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?

Slinkymalinky03
I am with you . Like many many kiwis I took the opportunity to take an academic job abroad.
Now my visa has expired, my stuff is on a ship and my children are due to start school in NZ next week.

BUT I have not been able to get a MIQ spot for the six months I have tried.
We are all NZ citizens, all vaxed and should not be locked out while Jacinda allows non NZ musicians and sports people in.
I have been denied an exemption despite there being a category for not being able to stay in resident country.
NZEmbassy said to go to another country ! WTF

Nz has had 23 months to sort themselves but are still sinking.

@oceanskye I agree but I'd still like to know what happens next. Do you see NZ's borders remaining shut for the next few years?

Unlike the pp I'd love to have been living in NZ for the last couple of years.

I assume they are still pursuing zero Covid...which most nations have now accepted is an impossible goal.

Yes, they have a low death toll but they have also lost all freedom.

Also they will eventually have to open up and then the cases/deaths will rise anyway as the virus isn't going anywhere...

Can I ask the nz residents on this thread how they feel about their fellow compatriots being unable to return to see dying family but Lorde was able to play at Jacindas wedding? was she simply very lucky in the squid game lottery?

@MrsBerthaRochester
I thought JA has cancelled her wedding?

Just madness, I think so many leaders, here & overseas are completely power drunk. It needs to stop, two years of our lives, we will never get back, enough is enough.

I feel anything but imprisoned or that Jacinda is a tyrant. My life is pretty normal considering. Most kiwis are just heading back to work after a glorious summer and my colleagues are pretty chipper. Check out #nzhellhole on twitter for photos if you want to see how things are going.

Zero covid forever was never the aim. 2 years down the track we are going into omicron 90 percent plus vaxxed, with new treatments, a healthy economy and what we believe is a milder variant. And negative excess deaths.

That's what success looks like to me.

Try telling all the people who didn’t die of Covid in NZ that zero Covid is bad for health.... try telling all their loved ones. Try tell all those who ve avoided long Covid.

Personally I have nothing but admiration for a people who were capable of such public mindedness. Who actually have a crap for each other. And who didn’t ramble on about ‘getting back to normal’ while others suffered and died.

[quote Porcupineintherough]@oceanskye I agree but I'd still like to know what happens next. Do you see NZ's borders remaining shut for the next few years?

Unlike the pp I'd love to have been living in NZ for the last couple of years.[/quote]
It is supposed to be Feb the border will open, or start to at least. I think to Australia first. But it's already been delayed from when it was meant to happen, so who knows if it will go ahead?

Well yes, @BeardyButton, I don't disagree. I don't think anyone's arguing that NZ have done a great job over the death rate. But the question that no one seems to be answering is, how are they going to get out of their enforced isolation? Is the govt giving any inkling of the way forward?

@oceanskye

I have family in the UK, they spent many, many more months under restrictions than I have here in NZ. Yet suddenly, just because the UK has ended restrictions, any other country with them is insane, draconian, a dictatorship, etc?

British citizens have not been locked out of their own country for two years. See also mandatory quarantine for people with Covid, not just border control, vaccine passports, road blocks….

Complete failure during the time they had to get people vaccinated and improve healthcare infrastructure, and actually have a coherent plan for when it did inevitably get in…

How do DJs and sports players get through the MIQ booking system btw, when people with dying relatives can’t?

Yes, they have a low death toll but they have also lost all freedom.

How does the borders being closed equate to having lost all freedom

As I said, a lot of nonsense being spouted here.

@taxidermissy That's shocking and so distressing for you all. My heart genuinely aches for you and your family.

@ElectraBlue

I assume they are still pursuing zero Covid...which most nations have now accepted is an impossible goal.

Yes, they have a low death toll but they have also lost all freedom.

Also they will eventually have to open up and then the cases/deaths will rise anyway as the virus isn't going anywhere...

If you had read the thread you would have seen that NZ is no longer pursing a zero covid strategy and hasn't for a while. Further, you would also have seen that we are not locked away in our homes with zero freedoms. Not too sure how many times this needs to be stated before people understand. Yes, it's true that our borders remain closed and our MIQ system probably needs a jolly good over haul.

If you really want to know what the NZ Covid strategy is then maybe have a look at the NZ govt. Covid website. rather than making incorrect assumptions.

@BeardyButton

Try telling all the people who didn’t die of Covid in NZ that zero Covid is bad for health.... try telling all their loved ones. Try tell all those who ve avoided long Covid.

Personally I have nothing but admiration for a people who were capable of such public mindedness. Who actually have a crap for each other. And who didn’t ramble on about ‘getting back to normal’ while others suffered and died.

We did do a lot for a long time here in the U.K.

NZ will be feeling it less after fewer restrictions over that time

Complete failure during the time they had to get people vaccinated and improve healthcare infrastructure, and actually have a coherent plan for when it did inevitably get in…

So, the UK improved healthcare infrastructure over the past couple of years did they? That doesn't tie in with what I read on MN.

