Comment by rob74 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rob74 | Hacker News Reader

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Kudos to New Zealand, but I'll restate the obvious here: for this strategy it really helps if you're an island - not only with the initial implementation of the strategy, but also with staying virus-free once you reach that state. Because in NZ everyone who enters the country is registered and can be forced to follow the quarantine rules. By contrast, in the EU, we have land borders without border checks. Sure, people returning from another country should get a test and quarantine if it's positive - but does anyone know who travelled where and is required to get a test? No...

A small anecdotal example of why this complicates fighting the pandemic: during the first wave, eastern Germany got off relatively easy, with few cases. Czechia was even better, because they locked their borders and hardly had any cases initially. Then, during the summer/early autumn, Germany had the usual rules with masks, distancing, no large gatherings etc., while Czechia had much laxer/less-enforced rules. So guys from Germany would throw their bachelor party in Czechia, get infected and then infect everyone at their wedding a few days later. Which led not only to Czechia having a catastrophic number of cases in October, but also to eastern Germany (particularly Saxony) being hardest hit in the second wave.

I wonder why the eu didn't suspend the free movement over covid Australia's states did that and it worked out pretty well.

Should not be much of a problem in US with only 2 land borders.

Because the US has had so much success securing its southern border, and because taking the necessary actions to truly close it wouldn't be a total political shitstorm.

If we actually did contact tracing, illegal crossings of infected people would be easy enough to deal with. Infections in the US are not being driven by sick people coming in from Mexico.

Very fallacious reasoning here. No-one is saying that infections are driven by Mexican immigrants.

Rather they’re pointing out the obvious: if you’re trying to get to zero COVID, all it takes is one person to start the chain. Thus you cannot have ANY illegal immigration.

FWIW I strongly oppose the “zero COVID” goal because it’s completely unrealistic. We’ll see if the island nations can maintain it long-term but certainly in the US it’s a non-starter.

It's not fallacious reasoning. See the sentence in my other comment where I addressed your reply: If we actually did contact tracing, illegal crossings of infected people would be easy enough to deal with.

Sure, we'd have to actually do something, but it would take less resources than we are expending on medical care, for instance.

The countries with low infection levels don't need to maintain it for all that much longer, we have effective vaccines. Probably 6 months (At which point they will likely have vaccinated much of their populations).

"By contrast, in the EU, we have land borders without border checks."

That's the thing you change.

Well, that's easier said then done. First, you have lots of people living in one country and commuting to work over the border. Second, the economy is so integrated that closing the borders or even introducing border checks leads to major economic disruptions. Third, in democratic countries you'll have those pesky people asking you if all these limitations are really necessary and not an undue restriction of their constitutional rights, so it will probably end up before the supreme court...

The basic problem i see with "Get to Zero" is that it's an extreme position, and politicians always tend to find a compromise in everything they do. So unless you can get everyone to agree to this goal, it's simply not realistic in a democracy, regardless of the scientific merit.

Sure sure, everybody has heard all those arguments. What's new here is the idea, and it's hard to argue with, that living with waves upon waves of infectious disease, on purpose, for years, is itself an extreme position that unduly restricts the economy and personal freedom, for longer than a proper lockdown would. And it also kills more people, and something ought to be said about their right to life & liberty.

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