With No New Cases in 17 Days, New Zealand is Now Covid-19-Free (stuff.co.nz) 209
Long-time Slashdot reader heretic108 writes: Following its "go early and go hard" lockdown regime, New Zealand's active COVID-19 case count has now reached zero. Stringent border quarantine rules remain in place, however, and New Zealand is just now starting to count the economic cost.
New Zealand has now marked 17 days in a row without a new case, according to the article. Throughout a population of 4.8 million, to date there have been just 1,504 "confirmed and probable cases," and the death toll remains at 22.
"Laboratories across the country have completed 294,848 tests."
New Zealand has now marked 17 days in a row without a new case, according to the article. Throughout a population of 4.8 million, to date there have been just 1,504 "confirmed and probable cases," and the death toll remains at 22.
"Laboratories across the country have completed 294,848 tests."
Wrong view (Score:2)
The point of the lock downs has never been about getting rid of the virus. It was to buy time to prepare.
Australia and New Zealand has spent the last 3 months preparing our health systems and procedures for when it does start to hit badly.
We're ready.
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No, in NZ the publicly declared goal shifted quickly to "eliminate the virus" so we can quickly get back to normal life. That has been achieved (for now). Yes, we are prepared if we get new cases.
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The publicly declared goal of a program frequently has little to do with its actual intent.
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Dude, just look at all your posts. YOU are the only "scared little boy" in this forum. You are projecting and making fun of people in a world that you made up & put them in; just to make your sorry self feel a little better.
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The continual use of all caps just makes you look like a 12 year-old.
Woot! Grats NZ! (Score:2)
Awesome competent job.
Hope you can keep it until better treatments and maybe even a vaccine are available.
It will be tough. Covid 19 has barely gotten started. Only about 5% of the world population infected at most.
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Yeah, truely kudos to NZ. Well done. Obviously no one is saying its "over" but its a bright bit of news in the world and a good chuck of valuable data to look over.
But I think most of the world is much better off today than they were 3-5 months ago. Most countries have good testing regimes and isolation policies and the hospital in take procedures have been well defined through a ton of trial & errors. So I think the 95% will have a much better outcome than the first 2%. Hopefully we will remain vi
48 million, not counting the orcs (Score:2)
Because *you don't dare tell them vioe that the virus is real, and that filming is over.
Where to from here.. (Score:3)
I am a New Zealander - living in Australia.
Where does NZ go from here? I think this was the easy bit. Lock everyone away and get rid of the disease. Now what?
A major part of the NZ lifestyle is to do the big OE, that is a lot of young kiwis spend a year or two travelling the world getting life experience and enjoying other cultures. That is over at the moment :( It was part of who I am too, I did exactly this. It is a big risk that as soon as a kiwi goes overseas they will be exposed to covid.
The other thing is that a major part of the NZ economy is tourism, and foreigners cannot efficiently visit - bad for the country and jobs, and mental health.
Tough decisions still ahead.
I'm not saying what Jacinda Ardern has achieved is bad, it clearly isn't (to all the purists who always criticise me with personal attacks) but it was the easy bit. Where to from here is the hard bit as NZ is now isolated.
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A major part of the NZ lifestyle is to do the big OE, that is a lot of young kiwis spend a year or two travelling the world getting life experience and enjoying other cultures. That is over at the moment :(
Huh? You send them over the seas and quarantine for a fortnight when they come back?
"Covid-19 Free"? Actually not... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish they were, but just because there are no more infections & deaths being reported, there are probably some still happening, and asymptomatic carriers presents in the population.
Like the common cold, this thing is never going to magically disappear completely.
Re:"Covid-19 Free"? Actually not... (Score:5, Informative)
You don't have only asymptomaic infections. Some portion will require hospitalization.
Which is why they waited until longer than the incubation period to declare this. If there were still asymptomatic carriers 10ish days ago, there would have been at least one person sick enough to be hospitalized by now.
Everything is easier on a small scale (Score:2)
Back to 5G (Score:2)
Re: Potential hostage situation? (Score:4, Insightful)
The virus is not going to survive international shipping.
