I get locked down. Tiers go up again.

[Cismyfatarse]

New Fred.

Sure

I'll come back later and give a wee explanation.

New Zealand is just a very different country to Scotland, or even the UK. No land borders for starters.

It might have been possible right at the start, but may well have sparked trouble in NI, and would have required a huge shift to only unaccompanied freight which would have been very difficult.

Now? It's just too bloody late. Even in full lockdown there are too many people still legitimately able to interact to achieve elimination. And even if it was achieved it would require exclusion to sustain it.

Elimination at this stage.
Like to know what the police say to really, properly enforcing compliance. Not just among the law abiding.

Anyways NS talks of " supression" these days so I think Prof Sridhar has her answers.

I think that's what most EU nations are doing really

I don't think exclusion will work it won't be long til people get fed up with zero travel (especially to family in England, NI, Wales).

NZ has been brilliant I look at friends in NZ and they have a normal life pretty much, gigs, bars, holidays etc. But NZ are also used to being isolated and it being expensive to fly outside NZ. Plus the difference between North and South Islands means it very much feels like a holiday they can fly to go skiing in the south or have a beach holiday in the far North!

Friends who have visited from NZ found Europe astounding as they can travel quickly and that's the difference.

It's a very interesting and difficult question I don't see how you can even get elimination without then still restricting travel between Scotland and England (as you can garentee they won't do the same!).
My DH and I are from England would the govt really say that thousands of families shouldn't be able to see each other for any longer then is necessary potentially all year or longer? I certainly wouldn't follow that (and I have followed every bloody rule to the letter due to DH job). It's too much of a push for my son to miss out on his grandparents completely whilst they are still on this earth!

It seems UK government is doing similarly right now. With the new variants popping up, especially the South African.

I won't be complying if we are locked down locally during late spring / summer. My elderly family haven't seen us since July.

Leo Varadkar did an interview yesterday (I think?) or at least before the small matter of Art 16 etc. Anyway his take on zero covid was that it may in fact entail border closures and isolation indefinitely but also prolonged internal restrictions.

Starting assumption that vaccine doesn't alter transmission much. He and others left plenty of wiggle room to alter course the minute they have solid evidence that vaccination does indeed do the job of suppression on its own.

@LetItGoGo

It seems UK government is doing similarly right now. With the new variants popping up, especially the South African.

Yes currently whilst rates are high and from other areas but tourism and aviation forms a chunk of the economy they won't keep it shut down for longer then necessary.

NZ and Australia now have serious issues with lack of airlines due to the block rule the UK govt will be watching closely and wishing to avoid.

Interesting the way their minds go.

Varadkar, I mean.

Right here's the five options (although obviously elements can be mixed)

No strategy - the Brazil model of doing nothing, no votes for that
Mitigation - do as little as possible to protect the vulnerable and no more
Suppression - the EU model of targeting and tiering
Elimination - trying to get cases down as low as possible and contain within borders
Exclusion - shut your doors and keep all cases out if possible. NZ, Mali, Australia.

The problem with those at the less restrictive end of the scale is that that's when mutations happen - where cases are running rampant. And with vaccination in sight, surely the bigger reward is to hold tight and try to keep mutations to a minimum until vaccination is rolled out across countries. Canada has closed its borders to many countries, Germany is considering it. That's to stop the international spread of mutations we can't vaccinate against.

That's the basic rundown of what we discussed anyway. Off for lunch

The problem with Exclusion and international mutations is that you need the entire World to adopt the same strategy until there is no more international spread of mutations. That ship sailed long ago especially as there are plenty of non-human reservoirs of infection. I am not a huge fan of pulling up the drawbridge on the RoW.

The WHO was on Channel 4 the other evening advocating for vaxxing the vulnerable and then prioritising vulnerable in developing World.

Will vaccines ever be properly rolled out across countries though? Genuine question there. The Kent variant, for example, has a naturally higher R than the original one. From what I've seen, scientists had calculated you'd need about 80% vaccinated (they must be assuming there that vaccines stop transmission I'd guess) in order to keep the R number below one in normal circumstances- effectively to achieve herd immunity. Surveys are already showing that, even in the countries which will have relatively easy access to the jabs, many won't take them. That's before you factor in health care access issues especially in poorer countries.

India and Japan are interesting to watch too.

EU countries have (to me) amazing levels of vaccine "hesitancy". How will that pan out?

Look at Vietnam. 35 deaths from Covid. They share a border with China! They implemented 14 day quarantine from March The UK refused to do this until a year later.
The 100,000 dead, England sadly having the highest death rate in the world is ONLY down to the catastrophic errors made by the government (which affect Scotland as we have an open border). No quarantine rules/ free travel into the country, keeping schools open in London in the run up to Christmas when Covid rates were beyond astronomical, trumpeting the 5 days free for all over Christmas (in Oct was it?), the Government implementing a scheme encouraging people to eat in indoor restaurants ( which causes a 6 per cent spike in cases), giving billions of pounds to friends and family for PPE (who had no experience in this so lives were lost through defective or non existent ppe).

Infection rates falling pattern in London and SE starting to look doubtful the Kent variant is in fact superspready.

Why do you? The more nations that contribute to the halt the better, but some countries just won't. It's not likely to be high on the priority list for Yemen, Syria, for example.

I think Western nations have an obligation to help vaccinate RoW, but it will take a few years, in which time we will have other mutations. What if, for example, it becomes a serious illness for children because they are the vectors that are left?

I think we'd all be fighting to pull up the drawbridge if our children were as at risk as our grandparents.

Sorry that last post was in response to You Dinna saying we need all nations to shut borders, but the quote function didn't work!

Someone mentioned Japan - this came up on my Twitter feed just now and I thought it was interesting.

The 100,000 dead, England sadly having the highest death rate in the world is ONLY down to the catastrophic errors made by the government (which affect Scotland as we have an open border).

The U.K. not England alone.
Wales, Scotland and N.I. Figures are 100k.
FFS own it.
Sick of this BS moaning as though Scotland hasn’t had appalling figures for its population.
Furlough- fecking furlough, even though it’s utterly shit for anyone who’s currently furloughed, be thankful it’s available funded from the rest of the taxpayers in the U.K..
Vaccines - I’m beyond thankful we have those available to us as one country.

@IncludeWomenInTheSequel

Someone mentioned Japan - this came up on my Twitter feed just now and I thought it was interesting.

Yes I know someone who's teaching in Japan and the Government has a very different attitude towards Covid. Again, strict quarantine of people going into the country. Sadly, a life seems to hold less value here.

If you agree some countries "just won't" then the RoW will not eliminate Covid. That means controlled entry from RoW forever because there will always be a reservoir to develop vaccine resistant mutations. There is no evidence to suggest the virus is mutating down the age spectrum. However if there were the answer would surely be to vaccinate children.

Most cases of measles to the UK are imports from adults. Measles is much more problematic for the young than Covid but thankfully non-mutating and vaccination provides sterilising immunity.