New Zealand Scraps Most Covid Rules as Virus Battle Winds Down (bloomberg.com) 177
New Zealand will no longer require people to wear masks in indoor public spaces or to be vaccinated to work in certain roles, as the country winds down its pandemic battle and learns to live with Covid-19. From a report: From midnight, face coverings won't need to be worn anywhere except in health settings like hospitals and aged-care facilities, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a news conference Monday in Wellington. The framework used to specify the level of risk to the community from Covid-19 and corresponding restrictions will be scrapped, she said. "It's time to safely turn the page on our Covid-19 management, and live without the extraordinary measures we have previously used," Ardern said. "Finally, rather than feeling that Covid dictates what happens to us, our lives, and our futures, we take back control."
The move brings the curtain down on New Zealand's pandemic response some two and a half years after measures were first implemented. While the nation's tough lockdowns and closed border initially kept Covid-19 at bay, the virus has spread rapidly this year and many people have already stopped adhering to mask-wearing rules. With case numbers and hospitalizations falling as winter comes to an end, and a high level of vaccination in the population, Ardern said the country is in a position to jettison its remaining restrictions.
The move brings the curtain down on New Zealand's pandemic response some two and a half years after measures were first implemented. While the nation's tough lockdowns and closed border initially kept Covid-19 at bay, the virus has spread rapidly this year and many people have already stopped adhering to mask-wearing rules. With case numbers and hospitalizations falling as winter comes to an end, and a high level of vaccination in the population, Ardern said the country is in a position to jettison its remaining restrictions.
Keywords (Score:5, Insightful)
High level of vaccination.
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Island nation. Total population the size of a large city in other countries. Border restrictions that would have caused an outcry in other countries.
Re: Keywords (Score:3)
You can only get a second booster if you are aged 50+ or work in the health sector. Hence one reason itâ(TM)s so low.
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To be fair I would say it would be nice if they did have the bivalent shot is available here now. My guess is we will
Re: Keywords (Score:5, Informative)
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I've seen people confuse New Zealand with Australia, but never seen someone think it was a state of the US before.
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I stocked up and got two boosters in each arm last time I visited the vaccination site. Nothing like being prepared.
Also, I get four times the nanite-activation each time I log into the Net using my 5G phone.
The overnight updates are hurting my brain though.
All is good!!!
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Around here at least, I've not seen a mask in probably like a year or more...life has been back to normal here with festivals, concerts, full restaurants, etc...for quite awhile.
I thought it was pretty much the same everywhere...
Re: Keywords (Score:4, Informative)
Was recently in Toronto, visiting family.
Mask mandates were lifted only recently & local public transit in-vehicle announcements recommend masks be worn; about 1/2 the riders are still wearing them.
All the public-facing staff I saw were all wearing masks.
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Sounds nice. In the UK nobody wears a mask anymore. My wife and I are usually the only ones.
Seriously thinking of emigrating. Not joking.
Re: Keywords (Score:2)
I can't even get to Toronto, due to Canada's current border crossing rules.
I had to order an iPhone and have it delivered in Canada and reshipped to the US, rather than just going to Canada to pick it up.
Oh well.
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Odd, I had no trouble crossing to go to Montreal back in May. Have they changed anything?
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I didn't realize there were any places left that still had mask mandates going on.
Around here at least, I've not seen a mask in probably like a year or more...
Weird! What strange place are you living in? US and Europe have been mostly OK for the last 6 months, but had huge outbreaks at the start of this year.
In NZ or most of Australia, there were hardly any cases before last Christmas. We kept it out until vaccinated, and so avoided most of the deaths.
We had brief mask mandates in WA before this year, while outbreaks were contained. You don't need a mask when there are zero cases.
Fortunately, we managed to all get vaccinated before Omicron came along. Then the
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I live in New Orleans.
And yeah, life here has been pretty much normal for over a year.
For about that long, if you came here, you'd never know a pandemic had hit, except for some of the remaining plexiglass at some cashier counters.
But we've been normal for quite awhile. We had Mardi Gras, I've been to indoor concerts at the arena next door to the Superdome, and crowded smaller venues. Restaurants have been packed back to normal again all this time, etc.
I do
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I live in New Orleans.
And yeah, life here has been pretty much normal for over a year.
Looking at the data, for several months in the last year, Louisiana had dozens of people dying per day from covid.