I know you're joking but some people here won't get it and will start calling for a halt in international trade.
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I know you're joking but some people here won't get it and will start calling for a halt in international trade.
Maybe those people enjoy canned fruits and vegetables in the winter.
Re: Potential hostage situation? (Score:3)
âoeWhat'll happen if I send them a contaminated package now?â
Nothing, because youâ(TM)re too stupid to be able to pull it off in the first place. Donâ(TM)t even know the survival rate of COVID-19 outside the human body for starters.
Re:Potential hostage situation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anthrax is a bacteria that forms spores.
Covid is a virus with short viability outside a host.
So just look at the postmark. If it was yesterday, let the package sit till tomorrow before opening. Maybe set it by a sunny window so the warmth speeds up the process.
Unless you use an expensive express service, you aren't going to get a package into the hands of a recipient in NZ in fewer than two days.
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The question is will people klnow tghat. After calling the police, the police are going to have to investigate as a false threat irregardless.
I don't get your point. Are you seriously claiming that random notes in packages of confetti and flour, sent to people in NZ are a threat to civilization?
I may be going way on a limb here, but I predict exactly zero people will pay the postage to send a threatening package to a random person in NZ.
This is the stupidest thing I have read so far today. You really need to find something more sensible to worry about.
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The question is will people klnow tghat. After calling the police, the police are going to have to investigate as a false threat irregardless.
No, usually they don't. The police just simply don't have enough manpower.
Unless it's a small town, with nothing else going on, or there's a credible threat associated with the package, in which case they might.
... and even then, they might not. The typical police response to anonymous threats is "So, if you think it's dangerous, don't open it. What do you want us to do about it?"
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as the medicine was worse than the cure.
How do you know? You never saw the alternative.
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How do you know? You never saw the alternative.
Some countries did not do lockdowns, including Sweden and Brazil.
Sweden has had more deaths than some of its direct neighbors but is about the middle of the pack in deaths compared to the rest of Europe. But they have also built up more herd immunity.
Brazil has about 36k deaths so far. That is a higher death rate than Argentina or Uraguay. But they have had less of an economic slowdown and are building herd immunity faster.
Overall, it is unclear if lockdowns prevent deaths, or just delay them at a high e
Re:I live here (NZ) and... (Score:5, Informative)
Sweden hasn't built up herd immunity. That just some nonsense you heard from Lynnwood.
Sweden's cases have currently spiked to record highs [worldometers.info]
Some herd immunity...
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It is even more than that ...
Sweden's top epidemiologist admitted that their approach resulted in too many deaths [theglobeandmail.com].
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That spike is due to changes in how data was being reported being corrected at once. The cases in that spike were really spread out over the previous month or longer.
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No, I think they said it was mostly due to increased testing. Especially in the Gothenburg area.
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...their economy is just as badly impacted as neighbouring countries who did lock down....
Hindsight is better than 20/20 but makes sense. Almost 90% of Sweden's GDP is trade. It takes a buyer and a seller to keep the economy going. Can't do that if 1/2 the party is in lockdown.
Same thing with all these "reopen" rallies in the US. Sure, open the salon; that doesn't mean the regular number of patrons will come in to keep the business afloat. It doesn't mean your supplier will reopen to give you supplies that your customer risked to come over for. And if you do the reopen bad, then you will
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Same thing with all these "reopen" rallies in the US. Sure, open the salon; that doesn't mean the regular number of patrons will come in to keep the business afloat.
The lockdown orders definitely hit the economy hard; but people who are blaming them for all of our current economic woes seem to have missed the fact that the US economy, at least, had already taken a hard downward turn the month ahead of the lockdown orders. The February-March drop was a bit under 9%, which at the time was being reported as the biggest drop since the 1980s recession.
Of course the March-April transition said "hold my beer" and then left the previous month's change in its dust. But it's not
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Your ignorance is far too common. Several things are unknown about whether "herd immunity" is even going to work.
1) It's unknown whether exposure and survival actually confers immunity at all. Some people appear to have been infected twice.
