Coronavirus - New Zealand
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I think two things can be true with the NZ response (as we sit here right now).
Firstly, it has served to lessen the impact of the disease from potentially very nasty to very manageable. It may never have been as bad as Italy, but still it could have resulted in hundreds or thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Secondly, it may have been possible to achieve similar results with a lighter touch that doesn't have the same impact on business and the economy.
From my outside view it seemed like Ardern and her team took a punt on a hard, fast lockdown that would see NZ fall to zero cases and a Corona-free nation. They could then prosper while the world rids itself of the disease, and quickly make up the impact of the harder lockdown.
But if NZ can't get to that zero-case world (which we're not sure is even possible), then the harder lockdown might have all been a bit too much. Might be too early to tell, and it's certainly not a worst case scenario regardless, but it might not be as amazing a move as some are making it out to be.
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@barbarian said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
But if NZ can't get to that zero-case world (which we're not sure is even possible), then the harder lockdown might have all been a bit too much. Might be too early to tell, and it's certainly not a worst case scenario regardless, but it might not be as amazing a move as some are making it out to be.
100%. Was saying this at the dinner table tonight. The upside could be massive - if we have largely eliminated it from the population. If not, then it was a massive cost to bear for limited upside
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@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Despite my open skepticism of the NZ response and the effusive praise from the Ardern PR machine I loved the decisiveness of it.
I think a decent call given the circumstances.
Three weeks later, though, the cracks appear - backtracking on who can do what, and being inconsistent in picking 'winners'. Still, I'd far rather be here than anywhere else in the world right now
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@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Despite my open skepticism of the NZ response and the effusive praise from the Ardern PR machine I loved the decisiveness of it.
It’s always been the best way to get shit done. Nothing half assed.
Decisive in how they present it, sure. Like closing the borders, but then not keeping track of people once they land.
They talk a good game.
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@nzzp yeah for me, I reckon when we went into lockdown, they needed to lock the borders up to all non-NZ citizens/residents and those returning into a GOvt facility for testing and iso.
Or, there are some that will argue, stay at L3 and lockdown our borders would have been sufficient...
Obviously the >taken with large spoon of salt< figures out of China are encouraging, similarly the numbers coming out of Italy the past 4 or 5 days are encouraging, but the toll there is huge, so things seem to have a way of levelling out, but its the human cost vs the economic cost that has been discussed as well...there will be a lingering human cost as the economic cost bites too.
I cant see how we dont come out after 4 weeks, but how they manage this will be interesting, I expect I will have to keep working from home (cos I can) with my kids being home schooled...I might bring back the cane!
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@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Kirwan fair comment, but that’s not really possible IMHO.
Closing borders and publishing stories of arresting surfers, road blocks etc is still one hell of a statement.
Why not? Once they made the decision to restrict entry, individual honesty wasn't going to cut it. They could have locked down all entrants for the full period, or done a Taiwan and used burner phones or apps to make sure people didn't break their self isolation. And no tourists
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@canefan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Kirwan fair comment, but that’s not really possible IMHO.
Closing borders and publishing stories of arresting surfers, road blocks etc is still one hell of a statement.
Why not? Once they made the decision to restrict entry, individual honesty wasn't going to cut it. They could have locked down all entrants for the full period, or done a Taiwan and used burner phones or apps to make sure people didn't break their self isolation. And no tourists
And this could have let us trial level 3 for a few weeks
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@Hooroo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Kirwan I need to elaborate as my post doesn't look right. I do care about BSG, just not the people he speaks of. (In the same way in that I read about people dying that I have never known before, I don't care about that)
If that makes sense
I'm afraid it doesn't.
To my mind you if you don't care about those people who you've never met you wouldn't abide by the lockdown.
Because I'm pretty sure you do care about everybody affected by this you DO abide by the lockdown.
It's finding the balance between lives and life that I'm not sure we've got 100% right yet.
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@booboo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Hooroo said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Kirwan I need to elaborate as my post doesn't look right. I do care about BSG, just not the people he speaks of. (In the same way in that I read about people dying that I have never known before, I don't care about that)
If that makes sense
I'm afraid it doesn't.
To my mind you if you don't care about those people who you've never met you wouldn't abide by the lockdown.
Because I'm pretty sure you do care about everybody affected by this you DO abide by the lockdown.
I'd suggest that is a false dichotomy. I don't care about people I don't know, but for the greater good I'm prepared to continue with the current restrictions. In much the same way I'd hope others would make a small sacrifice to spare the lives of people I do care about.
It's finding the balance between lives and life that I'm not sure we've got 100% right yet.
Absolutely.
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@Kirwan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Despite my open skepticism of the NZ response and the effusive praise from the Ardern PR machine I loved the decisiveness of it.
It’s always been the best way to get shit done. Nothing half assed.
Decisive in how they present it, sure. Like closing the borders, but then not keeping track of people once they land.
Does that even matter. The only people who have been able to arrive are NZ citizens who are returning to a country in which everyone is in lockdown. So what is worst case scenario? They join an already in progress bubble with 4 weeks to 'quarantine' any spread to within that bubble.
Now that the end of lockdown is less than 2 weeks away, the need for a govt quarantine has arisen.
Not been a problem. For 99.9 %. Only downside is wowsers taking to social media to report how a amazed they are no authorities have tracked their isolation plan.