That sort of thing is just brushed off over there? Only last month it was still double digits daily deaths, which (population adjusted) is as bad as it ever got in my state.
I guess life is very cheap in New Orleans. Thousands dead in that "normal" period. I was there once, saw schools with metal detectors for guns at the entrance. Scary stuff.
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life is cheap in all red states. they call it 'business friendly'. its why I wont voluntarily set foot in red states.
pollution is nothing to be concerned about. afterall, your betters are living in the nicer parts of town, so they're all good.
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You know we have a Democrat for governor, right?
Also, New Orleans is a heavily democrat run city...
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Well, those are schools that most people that have any money at all, send their kids to private schools.
There are a lot of "projects" in New Orleans....those are the kids that go to the public schools, so yes, you expect problems from them.
That's just life in the "hood" and not much you can do about that, its a poverty culture thing.
I
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I don't know the theory, but real-world data here showed a bump in case numbers after the mandate was lifted.
Which was expected, and not a problem, as the peak had passed. So it was helping.
Of course, in hindsight, when the data is gathered, we will know how a much narrower mask mandate would have been sufficient, but thats hindsight for you.
I'm just grateful we did not have the shit-show that was seen in places like Brazil, Russia and the USA.
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Re: Keywords (Score:2)
Re: Keywords (Score:2)
Tell me you are unhinged, without telling me you are unhinged.
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No, I don't live in FL.
And I would think that being afraid of one's own shadow, after the real threat has passed is what qualifies as "unhinged" more than the majority of people going on with their lives and enjoying a normal life again.
Life it based on risks, and it is too short to sit paralyzed by fear.
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A herd that only moves as slowly as its lamest member is more attractive to predators than one that doesn't; dog-eat-dog survivalism has its merits.
I'm guessing you haven't watched a ton of wild animal videos.
Slow moving herds often have big, aggressive males stationed around the group, and they are often more than capable of fighting off the predators. They don't abandon anyone. The predators often never get their prey, and even if they do, they are usually made to pay for it severely. The predators either give up the chase, die from their injuries, or learn that they need to be very careful in how they approach this herd in the future.
On the other ha
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A herd that only moves as slowly as its lamest member is more attractive to predators than one that doesn't; dog-eat-dog survivalism has its merits.
I'm guessing you haven't watched a ton of wild animal videos.
Slow moving herds often have big, aggressive males stationed around the group, and they are often more than capable of fighting off the predators. They don't abandon anyone.
We're talking about humans though, Killing each other is our main trait. Abandon? That's Rookie shit takes too long - we make them die really quickly.
Re:Keywords (Score:5, Informative)
Cumulative deaths per 1,000,000 people:
New Zealand: 380
Australia: 557
US: 3,117
from here [ourworldindata.org]
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How is this insightful?
New Zealand has fared no better than anywhere else, masking and vaccination aside. Worse, in many regards than many other places, from what I can tell.
LOL! I love all the references you posted to back up this absurd claim. I'm just going to assume you're confusing NZ with a State in America or a country in Europe.
Re:Keywords (Score:4, Informative)
High level of vaccination.
You misspelled "low rates of obesity".
New Zealand has the third highest adult obesity rate in the OECD.
Illuminati (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Illuminati (Score:4)
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Birds aren't real!
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Wouldn't the 5G mind control chips (I thought that their real purpose was to give the vaxee autism though... no?) interfere with the fluoride's depletion of our precious bodily fluids?
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Okay and modded as you wished, but I also wish you had worked the transparent masks into the joke...
The numbers must be bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Their weekly opinion polling must be absolutely terrible to force them to do this.
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Their weekly opinion polling must be absolutely terrible to force them to do this.
Would be a good conspiracy theory if it weren't for the fact that Labour has been ahead in the polls for the past two weeks for the first time in many months.
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I was referring to their internal polling. I should have been clearer. Therefore it's a conspiracy theory about *these* polls rather than *those* polls.
Iceland dropped ALL Covid rules in Feb (Score:5, Informative)
We've since had close to 1M foreign tourists visit the country. All border restrictions were dropped as well, no vaccination needed, no test, no proof of prior infection or anything; masking on flights was dropped at the same time.
None of it has had to be rolled back. Covid has hardly been mentioned in conversations or the media for months. I see perhaps 4-5 masked people a week, typically Asian tourists when grocery shopping.