2) It's unknown whether exposure to one strain confers immunity to others. There are at least two major and several minor strains in the wild already.
3) It's unknown how long any immunity will last, many coronaviruses can infect the same person more than once in the sa
Re:I live here (NZ) and... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) It's unknown whether exposure and survival actually confers immunity at all. Some people appear to have been infected twice.
Evidence says those reports were due to false positives: https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
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You aren't going to die.
Excellent news! Can I have immortality too, please?
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"If the known cases of infection are under-reported - and, given that 75% experience minimal or no symptoms, this is quite plausible - the fatality rate is likely closer to 0.075 - 0.1%. So even regardless of herd immunity I'm inclined to just go ahead and take my chances."
Even in describing the conditional probability you have failed to understand it. The case fatality statistic going down because the case rate is going up still means the same percentage of the population is dead.
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Sweden suffered about the same economic damage as having done a lockdown anyway, because people simply stopped going out for fear of getting infected anyway.
Lockdown wasn't really a choice anywhere, it was just making what would happen anyway official and more effective.
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Some countries did not do lockdowns, including Sweden and Brazil.
Sweden: the only country in the world which hasn't had a reduction in daily new cases in the past TWO FUCKING MONTHS.
Brazil: the country who is screaming up the rear currently in second place hoping to overtake the USA in terms of cases, and this despite having the benefit of being late to the infection party.
Yep you really picked two shining examples of how to handle a pandemic there. /sarcasm.
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Slovakia went through a lockdown, as did pretty much every country in Europe except for Sweden (which is logging fucking atrocious numbers).
And all of that without any comparative context.
So yeah: you haven't seen the alternative, and even if NZ gets a second wave you won't ever see the alternatives because said second wave is based on different knowledge than the first.
In other news Y2K wasn't an issue, we all wasted our time fixing the bugs.
Re:I live here (NZ) and... (Score:5, Insightful)
> the medicine was worse than the cure.
This is a Trumpesque troll right?
The lockdown was definitely not worse than the disease. The "just get on with life" approach, let's call it "Sweden", kills and sickens a lot of people (not just old people), displaces other sick people from hospitals, and tanks the economy anyway because people are afraid to go out. In contrast, here in NZ after a short shock we have virtually no restrictions and no-one is afraid so normal life resumes.
If and when we have another case, we can reasonably hope for test+trace to contain the outbreak without having to lock down again. We shall see!
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here in NZ after a short shock we have virtually no restrictions and no-one is afraid
That only works because NZ is an isolated island.
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That is literally the MOST IMPORTANT thing to stop a virus. Isolation. What the fuck? Do you guys literally think that NEW ZEALAND is somehow not at an advantage being a FUCKING ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE?
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Once you shut down borders what difference does it make if you're an island?
You're clearly not very smart. People bring it to a country and then it spreads around that country.
If you have test and trace you can stop the spread. If you have Trump and think it's a cold, don't trace and test. Guess what genius it spreads.
Shut the borders, stop the spread. EZY PEZY
Everyone knows your the villiage Trump troll. But people may as well read the truth since they are here anyway.
As if isolation is a strategy. Yo
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Gee I don't know....MAYBE IT IS EASIER TO SHUT DOWN BORDERS WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE ONE WAY IN AND OUT? Gee I don't know. Hmmmmm...maybe? Maybe it is easier WHEN VERY FEW PEOPLE ARE COMING IN AND OUT ANYWAY? Gee....maybe. Maybe it is easier IF YOU HAVE A POPULATION OF 5 million people and 27 MILLION SHEEP? Yeah, I looked it up.
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Gee I don't know....MAYBE IT IS EASIER TO SHUT DOWN BORDERS WHEN YOU ONLY HAVE ONE WAY IN AND OUT?
Pssst....boats exist.
Maybe it is easier WHEN VERY FEW PEOPLE ARE COMING IN AND OUT ANYWAY?
Per-capita, there is more international travel to New Zealand than to the United States.
Re: I live here (NZ) and... (Score:5, Informative)
You say cure is worse but a lot of the lost economic activity is from the shutdown of international visitors. That was happening anyway.
