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Ireland vs New Zealand

  • 28-04-2020 9:08am
    #1
    RandomName2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭


    No this is isn't about that horrific 46-14 score back in the 2019 Rugby World Cup, this thread is about a different way in which New Zealand is beating us.

    0arc7c4sj8v41.png

    Not only does New Zealand have way fewer deaths than us, it has called its conflict against COVID-19 all but over.

    new-zealand-elimination-coronavirus


    Obviously the HSE was determined initially to have COVID-19 spread liberally though the population by only suggesting that people that developed symptoms should self-isolate, while other people coming back from high risk areas should go to work and school. Ad-hoc secretive closures of schools took place only after an outbreak in each school had been guaranteed. Testing was not mandatory, was barred to people who were asymptomatic, and a ramp up of testing capacity was only conducted after the only lab in the country set to do testing collapsed under the predictable demand.

    But okay, that's in the past, so how do we make ourselves more like New Zealand now? New Zealand always kept its active cases low, and while we have been great at stopping it from rapidly rising, people still seem to be getting infected, and infecting others. So at the moment we only have a stalemate with COVID-19, how do we push it back into the ocean? More to the point, how do we ensure that our advantage isn't lost the moment we ease restrictions?

    Again the Kiwis may be ones to watch in relation to this

    could-new-zealand-s-bubble-strategy-offer-a-way-out-of-lockdown


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Comments

  • #2
    beggars_bush
    Registered Users Posts: 4,341 ✭✭✭beggars_bush


    You do realise how far away from almost everwhere NZ is?

    It's much more sparsely populated

    It's much easier to lockdown. Especially when most travellers reach it, via Australia which already has strict measures in place


  • #3
    ChikiChiki
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,950 ✭✭✭ChikiChiki


    ****ing sick of seeing this absolutely **** comparison. This is the stick being used to beat our response to the virus in the past 24 hours.

    Apart from population size It's apples and oranges.


  • #4
    SEPT 23 1989
    Registered Users Posts: 43,024 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    They wouldn't have had much human traffic from the Uk or northern Italy


  • #5
    ninebeanrows
    Registered Users Posts: 12,778 ✭✭✭✭ninebeanrows


    Is this a wind up thread? Apart from population total Ireland and NZ have fup all in common in this situation.


  • #6
    RandomName2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    ChikiChiki wrote: »
    ****ing sick of seeing this absolutely **** comparison. This is the stick being used to beat our response to the virus in the past 24 hours.

    Apart from population size It's apples and oranges.

    It's three times as big

    1st world country, an island, a former UK colony, large farming sector, predominantly Caucasian population, English speaking, much smaller than its neighbors.

    Ireland ranked 45/187 in terms of GDP (PPP) while New Zealand ranked 67/187

    Life expectancy Ireland: 80.560 years. Life expectancy New Zealand: 80.930 years

    But feel free to defend the retarded policy of the HSE in the opening weeks of the virus coming here. Feel free to defend the lack of containment. Say that our one thousand dead is just bad luck if you like. New Zealand is a case in point showing that it didn't have to be like this. Now perhaps it would be useful to start seeing what measures they took that were useful in combating the spread of the disease and how we might use them here.

    Ireland is not a densely populated country.
    https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/european-countries-by-population-density.html

    Sleety_Rain wrote: »
    Is this a wind up thread? Apart from population total Ireland and NZ have fup all in common in this situation.

    It might be an idea - just an idea - to look at another country that has beaten this to get some tips. Not China, not South Korea, not Singapore, not Vietnam. You could say those are apples and oranges in comparison to Ireland. I don't think you are going to get many countries that are more similar to each other than Ireland and New Zealand. Go ahead, name a country. Give it a shot. Name a country more similar than Ireland and New Zealand.


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  • #7
    RandomName2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »
    They wouldn't have had much human traffic from the Uk or northern Italy

    I think that if they had a large international rugby match against Italy and they cancelled it due to fears concerning the spread of COVID-19, they probably would have stopped the supporters from coming into the country or at least subjected them to two weeks quarantine.