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Re:Iceland dropped ALL Covid rules in Feb (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in New Zealand the approach has been less about politics and more about science. Mind you voters liked that so the government was rewarded politically in the last elections for taking a science based approach to dealing with the pandemic.
The key here is our hospital system, while busy was not overwhelmed with Covid patients. With the new anti-viral medications now in stock they feel safe to make these changes.
It is still a balancing act. Like most I will be glad to see the end of mask wearing but worry about one of my sister's who is immune compromised. She had to retire from her teaching job as the risk was too high and she will still need to wear a mask in public. The new medications may not be enough to save her from Covid but then again I think she would be at risk from regular flu.
Re:Iceland dropped ALL Covid rules in Feb (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The State Gov was caught fixing the numbers.
2. Medicine is expensive. As in most here would go without it then go for the expense of treating it.
Re:You can in fact say that (Score:4, Insightful)
The effectiveness of the vaccines at "stopping COVID" are highly suspect, at best.
Sorry what?! Vaccines are not designed to 'stop' a virus. They are there to assist the body in fighting off the virus - e.g. instead of perhaps putting you on a respirator for 3mths you might spend a week with a cough and runny nose. And that in turn takes the pressure off the health system, which can then focus on hopefully fewer people that do get sicker. I was immunized against measles and rubella as a baby (pre MMR). Got both varieties as a kid, but only a minor fever and a rash. Given that measles can (and has) kill I'd say the vaccine did its job
re: vaccines (Score:2)
Technically, sure.... but we're splitting hairs here on the semantics. My point is, traditional vaccines, whether they be for rabies, mumps, rubella, polio, measles ... whatever? They create a scenario where if you get them, you really have no concerns about contracting the disease they claim to protect you from getting.
The COVID vaccines have done really poorly at this... with people getting the shots but still contracting a case of COVID, even multiple times in some cases. This would be like breaking ou
Re:Iceland dropped ALL Covid rules in Feb (Score:5, Informative)
Florida is leading the country in summer Covid deaths, again. https://www.baynews9.com/fl/ta... [baynews9.com]
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Florida is leading the country in summer Covid deaths, again. https://www.baynews9.com/fl/ta... [baynews9.com]
That's kind of to be expected, with Florida being the go-to state on the East Coast for retirees, and for Covid being primarily a killer of the old, like the Flu before it:
But in that time, since May, Salemi said overall deaths from COVID-19 in Florida have been the most in the country with roughly 6,000 people dying. Even with that information, he said the data don't tell the entire story. “Florida is also the third largest state, so we would expect that even if they had lower rates, they’re going to be among the leaders,” Salemi said. Because there’s a multitude of factors that have to be considered to understand why the Sunshine State stays at the top of these rankings.
A "multitude of factors" sure sounds like "But yeah, we have lots of old people here".
Re:Iceland dropped ALL Covid rules in Feb (Score:5, Informative)
And Florida never had any mask nor vaccine mandates at all and they were never more affected than any other place.
Florida COVID deaths as of today total 374 deaths per 100,000 population.
U.S. overall averages 314 deaths per 100,000 population.
Florida has 20% higher COVID death rate than the US overall.
Florida is not as bad as, say, Mississippi, with 431 per 100,000, but it's worse than the US average. You want to see low deaths, move to Vermont, the lowest in the continental US,115.
Data available many places, but I like the visualization here: https://91-divoc.com/pages/cov... [91-divoc.com]
death records [Re:Iceland dropped ALL Covid ru...] (Score:5, Informative)
You really need to understand how the data is reported
I do! Do you? I love data, and yes, I read the technical data on how deaths are reported. For a quick introduction, try here:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/... [cdc.gov]
https://cdn.who.int/media/docs... [who.int]
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/... [cdc.gov]
https://www.ksby.com/news/coro... [ksby.com]
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
But you can get a pretty good independent estimate of the covid death rate from looking at excess deaths, which is the number of actual deaths per month minus the corresponding number in a typical year. Turns out from this, the covid-19 death rate was significantly underestimated early in the pandemic. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/... [cdc.gov] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com]
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/... [go.com]
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Iceland: 612 deaths / 100k. Florida: 3,746 deaths / 100k. Yeah you were fucking more affected than many other places.
