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Comment by macspoofing | Hacker News Reader

What's 'a long time'? Two weeks? Two months? Six months? 2 years?

We'll reopen our borders, probably soon (they're already open to legal residents), but until there's a vaccine we will have 2 weeks quarantine for all incoming travelers

We've had single digit new cases for almost 2 weeks now, 2 new cases in the past 3 days, none in my region for over 2 weeks, there are ~150 active cases nationwide, dropping every day. The goal is for all new cases to be occurring in quarantine.

remember folks, never having a vaccine is quite possible

but not likely. The pressure to develop a vaccine - or at least a very effective therapy like using monoclonal antibodies - is extremely high. Most people survive COVID19, so there must be either a way to trigger a proper immune response or to at least rebuild parts of their response.

We‘re currently doing a lot of very advanced science in all related fields in parallel and I think that we can be very sure that we‘ll come up with multiple useful solutions within two years or so. And with a lot of general advancements to scale out processes that have been done on small scales until now.

That does not mean that we‘ll be back to what used to be “normal“, though.

We still don't have one for the common cold, people have been trying for decades.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-havent-we-cur...

intense pressure to develop a time machine != a time machine

> "We will not have open borders for the rest of the world for a long time to come."

Does not sound like two weeks is likely.

I imagine the statement was purposefully non specific as COVID-19 will likely be a threat for a long, yet undetermined, amount of time.

The Australian tourism minister is saying overseas travel is not likely until 2021.

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/...

They presumably mean until coronavirus disappears or a vaccine appears and everyone is innoculated, so indefinitely.

That would be insane. They probably mean until they figure out how to reopen borders and with whom without risking too much. And given how many countries are doing the same thing maybe even an international agreement of some sort will emerge where only people from virus-free countries or recently tested people will be allowed to take flights.

no because that assumes they are calculating the risk. they aren't because disease is already inside the borders. closing them is purely political

The disease is close to eradicated inside the borders of NZ. At this point there are only a couple of hundred active cases and we’ve now had a couple of days with 0 new cases. Australia seems to be on track for the same thing.

Testing border crossers is more realistic.

Not unless they are going to send people home if they are positive or forcibly quarantine them and perform contact tracing and further testing. Thus far most western governments have strongly resisted enacting such measures.

You can't safely open up without employing either highly accurate testing + rapid testing + forced quarantine + contact tracing, or having your population immunized. It's pretty much that simple.

See .. you're speculating on what they mean. Wouldn't it be nice if they provided a bit more information so we wouldn't have to parse out meaning out of ambiguous statements? You know, they could provide some details on what needs to happen to re-open. Are we waiting for a vaccine as a precondition for reopening? Or herd immunity? Or case count to drop below X?

Or maybe the world is an ambiguous place?

I suspect until there’s a proven vaccine.

NZ has always been the best place in the world to survive the end of days.

...so long as you don't live near the coastline :/

My impression of new Zealand is that it's mountainous, easy to move inland a short distance for the minority who would be effected.

Not many mountains here in Auckland, lots of volcanoes plus one major (and often choked) road in and out though.

Why?

My (very fuzzy) understanding is that NZ is going to be hit hard by global warming and rising sea levels during the next 50 years: https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/01/alarming-...

Auckland looks less concerning than places like London or New York. I have confidence that the NZ government will deal with it far better than uk or us

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