Quite frankly I enjoyed the lockdown. Less traffic and a slower pace. Lots of people out on the street exercising, walking, taking their kids out for bike rides. It couldn't last, but it wasn't bad. And the changes since seem positive too. I already work from home, but many of my friends can now work from home if they like. NZ companies have always seemed more than usually anti telecommuting, and this forced re-evaluation is great.
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Antipodean here living in the UK, I feel sorry for anyone in high risk group. However the UK was never going to contain it. The UK has people constantly coming and going from countries all over the world via rail, boat, car and air. I'm pretty sure i had it back in February after working in London and Paris on and off travelling on the Eurostar service.
Once you have critical mass you have no choice but to go for immunity. Basically that is what we are now doing, they don't want to let the minimum number
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I agree with some of what you're saying, except for this. I don't think they're going for anything, they have no flipping idea what they're doing at all. Better results or worse (and let's face it, can't get much worse than the UK) at least most other countries are communicating some kind of message about what they want to achieve.
For
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The UK has had new strains of seasonal flu at the top of the risk register for decades. While the response to the pandemic takes time and coordination armchair experts might describe it as chaotic. As the poster below said, the number of infections is directly related to the number of foreign travelers (Hence why London, New York and Italian alps got hit so hard).
Re: I live here (NZ) and... (Score:4, Informative)
"The UK has people constantly coming and going from countries all over the world via rail, boat, car and air. "
Exactly. People act (or pretend) that they don't understand this. COUNTRIES WITH A LOT OF INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL WILL GET HIT BY VIRUSES THE WORST. The UK has more VISITORS than New Zealand has population. Over 40 million people travel to the UK every year. That doesn't count the number of people that travel from the UK.
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Ah, another IT guy who thinks the real world is a video game. Here is a hint braniac: before we even knew the virus existed it was already in the country. It isn't so fucking easy to "close a border" when your economy is dependent on the rest of the planet. And no, we aren't going for your fucking "tracing". If you want to get tracked go ahead. Scared little boy. Let the adults do the thinking and go back to playing video games in your basement.
Re: I live here (NZ) and... (Score:2)
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The UK's disaster was caused by inaction on the part of the government. A mistake you cannot accuse the New Zealand government of making.
The British government could have closed the borders. Other European countries did. Could have started lockdown earlier. Could have stockpiled PPE and given it to care homes. The list of failures is long and depressing.
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Once you have critical mass you have no choice but to go for immunity. Basically that is what we are now doing, they don't want to let the minimum number of cases get too low that way by May next year most people will have had it.
And if immunity for this works the same as for a cold, next spring you can start over at the beginning.
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Unfortunately for NZ, the goal here isn't "no new cases of the virus for a day." The goal is long-term resistance to subsequent outbreaks of the virus. In that respect, halting the spread of the virus so early that 99.9% of your population was never exposed to it, just leaves your population vu
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This isn't the measles or polio, this is a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are one of the more common causes of the common cold and mutate almost as frequently as the influenza viruses, which is why there is no vaccine for any type of coronavirus to date. Any sort of naturally acquired long term herd immunity is a fantasy, there are already two major and multiple minor strains in the wild and as yet no indication that immunity acquired for one strain impacts any other. With 75 different companies all working
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OTOH places hit hard by the virus will be closer to achieving herd immunity because a large fraction of their population will have had the virus, and will be immune to it....... If you're going to go the route of completely stopping the virus (and you aren't permanently closing your borders), you're betting on a vaccine being developed which will allow you to confer immunity to your population without them having to be infected. That's a bet which may or may not pay off
We don't even know if any sort of lasting immunity to this virus is a thing. That is also a bet which may or may not pay off.
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...it's only a matter of time before we lose the Covid-19-Free award. I can guarantee that we will not be doing another lockdown as the medicine was worse than the cure. "How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Live with the Virus": Coddle your old & infirmed, bolster your hospitals, educate your citizens and just get on with life. We should have wised up at week two of the lockdown.
What we should wise up to is the magic money tree. Allow me to explain.
