Ireland vs New Zealand

zerosugarbuzz

zerosugarbuzz wrote: »

https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/coronavirus-who-backflips-on-virus-stance-by-condemning-lockdowns/news-story/f2188f2aebff1b7b291b297731c3da74

World health organisation now recommending an end to lockdown policy

No they're not. Reading your own link, they are recommending a stop to "using lockdowns as your primary control method”. Ideally the primary method would extremely robust testing and tracing with tight border control. Failing that primary method, lockdown is an option.

Sheepdish1

New Zealand has essentially closed itself from the world to keep covid out. They’ve one of the lowest cases for a population that size. Where it is situated has obviously helped them but surely tourism would have been important for their economy.

Anyone entering New Zealand has mandatory quarantine for 14 days. I would assume there are buildings for incoming people to do this so the responsibility is removed on an individual level.

I’ve seen reports that New Zealand daily life has gone back to how it was before Covid due to it being free from the virus. Is it’s economy able to function properly or well with this approach?

Could Ireland’s economy survive without tourism if we took the same approach? I’m sure Northern Ireland complicates this as we share a land border.

I wonder if New Zealand will continue to do this until more is learned about the vaccine/ treatment or perhaps they preparing the country for a controlled low spread over time?

Sweden doesn’t seem to be be having huge increases in cases similar to Europe. Could this suggest there is a proportion of the population becoming immune and maybe they have had the right approach all along?

Maybe short term New Zealand will do well but long term there may be implications for having no exposure at all if there is no treatment or vaccine found next year?

daheff

if we all globally did what NZ did then we would not have Covid. and we could all get back to normal like they are (to a large degree)

rob316

Its been explained 1 million times that approach is pure fantasy in Western Europe.

Beasty

Threads merged

DeanAustin

daheff wrote: »

if we all globally did what NZ did then we would not have Covid. and we could all get back to normal like they are (to a large degree)

New Zealand still has covid.

Morrison J

rob316 wrote: »

Its been explained 1 million times that approach is pure fantasy in Western Europe.

It really hasn't in any great depth though. People are unwilling to have a serious conversation about it from what I can see. I think it's do-able. Government know it would take a tremendously big effort to pull it off though so are automatically put off by it and won't really give it serious consideration. Instead we're taking the easy route of multiple lockdowns which means more deaths and more damage to the economy in the long run.

Deeper Blue

It'll never happen but even if Ireland wanted to close the border to the UK and EU can you imagine how long it would take them to come to an agreement on its implementation?

Look at the brexit talks.

Any agreement would take so long that covid would be a distant memory by the time anything is done.

For the record though I think there's more of a chance of Ireland becoming the 51st state of the US.

daheff

DeanAustin wrote: »

New Zealand still has covid.

they have a handful of cases which are all imported....not wild in the community like here.

mandrake04

Here's my thoughts.

Sheepdish1 wrote: »

New Zealand has essentially closed itself from the world to keep covid out. They’ve one of the lowest cases for a population that size. Where it is situated has obviously helped them but surely tourism would have been important for their economy.

NZ does rely on tourism, but tourism is not worth a damn if everywhere is closed. The tourists that came to Ireland during April, May and June what did they spend their money on?

Lots of Kiwis will probably holiday in NZ this year rather than travel and spend overseas and their government would be encouraging it, Covid certainly has affected NZ but if the whole place was potentially looking at equivalent L3/L4/L5 for the next 6 months it would be a lot worse.

Plus NZ IC bed situation is not much better than Irelands, so looking after people is also important.

Sheepdish1 wrote: »

Anyone entering New Zealand has mandatory quarantine for 14 days. I would assume there are buildings for incoming people to do this so the responsibility is removed on an individual level.

Hotels and Motels, there was a grace period of a few months at the start but I think from August travelers had to pay, same in Australia.

Sheepdish1 wrote: »

I’ve seen reports that New Zealand daily life has gone back to how it was before Covid due to it being free from the virus. Is it’s economy able to function properly or well with this approach?

I would imagine it would function better having most businesses fully open rather than closed, you would probably agree having a population of 5 million restricted while pubs, restaurants, businesses are either closed or heavy restrictions is definitely not a good option.