  • #8
    tucker1971
    Registered Users Posts: 177 ✭✭tucker1971


    This is an interesting stat from last week the 20th April.
    Ireland 3rd worse in the world for cases per head of population.
    Also out of the 12 countries mentioned we are the only island.

    Not good.
    Attached Images
    File Type: jpeg 21176.jpeg (462.2 KB, 0 views)


  • #9
    fatknacker
    Registered Users Posts: 2,342 ✭✭✭fatknacker


    That’s great regarding social and cultural similarities but can you tell us geographical similarities? What countries are closest to NZ? Their distances? How many more square KMs is it?

    And how about migration? How many planes landed in NZ from Europe compared to Ireland in 2020?


  • #10
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 5,121 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    tucker1971 wrote: »
    This is an interesting stat from last week the 20th April.
    Ireland 3rd worse in the world for cases per head of population.
    Also out of the 12 countries mentioned we are the only island.

    Not good.
    Attached Images
    File Type: jpeg 21176.jpeg (462.2 KB, 0 views)
    Your image doesn't work.
    We aren't an island. We have an open land border with the UK.


  • #11
    mandrake04
    Registered Users Posts: 4,435 ✭✭✭mandrake04


    NZ had excellent Test and Trace capabilities.


    NZ did 126,066 tests with results back in 1-2 days

    Ireland did 127,319 minus 30,000-40,000 samples Germany did after they sat around for 2-3 weeks which was pointless for tracing, and there lots of samples missing.

    Missing samples is fine though, that keeps the case numbers down.


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  • #12
    RandomName2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    fatknacker wrote: »
    That’s great regarding social and cultural similarities but can you tell us geographical similarities?

    Both are islands that are sparsely populated. New Zealand is significantly larger and thus more sparsely populated.
    fatknacker wrote: »
    What countries are closest to NZ? Their distances? How many more square KMs is it?

    NZ is as close to the source of outbreak in Wuhan as Ireland. However the containment policies of the other Asian countries certainly would have helped. A lot of New Zealand's cases originate from Iran, a country which badly mismanaged its outbreak.
    fatknacker wrote: »
    And how about migration? How many planes landed in NZ from Europe compared to Ireland in 2020?

    Presumably only a small fraction of the same. After all Ireland is in Europe, and New Zealand is in the Pacific. However Europe wasn't where the virus originated, and within Europe Ireland was one of the last to be infected. From a European point of view Ireland is a very small, albeit well developed, backwater (a bit like New Zealand in the Pacific).


  • #13
    RandomName2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    Deleted User wrote: »
    We aren't an island. We have an open land border with the UK.

    This wasn't actually important in terms of the outbreak. Northern Ireland's first case came through Dublin, not the other way around. It is a significant worry though going forward. When Boris Johnson was still talking about herd immunity it made me very worried about the implications here.


  • #14
    Xertz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,069 ✭✭✭Xertz


    Seems the key things to do are:

    1) Rant about lack of testing, despite reality being the tests per capita have been amongst the highest in the world.
    2) When tests find cases, compare those to countries doing far less testing and rant about the fact said cases are detected.
    3) Compare with NZ, similar to Ireland except remote from basically everywhere else, whereas we are a short (and very, very frequent flight) away from London (a massive hotspot) and almost everywhere else in Europe and also the East Coast of the US. It’s quite plausible that there was an outbreak in NYC before in was noticed and we are more connected by air to NYC than many US states are...
    We also have a common travel area and land border with the U.K.

    Unless you were to place Ireland thousands of KM away from any other major market, it’s just not comparable to NZ.

    Our entire economy is about being a gateway to/from Europe and also one between North America and Europe.

    There was vastly more frequent travel in and out of Ireland and to far more diverse destinations than there was in NZ ahead of detecting the pandemic. We were probably infected weeks before we began to even notice.