New Zealand like many countries had decades of neoliberal shitfuckery which had run the health system down to run at close 100% capacity most of the time, especially in winter, in the name of "efficiency". When a crisis hits it's hard to run it back up quickly. The lockdown of some form was necessary because of this while decades of damage is rapidly undone before anyone wises up. The large overall rapid spend up by the government wa
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which had run the health system down to run at close 100% capacity most of the time, especially in winter, in the name of "efficiency"
One thing that this has exposed, which everyone is very carefully **NOT** talking about, is how truly vulnerable we are to a bio-terror attack. Gene splicing equipment which a few years ago would have been bleeding edge is now available second-hand for the price of a luxury car. Too many of the PETA trust fund brats think Earth would be better off without a few billion people, it's only a matter of time before one of those morons realize that they can afford to make that a reality.
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Never saw the movie, but I have worked with some of those idiots in the past. They prefer to be called "professional activists", and since most of them have had minimal experience with how the world actually works they think that if they get in front of the cameras often enough that the unwashed masses will start to follow them.
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We could comfortably afford to do one full lockdown due to low national debt, the government paid wages and stacked it on the national credit card. Basically we borrow from future generations...
We did not borrow from future generations to pay for the lockdown. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand bought the new bonds that were issued by the government with money it made up. That money was then deposited into furloughed worker's bank accounts. The money was not borrowed from anyone. If the NZ govt ever decides to pay it back, it just disappears. Even if the interest rate on this new debt went to 100% per annum it wouldn't matter, because the RBNZ pays any profits it makes on the debt back to the treasur
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I believe your post is part on why New Zealand is more successful.
In America there are so many of us who want it to be over, that we are going to post a "mission accomplished" flag over the nation. Despite actual numbers. NZ is taking this seriously and responsibly. They may be ahead, but they know it isn't a game to win over other countries, but to do their best for their own. So when other nations are saying, hey your #1. That doesn't mean to take a victory lap, but to ignore the praise and continue
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I believe your post is part on why New Zealand is more successful.
WHAT THE FUCK?????????? Are you seriously comparing NEW ZEALAND TO THE UNITED STATES????? NEW ZEALAND IS A FUCKING ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. It has more sheep than people! My god, people are so..fucking...stupid.
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Right. If we had the New Zealand PM in charge of the US it would be different. HERE IS ANOTHER HINT YOU STUPID FUCK: the US has a much lower per capita death toll than MOST OF THE EU COUNTRIES AND CANADA. Based on that, Trump has done a pretty FUCKING GOOD JOB.
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Yeah, I mean ANYONE can make up a stat in their favor and say they did a FUCKING GOOD JOB! But it takes imbeciles like you to actually believe the lies.
Did you mean this chart where only France, Spain, Sweden, & Italy were higher than the US? Yeah, we are JUST below a no-lockdown country... wow, what an achievement!
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/da... [jhu.edu]
I mean per 100k, the US being the 3rd largest country, the denominator should naturally put it on the bottom. BUT KUDOS for fighting against the odds and g
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No, it doesn't. Per capita death toll (ignoring countries with minimal population like Andorra) the US is 8th in deaths/million of our population, in spite of our abysmally low testing rate. We account for over a quarter of all of the deaths worldwide even though our population is only 300 million.
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That won't work in the U.S. As we have seen over the past few months, no amount of facts about covid-19, or anything at this point, will sway those who are adamant they know more than the experts. They read something on Facebook or heard on the Fox tabloid and that's what they're going with. They know it all.
This doesn't go into all them "freedoms" being taken away like the right to infect others or threaten hospital workers with a gun when you block access to the hospital.
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Death rate. if you get it. is 5.73% right now, globally, for all age groups combined (I realize some groups are harder hit).
That's a super high mortality rate without effective treatments or vaccines.
400,000+ dead at this point, rising by 4-5K per day. Infections going up 10-120K per day. Recoveries in the 60-80K range, it varies a lot. Global instances are very much rising.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/op... [arcgis.com]
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It would be a lie to claim it is free of covid 19. It is free of severe cases of covid 19 and due to limited testing is totally unaware of the number of mild cases of covid 19, where lung inflammation does not occur. Also, from where will you get your tourist and all indications are, that covid 19 is far more contagious than claimed and far less dangerous than claimed. All that has happened is country with government pushed TB innoculations are faring far better than countries without. The morons shut down
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citation?