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Burnout (Score:2)
People want normalacy, and they don't want to walk around looking like surgeons and astronauts.
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Analysis of New Zealand's Covid policies (Score:4, Informative)
If you're interested in a more in-depth analysis of New Zealand's Covid policy, these two articles (and others linked within) are a good place to start:
Did New Zealand Let Too Few People Die of COVID?
https://sciencebasedmedicine.o... [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
Jay Bhattacharya errs on excess mortality in New Zealand
https://sciencebasedmedicine.o... [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
Control? (Score:3)
"Finally, rather than feeling that Covid dictates what happens to us, our lives, and our futures, we take back control."
Sorry, ignoring a disease is not taking back control, it's ignoring the problem and burying your head in the sand.
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Unless it is a matter of public health, then every civilized nation has laws for that, in the best interest of society.
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I rather have the PTO over a vaccine.
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This picture makes me giggle. So they CAN wear masks and still breathe. https://www.texasmonthly.com/n... [texasmonthly.com]
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Look, we have a token black guy we can’t be racist.
Re:Admitting defeat (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks in East Asia have been masking voluntarily for decades. One time the west gets asked to mask and everybody thinks it's the coming on the authoritarian fascists!
There are a lot of signs the fascists are coming. Asking folks to wear a mask during a pandemic wasn't one of those signs. That was more a line in the sand that said, "Adults over here, everybody else over there."
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Folks in East Asia have been masking voluntarily for decades. One time the west gets asked to mask and everybody thinks it's the coming on the authoritarian fascists!
Tell you what. Sit down and re-address that complete lack of fascism when the West moves to ban masks in public in favor of feeding profits to Mass Surveillance.
Rest absurd it's coming.
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> Folks in East Asia have been masking voluntarily for
> decades
Folks in East Asia have been masking voluntarily for decades... when they were actually sick, and sometimes during allergy season if they were particularly sensitive to the local allergens. To them, it was a tool to be used when appropriate, not a fetish to adopt permanently.
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I've never heard a single person in the west declare it a permanent forever thing. I'm just baffled by the delusions that get espoused as reality at this point. I live in South Dakota, so even during the height of the mask "mandates" it was rare to see people masked up unless they went into a building that required it. Which only lasted a period of about a month, maybe a month and a half. Where are these fetishists everybody's talking about insisting on permanent masking?
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I now regard those who don't mask up in public when they have a contagious respiratory infection in the same category as those who shit in the gutter.
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I am aware of multiple restaurants in the area where staff has been strict about masking and had approximately zero covid cases. This in spite of restaurant workers being one of the highest risk groups. This would be the result of masking, good ventilation, and carrying over such caution outside work as well.
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Re: Admitting defeat (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look at the New Zealand example you will note that lock downs stopped being used once the population reached a high level of vaccinations. The government ran the numbers and when they showed our vaccination rate was high enough to stop high hospitalisation rates they eased the restriction. This latest change is a refection of government modelling that now include access here to anti-viral medication. When looking a things in New Zealand vs the rest of the world you will see that unlike many other countries at no time was our health system overwelmed. Yes it was pushed but the government measures put in place and the timing of their removals was all based on science and severed us well.
China is trying to do the same thing but the failure of their vaccine to keep up with the virus changes has defeated them and their national pride will not allow them to admit it and use a western vaccine that can better handle the new variants.
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The government ran the numbers
I think you are overly optimistic about the quality of the government's numbers, I also believe the "ran the numbers" and where saying at one point there should be new 50,000 daily cases when they where around a thousand, I might be wrong about the exact numbers but they where way off.
The reason I believe they changed it is they no longer believed it was politically expedient to do so. A significant portion of New Zealand have not really cared about mask use for a while now, the government is just catching
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The government ran the numbers
I think you are overly optimistic about the quality of the government's numbers, I also believe the "ran the numbers" and where saying at one point there should be new 50,000 daily cases when they where around a thousand, I might be wrong about the exact numbers but they where way off.
The reason I believe they changed it is they no longer believed it was politically expedient to do so. A significant portion of New Zealand have not really cared about mask use for a while now, the government is just catching up.