    Italy and the US most definitely has it weeks before it was really flaring up and given the hub status of London, Paris and so on it’s almost impossible to see how Ireland wasn’t too.

    Even on leisure travel, we make 1.3 million trips per year (for just 4.8 million pop) to Spain alone!!

    When the pandemic was called, we had loads of schools on ski trips to Northern Italy. How many NZers would be doing that at any given time?

    Trips to/from the U.K. and most of near Europe are about as regular as getting a bus. We don’t even think about them.


  • #15
    Xterminator
    Registered Users Posts: 4,717 ✭✭✭Xterminator


    Hi Op

    New Zealand is about 3.8 times bigger than Ireland. but has less population. 4.886 vs approx 5 million. Now even basic maths will tell you the population density cannot be comparable.


    Ireland is in the EU and has free movment to a bloc of 446 million inhabitants via treaty while new zealand has reciprocal agreement with australia pop 24.99 million.

    There are some similarities but you are being very selective is your acknowlegment of the facts, (very trump like) if you ignore the obvious facts that dont suit your argument.


  • #16
    tucker1971
    Registered Users Posts: 177 ✭✭tucker1971


    Here is the attached stat that failed to upload.


  • #17
    cloudatlas
    Registered Users Posts: 3,709 ✭✭✭cloudatlas


    beggars_bush wrote: »
    You do realise how far away from almost everwhere NZ is?

    It's much more sparsely populated

    It's much easier to lockdown. Especially when most travellers reach it, via Australia which already has strict measures in place

    I've used the same arguments for why people shouldn't be comparing Ireland to the U.K. and nobody listened. Why should they listen to you?


  • #18
    plodder
    Registered Users Posts: 7,124 ✭✭✭plodder


    Dublin airport has 50% more passengers per year compared to Auckland and I would guess a higher percentage of international travelers. It's fairly obvious that New Zealand is more isolated than Ireland.
    Obviously the HSE was determined initially to have COVID-19 spread liberally though the population...
    I'm sure lessons can and will be learned from a comparison, but certainly not starting from statements like the above.


  • #19
    Xertz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,069 ✭✭✭Xertz


    Actually on population density, New Zealand developed much later in the sense of towns and cities, so is far more “new world” and very urbanised.

    Ireland tends to have an unusually low density development pattern with a lot of scattered housing. So on that metric, we should be doing well in this.

    It would be more reasonable to compare Ireland to the Nordic countries, Austria, and less populated distinct places that aren’t sovereign countries like: Western France, Scotland, some of the German Lander etc

    Ireland also has no physical border between two jurisdictions on the island. For all intents and purposes the border is as relevant to movement of people as one between two counties in most countries. It’s not been marked.

    So in reality Ireland has 6.6 million people and there’s effectively massive free flow between those areas and also into and out of Britain. The U.K. response is both beyond our control and of huge impact, particularly in the early days of this outbreak and in this instance seem to have really dropped the ball. For whatever reasons, the U.K. has managed to have one of the highest per capita death rates in the world and that is mostly occurring in England. Scotland, Wales and particularly NI have had far less of an issue.


  • #20
    ednwireland
    Registered Users Posts: 14,283 ✭✭✭✭ednwireland


    open land border with uk , lots of ferry traffic, lots of people going on mini breaks to europe, seemed to be lots of skiing trips as it was mid term to one of the hotspots.

    oh and the rugby match

    no isolating of people as they came in which once the lockdown started should have been compulsory - seems to be how any countries that got a handle on it did it

    the weekend before st patricks day my boss flew back into belfast international and said he was amazed at the packed flights heading out to spain. we were prepping the company to go home working that weekend

    My weather

    https://www.ecowitt.net/home/share?authorize=96CT1F



  • #21
    mandrake04
    Registered Users Posts: 4,435 ✭✭✭mandrake04


    Xterminator wrote: »
    Hi Op

    New Zealand is about 3.8 times bigger than Ireland. but has less population. 4.886 vs approx 5 million. Now even basic maths will tell you the population density cannot be comparable.
    .

