Travel restrictions anywhere are ridiculous at this point. The virus is everywhere already.
This shit is just politics at this point.
I think it has been for a while.
I don't remember the exact date, but around the end of 2020 / beginning 2021 at one point travel between France and the UK was allowed. Then suddenly, UK deemed France as too dangerous or something, which could be justified since cases in France were rising rapidly, whereas in Britain they were relatively stable. The next day, France halted travel from the UK "in retaliation".
It seems to me that the level of danger of a country isn't particularly related to how that country's politicians view your own, but what do I know?
This is how variants like Delta can spread globally.
Always has been.
It can increase the spread though, here (CH) a large fraction of local case are tied to people coming back from holidays. Mandatory quarantine would likely help somewhat.
It helps a lot. However even strict quarantine leaks, and New Zealand has shutdown to try eradicate its current outbreak. Delta is incredibly transmissible and resistant to controls.
That shows that travel spreads new variants.
This isn't like polio or smallpox - this would be like trying to have 0 cases of the flu, forever. The best you can do is get vaccinated to at least take some pressure off the hospital system if/when you get infected. Somehow we all went from "flatten the curve" to "no one can ever get sick again".
We have done it several times and will hopefully do it again.
We have had a pretty smooth time as a whole, with relatively little inconvenience - this and the previous month long lockdown excluded.
However as you say, what’s the point?
We are not vaccinated widely enough to prevent carnage. We need way more people vaccinated as our hospital system is under strain already. Adding Covid will be catastrophic, and we need to reduce that risk.
New Zealand is the gateway to various pacific islands and we provide their healthcare. If Covid rips through them that’s also on us.
We also supply many small pacific islands and were also happy to delay so that supply could go to places with an acute need first (ie places that actually have Covid).
We will be in line with the rest of the developed world very soon.
> Bizarre strategy
Eradication? It’s worked pretty well and the economy and population are in good shape relative to other strategies employed.
Given we are close to Covid free (and aim to be again) and we are vaccinating fast, what strategy would you advocate?
I meant why not even try to develop a vaccine.
If other countries had not developed vaccines and eventually shared them with New Zealand what would they have done? Just sat with closed borders for the rest of time?
And even when they got the vaccine they've not really bothered to get it distributed - slowest vaccination rate in the developed world.
Very strange.
You can apply that bit of logic to every bit of tech that exists. New Zealand is a tiny place, with a population less than that of a medium to large city. Why not buy something proven?
> Just sat with closed borders for the rest of time?
I’m quite happy with the closed borders and wish they were more tightly closed. Others can have different views - the results speak for themselves. Once things are are more settled and treatments are better managed, we can open up.
> slowest vaccination rate in the developed world.
Our vaccine roll out has been slow, though the current rate of administration would be one of the highest in the world so that failing is hopefully temporary.
> Very strange.
What do you believe New Zealand should do? I’d say that we are in a very good position relative to most.
Most other western countries tried to develop vaccines as quickly as they possibly could starting in early 2020 because they thought that was the long-term solution.
I get what you mean though about a small country, but it's not like New Zealand doesn't have universities as well. Waiting for someone else to hopefully solve the problem and then buy it was a gamble - I guess it paid off thankfully.
It hasn’t paid off yet. We haven’t got enough Covid in New Zealand to get the value offered by a vaccine - yet.
If New Zealand is paying for its vaccines then its contributing to the effort just like everyone else.
The people who should develop vaccines now are the existing clusters of experts in vaccines. As in large university, government and corporate environments that have been working in that area and already have lots of experts, equipment and relevant resources and arrangements.
Anything else is a long term project.
Maybe RNA vaccines and other new vaccine tech will bring down the costs of vaccine development centers, and maybe the pandemic will increase the demand for more centers. I am not arguing against New Zealand developing their own in house capacity going forward.
Or maybe we only need a few really good vaccines for each pandemic and there is a limit to the benefits of redundant research and production.
Either way, new centers are not a quick or simple task, and not likely to happen while most experts are currently located and utilized elsewhere.
NZ has taken an isolationist approach to the virus that seems, to all accounts, to have worked absolutely wonderfully - it's not an approach available to all nations, but they made it work for them.
I live and work in Canada and I didn't leverage any of the factors available to me to jump ahead in the vaccination line - my wife and I have no children and have both been able to work fully remote... so we've similarly isolated ourselves - when my age group came up I registered and was vaccinated but I was happy to see people who have jobs that necessitate in-person interaction prioritized in front of me. It's more efficient for my health for those folks to get the vaccine first - I think NZ found itself in a similar situation, everyone (mostly) wanted to get vaccinated and the voluntary rate so far has been pretty good - it's just that other places need the vaccine more desperately than them.
So long as you ignore America, where a large number of doses have expired due to political resistance - those doses of vaccine will end up going to productive ends, and wouldn't it be nice to stop the disease before we have a new wave spread out from Africa?
Was there apprehension to get vaccinated or did their government fail to acquire supplies? I would imagine New Zealand would have no difficulty in getting supplies by June or so but perhaps I’m wrong. Israel for example is similar in terms of GDP per capita and they are well ahead.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
We've had less than 16,000 total cases here, most of which stemmed from an outbreak in May that is now under control.
The border is basically only open to citizens and residents, and everybody has to quarantine for 14 days at an approved quarantine hotel or government facility regardless of vaccination status. PCR test no earlier than 3 days before your flight, PCR test upon arrival, rapid test 10 days into quarantine, and PCR test right before your quarantine ends.
Inconvenient? Yes. Expensive? Yes. But you can't argue with the results. Life is pretty damn good here and at least for the time being, Delta has not found its way into the community.
> Inconvenient? Yes. Expensive? Yes. But you can't argue with the results. Life is pretty damn good here and at least for the time being, Delta has not found its way into the community.
Pretty much identical, but with the huge exception of a current Delta outbreak in the community. The next week will be the making or breaking of our chosen strategy.
More severe travel restrictions earlier (in combination with countries like the US doing what they were supposed to do) could have saved a lot of lives. It's not too late to save a few more.