Instead from what I could see on TV ...stadiums are full, pubs and restaurants are probably doing well as there is no heavy restrictions.

They are at Alert Level 1

Alert Level 1 — Prepare
The disease is contained in New Zealand.

Risk assessment

• COVID-19 is uncontrolled overseas.
• Sporadic imported cases.
• Isolated local transmission could be occurring in New Zealand.

Range of measures that can be applied locally or nationally

• Border entry measures to minimise risk of importing COVID-19 cases.
• Intensive testing for COVID-19.
• Rapid contact tracing of any positive case.
• Self-isolation and quarantine required.
• Schools and workplaces open, and legally must operate safely.
• No restrictions on personal movement but people are encouraged to maintain a record of where they have been.
• No restrictions on gatherings but organisers encouraged to maintain records to enable contact tracing.
• Stay home if you’re sick, report flu-like symptoms.
• Wash and dry hands, cough into elbow, do not touch your face.
• No restrictions on domestic transport — avoid public transport or travel if sick.
• No restrictions on workplaces or services but they are encouraged to maintain records to enable contact tracing.
• QR codes issued by the NZ Government legally must be displayed in workplaces and on public transport to enable use of the NZ COVID Tracer app for contact tracing.

Sheepdish1 wrote: »

Could Ireland’s economy survive without tourism if we took the same approach? I’m sure Northern Ireland complicates this as we share a land border.

I wonder how much tourism €€ was spent in Ireland this year? then think how much €€ was not spent by local population because pubs, hotels, business and venues were closed for months...some have never reopened and probably never will. Hospitality goes hand in hand with tourism, but hospitality also relies on indigenous spending too.


The border is an issue, but if you are able to restrict your own population to 5km travel from their own home or to their county boundary why not apply that to 5km of the border? You are not stopping people from crossing the border just from travelling more than 5km from it unless they have good reason. same rule for everyone.

Sheepdish1 wrote: »

I wonder if New Zealand will continue to do this until more is learned about the vaccine/ treatment or perhaps they preparing the country for a controlled low spread over time?

Sweden doesn’t seem to be be having huge increases in cases similar to Europe. Could this suggest there is a proportion of the population becoming immune and maybe they have had the right approach all along?

Maybe short term New Zealand will do well but long term there may be implications for having no exposure at all if there is no treatment or vaccine found next year?

I think NZ and Australia etc will wait and see what mistakes other countries make and possibly learn from them, wait for treatments to be developed and Australia has already the capability to manufacture vaccines and has already done a deal with AstraZeneca to manufacture 30m doses of AZ1222 at its CSL plant in Melbourne and 50m of UQ's candidate. Even if those candidates fall through the plant is still available and well stocked with materials as they will be looking after themselves and NZ first but then will continue to manufacture for other parts of the world too.

JP Liz V1

Apparently New Zealand have declared themselves Covid19 free

Timmyr

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Apparently New Zealand have declared themselves Covid19 free

Where did you see that?

We still have 75 active cases in quarantine

JP Liz V1

Timmyr wrote: »

Where did you see that?

We still have 75 active cases in quarantine

Twitter, quite a few posts about it

E.G.

https://twitter.com/SeanMcMonagle1/status/1347987341177221120

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

I've heard nothing about New Zealand being declared covid-free in the media or otherwise.

There has actually been a bit of a spike in cases at the border, it would seem like a strange time to go off shouting about being covid-free.

JP Liz V1

Can any country ever declare it is Covid19 free yet

JP Liz V1

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Can any country ever declare it is Covid19 free yet

Yeah, if it's free of Covid-19 in the community. Declaring it doesn't mean you're free of it forever.

marno21

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Twitter, quite a few posts about it

E.G.

https://twitter.com/SeanMcMonagle1/status/1347987341177221120

If only indeed.

Would love to see how NZ would get on if a quarter of their island was under the control of right wing idealogues blinded by attachment to an island less than 100km and putting sectarian partisanship ahead of public health measures.