The 50,000 was a worst case scenario prediction based on the numbers. As usual the media picked it up and it got mis-represented. I won't say the government got it right all the time. However, they were generally looking for best/worse case scenarios and trying to find a middle ground that would keep the population as safe as possible without completely destroying the economy and pissing everybody off. I am somewhat disappointed in the Labour government in regards to other areas of policy. Yet in regards
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I would agree with you that its about the right balance, but I still don't put much faith in the numbers, its a garbage in garbage out scenario, how would they predict it with any accuracy? A lot of the decision was getting the Maori numbers up, played up by the media as well. To me they had the opportunity and they chose not to get the vaccine, and that's their choice and their consequence. That's the cost of having a choice.
I am not really happy with Labour in regards to the pandemic, but I would say much
Asia [Re: Admitting defeat] (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should move to east Asia then. Why would you want to be like east Asia? Horrible places to live. But if you like it, move there. They also have massive infection rates.
There are indeed downsides to living in east Asia, but when you look at Japan or Korea, you see that their death rate from COVID-19 is a fraction of ours. https://91-divoc.com/pages/cov... [91-divoc.com]
People who worship Asia are wierd.
Main downside to east Asia is that they are a very conformist society.
And I'm just talking about the capitalist, free nations; not even thinking about authoritarian China.
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List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy [wikipedia.org]
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I have no doubt people have been going about without masks for a long time already,
And you would be wrong.
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So you know something that doctors and people who study viruses for a living don’t?
Are you ok, do you need a therapy dog or safe space?
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There's a term for herd immunity without a vaccine. It's called culling.
We were very fortunate that vaccines became available so quickly, relatively speaking, especially since it was around the time the Delta variant was proliferating or there would have been a lot more dead people.
There was no way to avoid economic damage without a huge increase in the body count.
A lot of people who believe themselves invulnerable would be fine with that but I'm glad we didn't follow that path.
In fact, in my opinion, we wa
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"Herd immunity" is not limited to COVID. There are over 200 known respiratory viruses. Human immune system and viruses have very complex symbiotic relationship. If exposure to other common viruses is artificially suppressed, it will lead to weakened herd immunity and more severe outbreaks.
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The broad and important point stands -- public health is about ALL issues which affect, well, the health of the public, but government messaging made it all about one virus.
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One novel virus that was spreading & mutating quickly because of selfish individuals & inadequate restrictions.
I was more than a bit amused to see so many of the same people who used to threaten they would homeschool to prevent precious young minds from indoctrination were quick to demand schools be reopened & to threaten the lives of teachers & administrators.
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I know that, outside of thought exercises about quantum mechanics and/or Orwellian doublethink, two different and mutually-contradictory statements cannot both simultaneously be true. And there were plenty of mutually-contradictory statements on the part of our so-call "leaders" during COVID. At this point, I'm just too damned exhausted from the whole thing to debate which statements were lies and which were the truth. But there is no getting around the fact that we were told plenty of lies during COVID
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Re: Admitting defeat (Score:2)
If healthcare is free, why are health care providers paid?
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You’re gulping kool aid with that hot take.
Re:Countless windmills vanquished (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Countless windmills vanquished (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Countless windmills vanquished (Score:5, Insightful)
Economically we were hit hard in the large tourism sector but otherwise handled it well, better than most countries.
While our chosen vaccine was significantly less effective at stopping the spread of new variants of Covid it was still effective in reducing the severity of infections.
If you look at the government response it was a balance between minimising the death-rate and the impact on business and personal freedoms. For example locked downs stopped being used here once the vaccination rate was high. This latest set of relaxing reflect we now have stock of anti-viral drugs reducing the likelihood of death of infected people.
I think it is unfair to call New Zealand 'defeated'. Compared with other countries at no time was out health system overwhelmed and our death rate from Covid has been much lower.
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There are no vaccine variants which have shown any causal veracity for reducing infection or infection severity, so don't beat yourself up too much over that.
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I think it is unfair to call New Zealand 'defeated'.
New Zealand were the absolute worst at managing COVID. Except for all the other countries of course.
Re: Countless windmills vanquished (Score:2)
They tried hard but the truth is there was never any "It's going to be over in a couple years." Everyone at the start including myself thought the whole thing was going to be temporary, but reality is sinking in and C-19 is something that will likely be around for decades, possibly centuries. Now we have to take C-19 into the same consideration as we do the flu, live a normal life, and take measures to protect the ones most at risk. And it's not going to involve people wearing masks and helmets forevermore.
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Please don’t post anything to contradict my fragile beliefs.