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Government Medicine

New Zealand Marks 100 Days of No Covid-19 Community Spread (axios.com) 60

Posted by EditorDavid from the Kiwi's-keeping-healthy dept.
Axios reports: New Zealand has now gone 100 days with no detected community spread of COVID-19, the Ministry of Health confirmed in an emailed statement Sunday afternoon local time... Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been widely praised for her leadership that saw New Zealand lock down hard for several weeks before all domestic restrictions were lifted in June...

New Zealand has 23 active coronavirus cases. All are NZ residents newly returned from abroad, who are staying in managed isolation facilities. The border remains closed to non-residents and all newly-returned Kiwis must undergo a two-week isolation program managed by the country's defense force... Police are stationed outside hotels where travelers are in quarantine.
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New Zealand Marks 100 Days of No Covid-19 Community Spread More

New Zealand Marks 100 Days of No Covid-19 Community Spread

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  • Aha! (Score:3)

    by slashmydots ( 2189826 ) on Sunday August 09, 2020 @01:07PM (#60382815)
    So...you're saying hobbits have disease resistance? I will have to update my D&D books.

  • Islands can be effectively quarantined. Taiwan, Iceland, New Zealand are examples.

    • Re:Islands (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday August 09, 2020 @01:56PM (#60383019)

      You mean when a government with competent leaders follows a pandemic response plan and the people listen, good things happen? That's amazing!

      What happened to Great Britain or Australia?

      • Islands can be effectively quarantined. But GB has numpties in government, more obsessed with catchy slogans and their beloved Brexit. Just because islands _can_ be effectively quarantined does _not_ mean that they will be. Our island was not.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jemmyw ( 624065 )
          Also the sheer number of people, both in the country and coming and going. NZ has a population of 5M, it's not really on any route to other places, and its far from any other landmass. The UK: 60M, hub airports, physically close to Europe, connected by train to France. In NZ the population density is so low you can easily break transmission between localities. There are few backroads between towns etc.

          The numpties in government was only one factor. I mean, it was a factor for sure.

          I live in NZ but I'm from

          • In NZ the population density is so low you can easily break transmission between localities. There are few backroads between towns etc.

            And sheep can't act as reservoir hosts. That's always an important consideration for places like NZ.

      • To be fair Australia did quite well aside from a pocket of morons in one state. The Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] has an interactive chart showing just how one small portion of the country basically ruined everything. It's effectively been stopped in most of the country.

        They are the Spice Girls of the world: Generally okay, some may even say pretty damn good, but overall let down by Victoria.

        • To be fair Australia did quite well aside from a pocket of morons in one state. The Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] has an interactive chart showing just how one small portion of the country basically ruined everything. It's effectively been stopped in most of the country.

          They are the Spice Girls of the world: Generally okay, some may even say pretty damn good, but overall let down by Victoria.

          Even Victoria is doing much better than the worst of America. A comparison made last week of Victorian cases with US states would make Victoria equal the twenty-sixth worst US state on a population adjusted basis.

          While the left wing state government screwed up the hotel quarantine, they were in fact following right wing doctrine in hiring private security companies to do the job, namely that government should never do anything that the private sector can do, the private sector is always more efficient etc.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by quenda ( 644621 )

            While the left wing state government screwed up the hotel quarantine, they were in fact following right wing doctrine

            Wings? Doctrine? This has nothing to do with partisan politics or ideology, just everyday incompetence and short-sighted cost cutting.
            I may misunderstand your intention, but this sounds like an example of the politicisation of health policy that is currently plaguing the U.S.

          • Even Victoria is doing much better than the worst of America.

            That's no real surprise. Even the morons down south ultimately have a sane government not afraid of putting in restrictions such as a full curfew after hours and a travel restriction limiting people to 5km of their house. https://www.vic.gov.au/coronav... [vic.gov.au]

      • You mean when a government with competent leaders follows a pandemic response plan and the people listen, good things happen? That's amazing!

        Tell me how amazing it's going to be when NZ continues their financial lockdown from the world. Whomever is claiming victory over COVID-19 at this point, is a fucking premature idiot. Their economy relies heavily in China (of all countries), so let's see how well they fare 6 months from now, regardless of COVID-19 infection rates.

        • Their economy also has a large proportion dependent on tourism, which is pretty much frozen at the moment.