But as an aside, fair play to NZ for what they've done. Others may have gone for a contain rather than eradicate measure in their situation.

marno21

marno21 wrote: »

If only indeed.

Would love to see how NZ would get on if a quarter of their island was under the control of right wing idealogues blinded by attachment to an island less than 100km and putting sectarian partisanship ahead of public health measures.

But as an aside, fair play to NZ for what they've done. Others may have gone for a contain rather than eradicate measure in their situation.

Are you blaming the DUP and unionists for Ireland's joke of a response?

marno21

Deleted User wrote: »

Are you blaming the DUP and unionists for Ireland's joke of a response?

I'm saying that a New Zealand-style Zero Covid approach is not possible on this island because of the DUP in the North. They're not going to put restrictions on travel from "the Mainland" and we can't close the border with NI because such a move would be weaponised.

marno21

marno21 wrote: »

I'm saying that a New Zealand-style Zero Covid approach is not possible on this island because of the DUP in the North. They're not going to put restrictions on travel from "the Mainland" and we can't close the border with NI because such a move would be weaponised.

The vitriol towards them in regards to Covid-19 would only be justified if it was plausible that the Irish government would have taken the measures needed had the North played ball. Nothing Ireland has done would suggest that.

Morrison J

Deleted User wrote: »

The vitriol towards them in regards to Covid-19 would only be justified if it was plausible that the Irish government would have taken the measures needed had the North played ball. Nothing Ireland has done would suggest that.

Problem is there's been no evidence that we've even attempted to play ball with the North. Easy to blame them but someone's got to make the move and we've failed miserably to even attempt to negotiate the saving of thousands of lives.

Yeah_Right

I was speaking to the family back home last night and they said everyone has pretty much forgotten that Covid exists except when they turn on the news. They rang because they had heard how bad it had gotten in Ireland. The experts there are warning that there will be another outbreak in NZ and it will spread quickly because people have gotten so casual about it. Hope not.

GreeBo

Yearly visitors to New Zealand 3M
Yearly visitors to Ireland 11M

GreeBo

Yeah_Right wrote: »

The experts there are warning that there will be another outbreak in NZ and it will spread quickly because people have gotten so casual about it. Hope not.

Well thats pretty much what happened everywhere else

is_that_so

Morrison J wrote: »

Problem is there's been no evidence that we've even attempted to play ball with the North. Easy to blame them but someone's got to make the move and we've failed miserably to even attempt to negotiate the saving of thousands of lives.

Thousands? It's about 4,000 deaths combined north and south, the majority of them in nursing homes.

Morrison J

is_that_so wrote: »

Thousands? It's about 4,000 deaths combined north and south, the majority of them in nursing homes.

Does 4,000 not meet your definition of "thousands"?

is_that_so

Morrison J wrote: »

Does 4,000 not meet your definition of "thousands"?

Yeah but it's the second part of this you ignored here. Hundreds you'd get away with as a claim!

Morrison J

is_that_so wrote: »

Yeah but it's the second part of this you ignored here. Hundreds you'd get away with as a claim!

Well it would depend when you view as the earliest possible time we could have implemented it I suppose. New Zealand closed their borders as early as the 19th March. They also have nursing homes but they protected them by locking down hard quick and are still sitting on 25 deaths. We were incredibly slow to react early on and paid for it. It's all relative.

Timmyr

Yeah_Right wrote: »

I was speaking to the family back home last night and they said everyone has pretty much forgotten that Covid exists except when they turn on the news. They rang because they had heard how bad it had gotten in Ireland. The experts there are warning that there will be another outbreak in NZ and it will spread quickly because people have gotten so casual about it. Hope not.

I havent heard this narrative from experts. We are definitely not being casual, we scan into every premises we enter for contact tracing and testing numbers are still high

Yeah_Right

Timmyr wrote: »

I havent heard this narrative from experts. We are definitely not being casual, we scan into every premises we enter for contact tracing and testing numbers are still high

My parents said that the scanning at premises was down to about 30% of what it had been at its peak and the government were going to do a big push to remind the public about it. Obviously I hope there isn't a surge in cases but according to friends and family, there does seem to be a casual attitude covid.