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?

My Danish friend told me how badly hings are going in Denmark. Rising cases and deaths (although they too are doing a UK, eg. not including every reinfection death). Their hospitals are packed with Covid patients and burnt out HCP.

And this is in a country with a lot more ICU capacity per head than the UK.

But still, I'm with you on wanting to be more like Denmark or Norway. Well-funded healthcare systems.

In the early stages of the pandemic the WHO advised against border closures.

They did and the WHO are not typically known as western centric so why would they advise this?

And how are the practicalities such as food and road freight overcome?

I think some posters are obsessed with an idea and have been for a long time but it’s fantasy. It’s politics mixed with anti science.

I remember the same ideas about travel bubbles and a world split in two - wrong about that also.

@TheKeatingFive

Don't know if it's a 'bubble' but your views certainly come across as inspired by a western centricness, or at least British exceptionalism.

We are not more special than NZ, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and other Asian countries. Nor Africa (much of which also put in place pandemic border controls).

Actually I'm not talking about any of those countries. More about those that are too poor and chaotic and caught up with other problems to be in any position to implement lockdowns and border closures like you think everyone should have done.

But I understand that these countries don't even register with you. I get that.

Which 'poor and chaotic' countries are you referring to.

Do you mean the very poor African countries - who put in place pandemic border controls?

My Danish friend told me how badly hings are going in Denmark

That's not what the data is saying, but I'm sure your friend has the inside scoop.

Which 'poor and chaotic' countries are you referring to.

Places like Yemen, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India. And the African countries you speak of weren't in a position to implement lockdowns.

Lol at the global war on drugs being cited as an example of how well the world collaborates to face a common elusive foe. FFS 😂

And how are the practicalities such as food and road freight overcome?

If you want to know, ask NZ, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, and many African countries. They will all be able to explain the difference between essential travel including imports (with real quarantine) versus North Korea style completely shut borders.

Many countries had temporary pandemic border control (thanks to places like the UK, sadly not as short-term as it should've been).

North Korea is the only country in the world to completely shut borders. All the others continued to have food, medicine, and other necessary imports.

Anyway this was all explained yesterday. Rather than me repeating the same info (in response to the same claims), perhaps it easier for us all to simply scroll back through yesterday's posts.

My coffee's getting cold.

@Gennz18

Lol at the global war on drugs being cited as an example of how well the world collaborates to face a common elusive foe. FFS 😂

No. An example of worldwide policy. Whether the war on drugs is a good thing or not, is a different matter.

@Tealightsandd

And how are the practicalities such as food and road freight overcome?

If you want to know, ask NZ, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, and many African countries. They will all be able to explain the difference between essential travel including imports (with real quarantine) versus North Korea style completely shut borders.

Many countries had temporary pandemic border control (thanks to places like the UK, sadly not as short-term as it should've been).

North Korea is the only country in the world to completely shut borders. All the others continued to have food, medicine, and other necessary imports.

Anyway this was all explained yesterday. Rather than me repeating the same info (in response to the same claims), perhaps it easier for us all to simply scroll back through yesterday's posts.

My coffee's getting cold.

Feel free to go to your coffee

Why would the WHO advise against border closure?

@TheKeatingFive

Which 'poor and chaotic' countries are you referring to.

Places like Yemen, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India. And the African countries you speak of weren't in a position to implement lockdowns.

Except that several of those countries did. Bangladesh and India, for example.

Oh and likewise many African countries.

Except that several of those countries did. Bangladesh and India, for example.

Impose strict, enforced and observed lockdowns and close their borders?

Why would the WHO advise against border closure?

You'd have to ask them.

Some years earlier, before SARS-COV-2, it was their official pandemic advice, but they backed down in the face of big business pressure.

Also, China asked them not to recommend it (although obviously later on, did do it for themselves).

But anyway you don't usually seem to want to take WHO advice. Eg. re masks and Vaccine Plus in general.

@Tealightsandd

Why would the WHO advise against border closure?

You'd have to ask them.

Some years earlier, before SARS-COV-2, it was their official pandemic advice, but they backed down in the face of big business pressure.

Also, China asked them not to recommend it (although obviously later on, did do it for themselves).

You’re always referring to the WHO what a shame it’s only when it’s not regarding your fantasy type approaches

@Tealightsandd

Also if you think that no New Zealand citizen 'should be shut out of their own country for the length of time they have', I take it you will be or already have donated money to the NZealanders around the world who can't afford to travel back.

Way before the pandemic, that has been the circumstances for some.

Many people who live abroad (from NZ, or anywhere else) simply don't have the money to be able to travel - particularly long haul - every few years.