    • Re:Islands (Score:4, Insightful)

      by seoras ( 147590 ) on Sunday August 09, 2020 @04:36PM (#60383527)

      The UK is a smaller Island than NZ (combined North & South Islands). As is Ireland.
      Australia was doing as well as NZ until the Victoria outbreak. Is it a continent or island?
      The sea is no barrier when you have open airports and flights coming in.
      NZ has compulsory, government run, 2 weeks managed quarantine for anyone flying into NZ.

      • Why does size matter? As for physical size, it decreases interactions between people and makes controlling disease easier. As for population size, the number of police, hospitals, etc scales with the population.

      • So how do they find and quarantine the ones who walk or drive in.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )

      Vietnam.

  • Which sucks (Score:1, Troll)

    by zkiwi34 ( 974563 )

    Unless a vaccine is found.
    If there is no vaccine, well... maybe NZ is going to be in for some tougher times

    • Re:Which sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday August 09, 2020 @01:58PM (#60383027)

      If there is no vaccine, well... maybe NZ is going to be in for some tougher times

      Why would they be in for tougher times? If you've broken the back of community spread there is no virus to spread to others. And this doesn't take into consideration people being tested and if found positive, quarantined so they don't infect others.

      If anything, New Zealand will be like cities in the U.S. which didn't reopen too soon after the 1918 flu. Those which followed medical advice and stayed locked down and people wore masks bounced back far stronger than those who opened early to "get the economy rolling".

      • Re: Which sucks (Score:4, Insightful)

        by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Sunday August 09, 2020 @02:50PM (#60383187)

        It sucks because a large chunk of New Zealand's economy relates to tourism which is completely at zero. Nearly 8% of the workforce is unable to earn a living and spend those billions of dollars. Maybe New Zealand has a way to take care of those people. My guess is as the months stretch on and they move into spring then summer, it will be increasingly difficult to continue an absolute lockdown, and they will be forced to make the same kinds of decisions other countries have been forced to make.

        Slashdot has a lot of engineers who understand the old engineering adage "cheap, fast, perfect - choose any two." I submit that it might could be applied to pandemics as well.

        • Re: Which sucks (Score:5, Informative)

          by roca ( 43122 ) on Sunday August 09, 2020 @04:41PM (#60383547) Homepage

          Lockdown isn't the right word. We haven't had a lockdown here for months.

          The tourism situation isn't as bad as it might sound. Before the pandemic domestic tourism was already >50% of local tourism spend. Domestic tourism spending is increasing sharply because NZers don't want to travel overseas. A big part of the problem for tourism operators is simply that domestic spending is more bursty because of school holidays.

          Yes, if there's no vaccine NZ will have some hard decisions to make. But it is much more likely that there will be a vaccine. Even a vaccine that's not very effective would still give us valuable options. E.g. if it only works for 80% of people, or only lasts for an average of three months, vaccinating everyone and then dropping border controls would still be much better than the kind of spread other countries have had to date; spread would be slower and cases less severe.

        • NZ tourism isnâ(TM)t âoecompletely at zeroâ! Last weekend when we went skiiing at Cardrona the slopes were doing great. When we took the Earnslaw across lake Wakatipu there were plenty of tourists too. The main difference is that businesses that can cater for domestic tourism are doing well, some better than before the pandemic, whilst those that are unable to adapt are suffering. Travel agencies on the otherhand have absolutely needed to downsize. Itâ(TM)s not a one off thing, the weeke

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dfm3 ( 830843 )
          International tourism, yes. But it's currently winter and that would be at a low anyway during this time of year. There's still the ski industry, but that caters more to domestic tourists, and maybe a few from Australia.

          There's currently no lockdown within the country, much less an absolute one (yes, I have family there). There's the ban on international visitors, of course, but that's a different issue. But for those within the country, currently at level 1 there are no restrictions on movement or gather
        • You're right about tourism.
          I checked the government stats and we had 175,521 tourists in the country in March. We closed the borders to non-residents on the 19th of March, so we must have got them home pretty quickly.

          We might just need to learn to live without much of a tourist industry, which will be hard.

      • So what happens when the virus decides to hitch a ride Into NZ (a when not if proposition)?
        Chances are it will then get a hold on a population with pretty much no immunity.

