awful lot of pressure on NZ to capitulate to the let the bodies pile up or get disabled approach.

I hope they don't fall, but if they do for sure I think the body count crew will have a tougher job forcing China to let it rip.

[quote Thhhhheeeeelong]@Frikonastick exactly. Why haven't they worked on a plan to take hospital overload?
[/quote]
What they likely found is what every other country that thought they would do this found - you can't just magic up more capacity, even with two years. A health system takes a decade or more to spin up.

And most countries have put too much emphasis on efficiency and have been working with bare bones for decades.

There is also an inability in the general population to deal with the realities of death that isn't highly managed in a hospital setting, and somehow, early in the pandemic, people developed the idea that somehow the state had a responsibility to stop covid, that it was a realistic proposition. And politicians, being cowards, allowed them to think that and in fact encouraged it to create compliance.

@user1477391263

I also don't "get" it.

Freezing the virus out altogether for 18mo or so, to buy time to develop the vaccine, roll it out, and get some good drug treatments into the shops and hospitals, made sense. There was a valid reason for doing this.

Continuing with zero covid at this point just feels like kicking the bloody can down the road. They will surely have to let the virus in at some point, omicron seems milder than other variants, and it's summer at the moment in New Zealand. If there was ever a time to let the virus have a runaround, it's now.

Oh well. Their choice. But I feel very sorry for my Kiwi friends here.

NZ got rid of the zero covid plan months ago. We are NOT in lockdown but do have a few restrictions in place regarding the numbers of people able to attend events (vaccination status dependent) and new rules regarding mask wearing.

All our shops, businesses etc are open. Public transport is operational. There is free flow of travel between regions. Day care centres are open. Schools reopen next week after the summer holidays. People are being asked (not forced) to work from home if possible.

Omicron is here and the govt. is attempting to let it spread slowly so as not to overwhelm the health service. Although work is under way to increase ICU/HDU capacity in some areas, NZ only has 284 resourced ICU and HDUs in public hospitals (according to Stuff news, October 2021). A major outbreak of covid-19 (regardless of variant) has the potential to overwhelm the current health care capacity and this will have far reaching implications, such as delays in elective surgery (possibly even life saving), and eventually staffing levels.

I'm not sure what is so difficult "to get" about this.

To the poster who mentioned the 1m distance from others and said you felt sorry for us - please don't feel sorry for me. I am quite happy to stay 1m away from strangers and clients. I don't go around touching others willy nilly so there really isn't any need to be so close to others all the time. My gob isn't taped shut and it is still possible to have a conversation within a 1m distance.

The continued border closures are utterly inhumane. That NZ citizens have had to enter a lottery to secure a room to return home - and that even this option is currently closed - is just unbelievable. I think I peaked in terms of anger when I saw that an 11yr old girl visiting her new step brother in Australia got caught out when the travel bubble closed the day she landed and she was unable to return home to her mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer. Shortly afterwards, it was in the press that a DJ had been able to enter the country multiple times in the last year, as he was considered an essential worker. The PM's 'Be Kind' rhetoric is utterly hollow.

24 days even if you are vaccinated?

I find it odd people are so invested in their ideology of anti-lockdowns and/or anti-restrictions that they feel the need yet again to query, sneer at, mock, and suggest poor outcomes for a country like NZ - which has managed to have only 52 deaths from Covid in the entire pandemic.

I think it's really dangerous to have a Prime Minister and party that are so much in power with the opposition parties being ineffective in challenging or holding the Government to account.

There are a lot of people here who are angry about how the Covid response was botched with slow vaccine rollout and no changes to the health system until recently. And a lot of anger at the restrictions unvaccinated people have.

Personally I think Jacinda loves the attention Covid gives her and is intending to drag it out as long as possible. Her popularity is starting to drop though.

The border restrictions are so unfair. I feel like I'm being kept captive here. People have been stuck for years or months with a system that relies on luck rather than need.

I also find it incredible that while a lot of people here are suffering under restrictions and losing their businesses our PM was planning her wedding at a billionaires station with Lorde playing!!

I have lots of friends and family in New Zealand. Most people there are completely frightened of Covid still.

The attitude is polar opposite from that here in the UK. I find it all quite bizarre especially as they have high levels of vaccination.

I'm now seeing a lot of people in nz saying they won't even leave the house until they have the booster jab.

I find the complacency in the UK, as expressed on MN at least, equally confounding.