UKH

Admittedly this comes from reading an article on the start up of rugby in the country and full capacity crowds.

However through the pandemic they have only had 20 deaths and have now been virus free for 3 weeks. That’s remarkable!

Yep, it certainly is. 

Strict early lockdown, good communication strategy, incredibly high compliance, and a fair sprinkling of good fortune.

Unfortunately it also means I'm back in the office tomorrow! Can't complain, it will be good to see colleagues in person.

$64,000 question - what would have happened in New Zealand if Johnson (or am NZ equivalent) had been PM? 

Then we would have been stuffed. His response to the advice given was inadequate, late, muddled, flawed and utterly incompetent. 

We have a lot of international visitors, especially from Asia, and surprising amounts of inner city deprivation. The health service is short on capacity, and some of the projections suggested a delay of a couple more days would have led to a complete collapse of the health service. 

Overall we are in the position we are in due to a combination of factors: strong and consistent leadership (including people being treated like adults - even if they didn't like the message), sensible medical advice, a public generally open to the idea that people can make a difference with their behaviour, no Murdoch press and not as much cynicism about politicians as a result of years of manipulation by Cummings et al fomenting the politics of division. Geography is a minor contributor and we are delighted to be where we are, but it isn't just because of geography.

b

Agreed. For me the most noticeable difference between here and the uk was how everyone got behind the gov decisions. Not just the public, but there was also very little criticism from opposition MPs or press. It just made the messages being given very clear.

Where here after acting far too late a lot of people ignored things and spent their time looking for loop holes. 

Back in early February I posted on here to say we needed to close the borders and lock down affected areas, I was met with scorn and derision, apparently it wouldn't work and it would kill the economy. 

Had we acted early and nipped our outbreaks in the bud we could be the same as New Zealand, business as usual but with restricted international travel. That would be far less damaging than where we are now. 

The 5 million population that is not at all tightly packed together probably helped some as well. 

Their population age average is lower than most European countries.

I bet there are many more complex factors that contributed. Not to say their strategy and compliance didn't factor at all.

Indeed. Without wanting to be a grumpy contrarian at all, I wonder what would have happened in the UK if the same “rules” applied in NZ, had been applied a) by our government and b) by a parallel-universe government identical to that of NZ .

My son and his family live in Norway, which has had a similar result to New Zealand. Reacted quickly, closed borders, low infection rate, low overall deaths. Schools now back in and economy on the mend. But, also similar socio-economic factors to NZ. Younger population, very low BAME numbers, more scattered towns and cities, lower population densities and a government that is trusted.

Some parts of the country have low pop density, but we have cities too.

The decisive leadership and clear advice made such a big difference in limiting community spread early on. All arrivals from overseas have had to self isolate for 2 weeks since 15th March (earlier for China and Iran). I had at least one friend who, arriving back from overseas in early March, developed a mild cough and fever, but followed the rules, and recovered completely before even mixing with her household. Since April, this isolation has been provided by the government in hotels, and now all arrivals are tested twice during this quarantine period.

People followed the advice, not least due to the clear and understandable messaging and early decision making from the government, who tightly controlled the message all the way through.

Added to which, our director general of health is a NZ and international expert in public health and the government has listened to and acted on medical, scientific and modelling advice. 

NZ relies on tourism and the economic outlook is still pretty bleak, but we're in a much better position because of tough decisions taken early.

Sometimes I still feel like a bit of an outsider here. But it really has felt like we're all in this together, and I've been proud to be part of the NZ team.

After yesterday's events in London I am certainly not proud to be part of the UK team!

NZ society is lightweight and fluid.  Which is often great like in this situation, or when big earthquakes strike.  But it can sometimes be a disadvantage when actions happen a little _too_ quickly without quite enough thinking (eg. the P drug laws in housing).

But NZ people also don't have this innate mindset that the government, or somebody else, will look after them.  You just have to get in there and do it yourself.  And if that means working together as a community than you just do it.

Compare Ed Hillary going to the South Pole on tractors vs the Northern Hemisphere crowd with all their bureaucracy and big budget attempts.

Or, if you go into the hills and get into trouble, there is not an expectation that some rescue team will come get you.  Instead you might just die.  But that's part of your mindset from the outset.

NZ is a large country with low 'throughput' from the rest world and very low population density.

Whilst it is indeed great that they have had so few deaths and such success in containing the virus, comparing it to other countries is like apples and oranges. In fact even they are too alike, more like apples and marrows.

I notice some can't wait to stick their oar into our government despite the thread being about New Zealand. It must be exhausting for them everyday with all their pent up frustration. 