More were certainly adversely impacted perhaps, grossly inconvenienced, or perhaps even put out of a job... but died?
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citation?
He won't have one. At least as of the end of April, it looks like NZ actually had a reduction of deaths overall due to the lockdowns. I guess unlike in many U.S. states people didn't decide to go 100mph on the highway like idiots just because there weren't many other cars. And the lockdowns and hygiene killed a lot of flu virus as well.
Re: I live here (NZ) and... (Score:2)
It's not a lie to make the statement. A lie is a knowingly false statement.
We've had 0 new cases of COVID for 17 days straight. We've had any 300,000 tests - 6% of the population. That includes a screening programme of high risk asymptomatic people - that programme picked up one worker at an airport who had an asymptomatic case.
We have 0 known cases of COVID. Anyone who has any respiratory symptoms at all can get a test. It is exceptionally unlikely that there's is any COVID in the country after 17 days of
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still fuck all we know about this virus
I don't see how you can make this claim. There is an enormous amount we know about this virus, including the entire genome of several variations, how it attaches to human cells, which mechanism in the body causes the worst symptoms.
Re:Australia got rid of the virus with much less p (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Australia got rid of the virus with much less pain
No. Australia has not got rid of the virus. There hasn't been a single day of zero new infections yet. It's still bubbling around. And I bet in 7-14 days, we'll have a surge from the mass gatherings over last weekend.
Re: Australia got rid of the virus with much less (Score:3)
My brother lives in Melbourne. He said although officially Australia had a more relaxed approach, it was essentially the same degree of lockdown as NZ. Shops And restaurants did not open because it was uneconomical to do so. Crippled Australia economy.
Either way, there are still cases cropping up every day in Australia, obviously far bigger population, but if any of those cases are community transmission (I literally donâ(TM)t know, canâ(TM)t find info on that) then I think Australia will almost c
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Anything under 1% growth is big in a country where the majority of the middle class live paycheck to paycheck with little social safety nets to fall back on.
Re: I live here (NZ) and... (Score:5, Informative)
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BULLSHIT. Japan completely shutdown domestic travel and had stay at home edicts for affected areas, they approached it NOTHING like Sweden which is basically a rolling disaster.
Ah, no. Domestic travel wasn't shut down in Japan. Roads were open, trains were running, planes were flying. Some services were cancelled because of reduced demand. There were no stay at home "edicts" because the government doesn't have that power. People were requested to work/study from home, but only about half paid attention. After Golden Week, everything basically went back to 90% of normal. Consequently there was an increase in cases which is still playing out.
But there is clearly something different
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This is some copy/pasta from an ignorant racist who knows nothing about sociology or history, he pastes that drivel at least once a week.
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Oh come on, give him some credit for his persistence. He has a house_of_cards of an idealogy that he has to constantly be vigilant in maintaining; lest it falls from a light breeze.
Re:Weird conclusion (Score:4, Informative)
They kinda do when the border is an ocean and the nearest land mass is 1,000 miles away.
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They kinda do when the border is an ocean and the nearest land mass is 1,000 miles away.
Specifically, London is closer to Moscow than NZ (Wellington) is to Australia (Canberra). That's a pretty decent anti-Covid19 moat.
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"This virus does not respect borders." [bioworld.com]
-- World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, February 27, 2020.
It doesn't respect lines on a map borders. 1000 miles of ocean is just a little bit different...
-- Anyone will a tiny bit of common sense.
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Re: Weird conclusion (Score:2)
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Yes, for now with the nation's borders shut tight the water distance helps.
When tourism resumes, when businesspeople resume flights from around the globe, the virus will return.