Yes I've donated money and colleagues impacted have raised funds with help from pro bono lawyers and friends helping to crowdfund.

I'm astonished that you really think its ok for a government to unilaterally abandon its citizens abroad on the basis that some other government can sort it out in addition to all their own problems.

Even if you think migrant workers and divided families are a bunch of rich kids (which itself is risible) it still doesn't make it ok for a government to abandon its own citizens.

The fact that you reckon migrant workers and divided families are privileged is irrelevant to a government's duty to its own citizens or the NZ government's failure in two years to put anything into place to ease the situation.

Please don’t Britsplain NZ’s border closures @Tealightsandd, I (and plenty of other posters of this thread) have lived/are living through them.

If the whole world had pursued the fantastical elimination policy - even if that was even possible, which obviously it’s not - we’d be years off coming out the end of the pandemic.

@Tealightsandd after any kind of lockdown, whatever form it takes, whether people being shut in their houses or national borders closed, as soon as those are lifted, the virus bounces back. Because it’s a virus and its job is to escape and infect. In light of that, what makes you think that if we’d all just followed the NZ example, the pandemic would have been over by now? What’s the logic of that position? Myself, I agree with @Gennz18, we’d be years away from the end of this pandemic.

Actually India did have strict, enforced lockdowns. They were a human rights disaster, because things like supply chains had not been considered.

We’d also be years away from the end of the pandemic as we’d still be waiting to see if the vaccines worked or not. The Oxford team developing AZ in the U.K. had to chase the virus around the world when the cases were so low in the U.K. summer 2020 and they had to move to Brazil and South Africa instead so there’s that problem too.
I remember Sarah Gibert from Oxford team saying she was probably the only person in U.K. who wanted cases to stay high ( tongue in cheek obvs).
Yes they could have done challenge trials but they are small in number and normally use healthy young people and it wasn’t this group that were at risk and needed the vaccine.
Quite a catch 22!

I love Britsplaining as a concept

And Peru had the strictest lockdown in the world back in 2020, we were all told how well they were doing. Guess where it is now for deaths per million- 1st!
With 6204 deaths per million. U.K. has 2323, nearly a third lower

@Tealightsandd

But anyway you don't usually seem to want to take WHO advice. Eg. re masks and Vaccine Plus in general.

Where on this thread has that been said? It is immaterial to border closures.

The main discussion is that MIQ was not fit for purpose. Not that the borders shouldn't have been closed or that New Zealand were not right to act in closing the borders. But that 2 years on the fact that they havent been able to create an MIQ that worked well enough to get back all NZ citizens that they wanted to is a travesty.

You are throwing an awful lot of information out there which is irrelevant to the current discussion on this thread

@sashagabadon

And Peru had the strictest lockdown in the world back in 2020, we were all told how well they were doing. Guess where it is now for deaths per million- 1st! With 6204 deaths per million. U.K. has 2323, nearly a third lower

Peru also shows up the fallacy of a global zero Covid approach. Yes, Peru did attempt to implement a very strict lockdown, including border closures, but social factors meant this didn’t really work.

It is very difficult for a country to be able to meaningfully attempt a NZ approach. In Peru, 70% of workers work in the informal sector, so if they don’t go out to work, they do not earn and they starve. The government did attempt to provide support payments, but fewer than half of Peruvian adults have a bank account so making these payments to most people wasn’t really possible. People literally had to work to survive.

Plus, sadly a significant number of the population live in overcrowded housing, and 40% don’t have a fridge so have to go out regularly for food, much of which is bought at crowded markets.

To suggest other countries should have done what NZ did just drips with Western privilege. The living circumstances of people in many nations is sadly nothing like that of NZ.

www.newsroom.co.nz/logistics-boss-chris-knuths-unacceptable-border-break-referred-to-police

To suggest other countries should have done what NZ did just drips with Western privilege. The living circumstances of people in many nations is sadly nothing like that of NZ.

What gushers of Western privilege is ignoring Africa. Many African countries did the same as NZ.

One reason is because many African countries don't have the western privilege - of allowing SARS-COV-2 to keep spreading (instead of what could've been a few months temporary border controls that would've ended the pandemic.

They don't have the western privilege of allowing SARS-COV-2 to overwhelm their healthcare systems and infrastructure. (Not that we managed to cope either - I mean, we had to get the army in to some hospitals).

Incidentally, talking of western privilege. Highly vaxxed western countries removing mitigations exposes other, mostly poorer counties - including many in Africa - to increased risk from SARS-COV-2.