        • Re: Which sucks (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Sunday August 09, 2020 @05:31PM (#60383705)

          Thats been happening - we have had a small but steady stream of cases arriving on inbound flights for the past 2 months, and they have all been caught in managed isolation. There has been no community infection, no infection in the general population for 100 days.

          NZ has closed down immigration completely - you have to have a residents visa and already travelled on it before in order to be allowed back into the country. If you are on a work visa and got caught outside the country, you are stuck outside for the duration. If you received your residents visa while you were outside the country and were about to travel to NZ, you are stuck outside for the duration.

          The immigration situation is not looking like its going to change any time soon, and the managed isolation approaches are working for travellers that are allowed to arrive.

          Add to that that the government are still doing community testing, and there is still very much an awareness in the general population here, and it all adds up to a government that is doing something that works.

          Its highly likely that NZ is going to remain closed down until there is a vaccine, and for a duration after that as well. If that takes the next year, then expect NZ to stay shut for that time.

          • Honestly there is no reason to close down immigration. Just make immigrants isolate for 2 weeks upon entry, and they are as harmless as any local.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hoofie ( 201045 )

              Immigration has been closed down because the number requiring to be quarantined were starting to outstrip hotel room availability plus finding people to guard it, look after people etc etc. Australia has severely limited the number of people who can arrive in Australia now for this exact reason plus you now have to pay for your enforced hotel quarantine. A 777 arriving in Perth now can only have 40 people on it : there used to be 450,000 international passengers in a month - that has dropped to 4000 in June

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jrumney ( 197329 )

        There are still people who believe that attaining herd immunity without a vaccine is an achievable goal. Going by official figures, the US has now reached 1.6% of the population infected. Even high estimates of uncounted infections have it under 5%. For herd immunity, it needs to reach around 80%. So another 2.25 million deaths, or more if we accelerate the rate of infection to speed the process up to reach herd immunity before 2030.

        The reality is that without a vaccine, New Zealand is no worse off than

    • Well, except for tourist, life in NZ is back to normal and has been for months. We currently donâ(TM)t need to wear masks, practice social distancing or have any other restrictions. We are just encouraged to contact trace, because it is possible the virus will re-emerge.
      • Given the almost daily isolation breaches, I think that's _when_ not if.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rgbe ( 310525 )
          I don't think it will be the isolation breaches, of which only about 8 people absconded of the 10's of thousands who have arrived. I think it will be transmittion from within the isolation facilities to someone serving them, e.g. security, hotel staff, etc.

          • I think it will while most people in isolation are excellent, it only takes 1 to start an outbreak, and probably won't be detected for weeks.

        • There are not daily isolation breaches, there are breaches but definitely not daily.

      • The camper van hire company I kinda sorta work for (our subsidiary company is in the process of splitting into two) has had some of the best weeks in recent times because internal tourism has exploded for them - I see their branded vans around a lot currently, and I know they are operationally back to where they were this time last year.

  • Though we keep bringing back Taiwanese citizens that lived and contracted it abroad. Fingers crossed for when that stops.

    • Taiwan has been awesome from start to finish. But for some strange reason the mainstream media in the US has completely ignored Taiwan's success.

      I think it's because the big money corporatists (and the Democrats that they own) love Communist China because they make too much money off China, and they don't wanna piss off the CCP by ever mentioning Taiwan.

      China also owns the WHO, that Tedros guy is dirty as fuck. It's actually quite funny, there was news guy interviewing some WHO people about the coronavirus

  • If you are interested in NZ's CV19 stats you can find them here. [health.govt.nz]
    Almost 10% of the NZ population has now been tested at some point this year.

  • Won't New Zealand have to do this from now until the Covid-19 virus becomes extinct or an effective virus becomes available?

    Otherwise, one undetected case from abroad could go through the country like a wildfire in a California forest. Or head lice through an elementary school. (Assuming the most scary scenario is compatible with the actual virus, that is.)

  • Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced New Zealand's largest city, Auckland, will go into lockdown and the rest of the country will go into level 2. It comes after four cases of community transmission from the same family were confirmed - after 102 days without any.

    Auckland is moving to alert level 3 from midday Wednesday, as four cases of community transmission of Covid-19 were announced tonight.

    Outside of Auckland, the rest of New Zealand will move to level 2 from midday Wednesday.

    The restrictions wi

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