NZEmbassy said to go to another country ! WTF

God that's awful.

The isolation is crazy long - 14 days for a case, and then anyone in that household has to isolate an ADDITIONAL ten days regardless of test. If anyone in the household does test positive in that time, the clock starts again.

But I guess in the perspective of attempting zero covid - that rule does make sense - reducing to 5 days isolation only works in countries like the UK who are “learning to live with it” and accepting that people will be infecting each other, just trying to take the edge off that rather than completely stem it.

The new plan in NZ seems to be that everyone needs boosters and then they might open up - but I’ve not really seen massive promises in that area to actually confirm. They’re just doing a big booster drive.

So cruel though, there is a group suing the government for the lock out of citizens. Only 16% of nz citizens with a terminal illness were approved “emergency” places in the hotel quarantine system. A travesty. I don’t know why all the places weren’t emergency places. The lottery system meant that you had people coming in for holidays while others missed their parents/sisters/children’s last days and funerals.

@Allsorts1
The isolation is crazy long - 14 days for a case, and then anyone in that household has to isolate an ADDITIONAL ten days regardless of test.
Do they get full or partial pay if they're off work for 24 days?

There’s such a load of bollocks being spouted on this thread.

First OP, NZ doesn’t have a lockdown. Put down the Daily Mail. NZers have endured less time in lockdown than most of the world, and life has pretty much been normal for most people for the majority of the last 2 years - and still is.

Second, PPs - NZ is NOT pursuing zero COVID any longer. But by doing that for the last two years less than 100 people have died IN TOTAL and delta was pretty much extinguished when omicron arrived.

How? 1. High vaccine rates - achieved through the use of mandates i.e. if you CHOOSE not to get get vaccinated (and, importantly, you don’t have a valid exemption) then you don’t get to work in healthcare, teach, go to bars, the gym, hairdresser etc and mingle. Like it or not, this has saved thousands of lives. (Spare me the “vaccines don’t stop transmission” replies). 2. Closed borders and MIQ.

Do I agree with everything Jacinda has done - particularly the unfair MIQ lottery system? Nope. Has the NZ government’s actions saved thousands from death and others from the horrors of COVID - including long COVID? Without a doubt.

It also looks as though borders will be reopening soon anyway (originally planned for early 2022) now that Omicron is in.

History will judge NZ kindly. Wish I could say the same about the U.K. - with hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed.

One of the other problems they have is that when Covid started, thousands of Kiwis came back from abroad where many of them had very successful careers. The price of housing went through the roof, leaving even more people homeless. According to my family out there it's generally increased social inequality and with the slump in the tourist industry and many businesses suffering, things aren't looking good.

Three years ago Jacinda had a lot of support but that's ebbing away now and they've gone from looking in horror at Europe and the US and patting themselves on the back for playing it right, to realising that it's all going worryingly wrong. My family in Auckland were still waiting for their first jab when I'd had my second and they weren't happy about it.

@Lucycantdance but that's the whole point of the OP's post, isn't it? While NZ's policies may have been the right ones for a very restricted time period, they are not the right ones now and the government seems incapable of moving on. It's like Jacinda called up Xi Jinping and decided to copy China or something. Well' that's what you get with Ardern in power. Crack on....

[quote NearlyAlwaysInsane]@Lucycantdance but that's the whole point of the OP's post, isn't it? While NZ's policies may have been the right ones for a very restricted time period, they are not the right ones now and the government seems incapable of moving on. It's like Jacinda called up Xi Jinping and decided to copy China or something. Well' that's what you get with Ardern in power. Crack on....[/quote]
What part of this do people not comprehend. The zero Covid strategy has gone. The policy has changed. It’s different/changed/gone. Am I making sense here. Or are you just here to sneer @NearlyAlwaysInsane ?

If you have to isolate for 14 days and 24 days that doesn't sound like zero covid strategy has gone. That sounds pretty extreme still.

@Allsorts1

The isolation is crazy long - 14 days for a case, and then anyone in that household has to isolate an ADDITIONAL ten days regardless of test. If anyone in the household does test positive in that time, the clock starts again.

But I guess in the perspective of attempting zero covid - that rule does make sense - reducing to 5 days isolation only works in countries like the UK who are “learning to live with it” and accepting that people will be infecting each other, just trying to take the edge off that rather than completely stem it.

The new plan in NZ seems to be that everyone needs boosters and then they might open up - but I’ve not really seen massive promises in that area to actually confirm. They’re just doing a big booster drive.

So cruel though, there is a group suing the government for the lock out of citizens. Only 16% of nz citizens with a terminal illness were approved “emergency” places in the hotel quarantine system. A travesty. I don’t know why all the places weren’t emergency places. The lottery system meant that you had people coming in for holidays while others missed their parents/sisters/children’s last days and funerals.

They are not going for zero Covid anymore - the isolation is just to slow down spread there too. It’s lengthy but reason why at start of thread