    Explain why population density would be relevant?


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  • #22
    manlad
    Registered Users Posts: 472 ✭✭manlad


    mandrake04 wrote: »
    Explain why population density would be relevant?

    Eh social distancing???


  • #23
    RandomName2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    Xterminator wrote: »
    Hi Op

    New Zealand is about 3.8 times bigger than Ireland. but has less population. 4.886 vs approx 5 million. Now even basic maths will tell you the population density cannot be comparable.

    Look at the post two above this one.
    Xterminator wrote: »
    Ireland is in the EU and has free movment to a bloc of 446 million inhabitants via treaty while new zealand has reciprocal agreement with australia pop 24.99 million.

    And yet all the countries of Europe have unilaterally restricted movement with each other on the foot of COVID-19. Ireland decided not to do this. Pascal O'Donohoe said that it would be offensive to Italy if this were done.
    Xterminator wrote: »
    There are some similarities but you are being very selective is your acknowlegment of the facts, (very trump like) if you ignore the obvious facts that dont suit your argument.

    Some similarities? I can't think of a country more similar to Ireland than New Zealand. None. The UK, Iceland, and Australia come closest, but the differences between them and Ireland are more striking than between New Zealand and Ireland.

    Leaving aside the possibility of alternate universes we will see no facsimile of Ireland. To say that New Zealand's success does not merit investigation because of its differences is a bit of a crock, particularly when considering the striking social, political, and economic similarities between the two countries. Some people may say that Ireland cannot look to Singapore for inspiration, but I have little patience if they pretend that New Zealand isn't comparable.


  • #24
    Xertz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,069 ✭✭✭Xertz


    The comparison with NZ is a bit like a comparison with say Newfoundland or trying to compare Spain and South Australia.

    There are similarities eg maybe climate, aspects of economics, etc but the factor that matters with this was exposure to vectors for community infection and being very far way from anywhere else is a HUGE factor.

    You could basically say NZ is naturally socially distanced and cocooned, as entire country.

    It’s one of the reasons tech billionaires had been buying up property in remote parts of NZ. It was considered to be far enough away to be safe from any global incident. Many of them were looking at what might happen more in a war type situation, or where there was a melt down of some sort in the USA.

    They weren’t rushing to move to remote locations in Ireland, Scotland, Sweden, the Austrian alps or anywhere in Europe because it isn’t far away enough.

    The ironic thing was many didn’t consider that in a pandemic they wouldn’t be easily able to get there and may be considered to be carriers of the disease and locked out.


  • #25
    RandomName2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    plodder wrote: »

    I'm sure lessons can and will be learned from a comparison, but certainly not starting from statements like the above.

    I'm merely reiterating what I said back in February

    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=112646596

    When I saw how stupid and incompetent they were I knew were were fcked. Thankfully the government brought in a full lockdown, but a lot of damage had already occurred.

    The HSE did invest in a leaflet stand at Dublin airport though. They did that alright.

    hse-staff-who-are-activating-the-public-awareness-campaign-for-covid-19-coronavirus-in-the-baggage-hall-of-terminal-2-at-dublin-airport-2B204BF.jpg


  • #26
    Xertz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,069 ✭✭✭Xertz


    Given the evidence available in February, completely locking down the entire country was unthinkable from a policy point of view.

    It’s different now as we’ve the benefit of hindsight and the fact that it rapidly became normality in March and April.

    This thing has move at a very rapid pace and the world has changed over a few weeks.

    Can you imagine if in say early Feb the government has said that it would just seal the borders, or ask the whole country to basically stay at home and only go within 2km of their homes?!

    They’d have been laughed out of it by most.

    Also at any given time we have hundreds of thousands of people abroad or in transit. It’s not exactly possible to just say : “sorry Mary, you were on holidays in Spain, you made your bed! You’ll never be allowed to come home again and perhaps you should find a nice spot on the beach when your cards max out or the hotel closes down. Sure we’ll see you in 2021 sometime! Good luck now..”