The infection doesn't need much, even a single asymptomatic airline crew member or a boat operator is enough. That's the difficulty with the global spread that health organizations have talked about since February. Isolation of nations can help regionally, regional pockets can be temporarily better, but the disease is global and no
Re:Higher rate than Australia? (Score:5, Informative)
As ever with Covid-19, it is important to be very careful in comparing numbers. If only looking at confirmed cases, New Zealand has a lower rate than Australia (and New Zealand has counted some as confirmed cases that would not be counted at all in Australia). Death rates in the two countries are almost identical mainly because of deaths at one care home in New Zealand.
New Zealand had a pretty tough lockdown for around eight weeks, but this allowed community transmission to be completely stopped. Now, the virus has been eliminated in the country. Meanwhile, Australia has more restrictions but still experiences some new infections, including community transmission. Australia can probably be successful in virus elimination, but is at least a month behind New Zealand.
It is very important to economic recovery that people feel optimistic and safe. New Zealand has operated at over 92% of normal economic activity under Alert Level 2 (higher than predicted). Employment has held up well. Under Alert Level 1 (no domestic restrictions) predicted economic activity is 96.2% of normal. There is every prospect that this may be bettered. New Zealand feels good about itself, and consumer confidence is decent under the circumstances. There is a chance that New Zealand might be one of the very few advanced economies to avoid a recession.
Re:Higher rate than Australia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile, Australia has more restrictions but still experiences some new infections, including community transmission.
You really should be comparing NZ to individual Australian states, which closed borders and had their own policies. (NZ was offered the chance to join Australia at federation)
Some Australian states are equally free of community transmission as NZ, with new cases only among overseas arrivals in quarantine. And they achieved this with less severe shutdowns than NZ. In hindsight, NZ went tougher than needed, doing unnecessary economic harm, but nobody was to know that at the time.
Better than "too little too late" as in much of Europe and the US.
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Re:Higher rate than Australia? (Score:5, Insightful)
Side note: I understand it is therapeutic for you to dump your mental stress on others, but that just means you are a jack ass who shouldn't be playing ball with the rest of us. Maybe assume everyone is atleast as smart as you and you can dive deeper into the dicussion & add value.
On to the topic:
Australia & New Zealand are not as isolated as people who don't travel believe. The US, believe or not, is technically more isolated. For every 20 resident in NZ, a UK person visits the country every year. Excluding Aussi, someone from the world visits NZ for every 2 residents. Pretty high when you consider how "isolated" the island is.
Compare this to the US or UK. 1 foreigner visits US for every 4 residents. 1 non-CA/MX for every 8. 1 foreigner visits UK for 1.8 residents. Very close to NZ; oddly so when you consider the physical proximity of foreigners to the UK mainland.
So NZ residents have more risk from foreigners than the UK and far more so than US. But that's only part of the story. NZ has far less control points of entry to deal with. So they have far more control over their visitors compared to the UK or US. They are politically setup to address foreigner risk far better than most.
UK/US may not be directly comparable to NZ, but NZ provides quite a set of insights on how well coordinated & strick lockdown measures deter the pandemic.
Re: Higher rate than Australia? (Score:2)
For something like a virus where you only need 1 infected person in the wrong place to start a super speading event, travellers per capita (that you are talking about) is far less relevant than total traveler count.
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No worries, as soon as they open their borders, the problem will be back.
That is the issue with leaders only thinking in terms of the local situation.
Back in February the big shift was that the virus went global. Health organizations shifted gears from stopping the virus to flattening the curve so that regional health systems wouldn't be overwhelmed. But no location on the globe exists in a vacuum.
Good for them wiping it out on New Zealand. It's a nation with a population smaller than many large cities and naturally very sparse making it easier to contain. The moment they allow
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It is like everyone went insane and stupid over this virus.
We're not the ones posting over and over again in all-caps on Slashdot.
NEW ZEALAND IS AN ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING OCEAN
Golly, if only there was some place where other countries could control entrance into the country.
Also, there's these things called "boats". They make it so having a vast coastline makes it easier to avoid border controls.
Your little fantasies of the world burning down didn't come true
The problem with living in an information bubble is you need to fill in what "the others" believe. Because you're not actually hearing what they believe.
The fact that you want to fill it in with evil says more about y
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