How many NZers have returned? 20k, 50k? I have no idea. It's not a couple of hundred evacuees from Wuhan to put at Whangaparoa for a fortnight.
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@Rapido think the number I heard was near 50k
The money invested to sustain lockdown could have gone into monitoring or quarantining all those while the rest of NZ largely went about thier lives?
As I said before, I don't think there is a right or wrong way to do this, history will judge how it could have been done better.
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@Rapido said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Kirwan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Despite my open skepticism of the NZ response and the effusive praise from the Ardern PR machine I loved the decisiveness of it.
It’s always been the best way to get shit done. Nothing half assed.
Decisive in how they present it, sure. Like closing the borders, but then not keeping track of people once they land.
Does that even matter. The only people who have been able to arrive are NZ citizens who are returning to a country in which everyone is in lockdown. So what is worst case scenario? They join an already in progress bubble with 4 weeks to 'quarantine' any spread to within that bubble.
Isn't the reasonw e're in lockdown is because of the start of community transmission, due to the people who came back from overseas and didn't self isolate?
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@nzzp said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Rapido said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Kirwan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Despite my open skepticism of the NZ response and the effusive praise from the Ardern PR machine I loved the decisiveness of it.
It’s always been the best way to get shit done. Nothing half assed.
Decisive in how they present it, sure. Like closing the borders, but then not keeping track of people once they land.
Does that even matter. The only people who have been able to arrive are NZ citizens who are returning to a country in which everyone is in lockdown. So what is worst case scenario? They join an already in progress bubble with 4 weeks to 'quarantine' any spread to within that bubble.
Isn't the reasonw e're in lockdown is because of the start of community transmission, due to the people who came back from overseas and didn't self isolate?
One thing which seems to being missed here is that no one knew with any degree of certainty how many cases there were in NZ. Hard not to feel that if in doubt play safe. The answer to ask after the event isn't, 'What would we have done then had we known then what we now now?', but rather, 'Was there anything we COULD HAVE KNOWN/did know which made it plainly safe not to lockdown?'.
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@nzzp said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Rapido said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@Kirwan said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
@MajorRage said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
Despite my open skepticism of the NZ response and the effusive praise from the Ardern PR machine I loved the decisiveness of it.
It’s always been the best way to get shit done. Nothing half assed.
Decisive in how they present it, sure. Like closing the borders, but then not keeping track of people once they land.
Does that even matter. The only people who have been able to arrive are NZ citizens who are returning to a country in which everyone is in lockdown. So what is worst case scenario? They join an already in progress bubble with 4 weeks to 'quarantine' any spread to within that bubble.
Isn't the reasonw e're in lockdown is because of the start of community transmission, due to the people who came back from overseas and didn't self isolate?
No I dont think so.
Lockdown was as soon as evidence of progression from imported to community transmission. I think that was sourced from earlier returnees.Just my interpretation. I dont know what the earliest was? Matamata bar or Marist college or sheep conference?
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They “locked” the border to prevent the spread in the community before all the lockdown levels.
At that time the PM was denying we would even do lockdown as the rumours were spreading, that’s when she did her spin of no plans for a lockdown but prepare.
They then let people into the community from international travel on the honour system, and they promptly continued living normally. Particularly some tourists.
If they had done the quarantine system they have now it’s possible we could have slowed this all down dramatically. And let’s be clear, that’s likely all we can do, give ourselves time to prevent the health system from being overwhelmed.
This approach wouldn’t have ruined the economy, ironically likely to lead to more deaths and poor health outcomes.
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They could have quarantined tourists and returnees a week or 2 earlier, but I still doubt that was feasible, but then the outside world was still going to hell in a handbasket , and 50k citizens were still going to start returning a week after those potential changes . Then what?
I still think having every returnee arriving back into a country in lockdown, or in lockdown a week or 2 after they arrived, is the best method. Whether that has been by design or by accident.
The country is going into a huge recession regardless .
Whether by lockdown or death by a thousand drawn out cuts.
I'm still in 2 minds, maybe Australia's method has been better, maybe after 28 days we'll find it wasn't. I dont think there will be much difference in the end, my hunch.
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@Rapido said in Coronavirus - New Zealand:
They could have quarantined tourists and returnees a week or 2 earlier, but I still doubt that was feasible, but then the outside world was still going to hell in a handbasket , and 50k citizens were still going to start returning a week after those potential changes . Then what?
I still think having every returnee arriving back into a country in lockdown, or in lockdown a week or 2 after they arrived, is the best method. Whether that has been by design or by accident.
The country is going into a huge recession regardless .
Whether by lockdown or death by a thousand drawn out cuts.
I'm still in 2 minds, maybe Australia's method has been better, maybe after 28 days we'll find it wasn't. I dont think there will be much difference in the end, my hunch.
Australia's method has still seen the economy take a whack, even if the barbers remain open, there's still been massive job losses, and then you can add confusion on top of that of what can and can't be done.
In Sydney there appears to be no restrictions enforced aside from groups of 3 or more, and quite frankly that is barely enforced. Victoria is apparently much stricter, but with loopholes, same too with Queensland.
I don't think there is a nation in the world who couldn't have handled this a bit better than what they actually did. But we all have the benefit of hindsight and in six months time we'll have even more hindsight.