  • #27
    RandomName2
    Registered Users Posts: 5,565 ✭✭✭RandomName2


    Xertz wrote: »
    Given the evidence available in February, completely locking down the entire country was unthinkable from a policy point of view.

    It’s different now as we’ve the benefit of hindsight and the fact that it rapidly became normality in March and April.

    This thing has move at a very rapid pace and the world has changed over a few weeks.

    Can you imagine if in day early Feb the government has said that it would just seal the borders, or ask the whole country to basically stay at home and only go within 2km of their homes?!

    They’d have been laughed out of it by most.

    Also at any given time we have hundreds of thousands of people abroad or in transit. It’s not exactly possible to just say : “sorry Mary, you were on holidays in Spain, you made your bed! You’ll never be allowed to come home again and perhaps you should find a nice spot on the beach when your cards max out or the hotel closes down.”



    They could have just quarantined anybody coming into the country for two weeks. That's it.

    If that was too extreme, you could decide to quarantine only people coming into the country from regions with active outbreaks (e.g. northern Italy). A riskier approach but one that might have worked.

    In the end they decided for a free-for-all and lockdown when the inevitable happened. Inevitable? Inevitable because anybody with hands can use the internet and see what had already happened in both Italy and China. This is the reason I didn't excuse Boris Johnson being mislead by advisors, because you could just look up the news. Trump doesn't get a by on his medical knowledge just because he hasn't been specifically briefed on how bleach works.

    Now the example of New Zealand is clear as day, and posters in this thread are hostile to the comparison because New Zealand is three times as big as Ireland. Perhaps a more comprehensive assessment is merited.


  • #28
    Gidea
    Registered Users Posts: 468 ✭✭Gidea


    beggars_bush wrote: »
    You do realise how far away from almost everwhere NZ is?

    It's much more sparsely populated

    It's much easier to lockdown. Especially when most travellers reach it, via Australia which already has strict measures in place

    Add in the fact that we get alomst 4x as many tourist than NZ (quick google showed around 3.5mill annualy for NZ to our 12) and the fact that europe is an epicentre of the disease and has easy travel for its member states, this comparison is basicaly nonsense


  • #29
    wakka12
    Registered Users Posts: 9,786 ✭✭✭wakka12


    First COVID case here probably in reality around the start of February and widespread outbreaks occurring throughout the country before the first case was even confirmed

    Much less likely an outbreak occurred in New Zealand earlier than us given how much less travellers from Europe they recieve


  • #30
    wakka12
    Registered Users Posts: 9,786 ✭✭✭wakka12


    Auckland council area population density
    1200 km2

    Dublin county pop density

    4588 km2


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  • #31
    Dr. Kenneth Noisewater
    Registered Users Posts: 3,236 ✭✭✭Dr. Kenneth Noisewater


    Comparing the population density is pointless, something like 83% of New Zealanders live in urban areas, with more than half of the urban population living in the 4 biggest cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton. Those cities are all well interconnected, and Kiwis do a lot of travelling around the country, both for business and recreation. Every reasonably large town has an airport.

    NZ obviously had an advantage from the start with it's relative remoteness from large populations and the fact that they closed the borders very early on. What they've also done was put in place one of the tightest lockdowns in the world, announcing Alert Level 4 on 23rd March, at which stage there were still only 102 cases in the country and nobody had died. Level 4 meant absolutely everything was closed apart from Supermarkets and Pharmacies and people were effectively on 23 hour lockdown apart from being allowed out to exercise or buy food.

    We've gone down to Level 3 from today, which just means that restaurants and cafes can now serve food and beverage for takeaway or delivery only (people still aren't allowed inside the store, and it must be done contactlessly).

    Jacinda Ardern said it was important to "go hard and go early" and that's exactly what happened here. The economy will suffer the same as anywhere else, but they got the major calls right and I will say one thing for the Kiwi public, they by and large adhered to it extremely vigilantly.


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