Or to turn the subtle blame in that around, a government that is trustworthy.  Although the mass weaponisation of two-party tribal thinking, idiots, conspiracy nonsense and the importance of taking offence in the UK makes it hard to imagine a good government getting sufficient trust either.

We are not NZ but that is no excuse as neither are Australia, Austria, Greece, Norway, South Korea, Taiwan etc etc etc.

Not half as frustrating as watching people try and defend the UK government.

You were totally wrong about us not going to follow Italy by the way; our government apparently got bored of following Italy and overtook them some time ago.

I don’t know how the UK can dig itself out of a hole where right now the government have a 42% approval rating despite their manifest failure.  I suspect a rotting donkey carcass painted red or blue would get support from enough people to keep it in office.  People lining up to strongly support their political party regardless of all the evidence - red or blue it doesn’t matter.

Quite. There are counter examples from countries rich and poor, dense and sparse.  Singapore makes it bloody clear that population density isn’t that critical.  

'I notice some can't wait to stick their oar into our government despite the thread being about New Zealand. It must be exhausting for them everyday with all their pent up frustration. '

Competent; trustworthy; well meaning. I'd settle for one of those. We have none.

Pretty much the worst rate of fatalities in the world (certainly in the developed world); the most devastated economy; and no plan or strategy to recover before we are Brexited.n What has to happen before you concede that this is not the best possible of all possible worlds? A war, maybe? A summer of civil unrest? Food shortages and panic buying?

Just out of interest, has mask use been part of NZ strategy? And is the virus tracking and tracing by means of an app or people doing the tracing?

And how much do we think we would have to pay Jacinda Ardern to come and sort us out?? I would be willing to chip in!!

If you look at simple population/land area, yes. But 87% of the population live in urban areas, where the density is comparable to urban areas in other countries.

I'm struggling to find a definitive number, but I'm pretty sure that international travel numbers significantly exceed the population, so I'm not sure about the 'throughput' argument, either.

Singapore took a radically different approach to tackling this than the UK and used test, track and trace very aggressively.

Not sure NZ followed the same route as Singapore or S Korea for that matter.

Certainly outside Auckland and Wellington population density is much lower than the UK.

We didn't lock down soon enough. 

We stopped test, track and trace and still haven't got a properly working system.

The first error is forgiveable, the data wasn't clear.

The second isn't. It could have been started any time and even an imperfect system would have been more effective than nothing at all.

What is Greece's excuse then for so few deaths?

Exactly; preparation and reaction are key factors; not population density. 

Indeed - a strict early lockdown with clear communication.

Yup, but most of the people are in the high density areas so it’s disingenuous of others (not you) to claim their low density makes them different - it does but only for the minority of people in the rural areas.

Although erring on the side of caution used to be seen as prudent.  The data still isn’t clear now on many things.

At one point the deputy CMO said in a briefing that test and trace was more important for poorer counties.  I’m at a total loss why there wasn’t an immediate rush effort to grow and unify T&T capability at PHE and regional sexual health teams, and why contracts didn’t go out for the alternative for over two months.  I just can’t understand it.

Neither can I.

Turf wars; vanity; career opportunism.

All overseen by someone who simply has never had to make anything work.

I think Jacinda Ahern is very impressive and I like her a lot. I don’t know, but I’m not sure somebody like her could get to the top in our septic tank of a system.

Indoor* interactions and indoor population density matter. It matters little if it is 100m or 10km outdoors between your indoor interactions.

Hence national population density not very relevant as the area in the equation is mostly outdoors. Outdoor infections relatively rare or insignificant.

*or enclosed 

How do you work out that New Zealand has very low BAME numbers? According to Wikipedia around 16% of the population are Maori, about 15% Asian and about 9% Pacific islanders.

I think phizz was talking about Norway; many similarities with NZ. But not the very low BAME one...

In the early stages, there was very little criticism from the opposition; we were "all in this together'".

It was only when the policy started to unravel, and the lies, incompetence and miscommunication became glaringly apparent, that critical voices really started to be heard.

The population density argument is simplistic and is being used as an excuse by the Tories.  I've seen it stated as a reason why Scotland has lower numbers than England as well.

The overall population density of the country is irrelevant, especially if it is mountainous.  If you just divide the number of people in Scotland by the area of  Scotland you get a much lower number than England but that does not mean the people in Scotland are living more 'spread out' and less likely to transmit the virus to each other.  Most of the population are in the cities.  The fact that there's almost nobody in the Cairngorms makes no difference to how likely Covid is to spread in Glasgow.

Quite.   It’s an argument that ignores the evidence from the pandemic and one that ignores the population density of urban areas and so on.  It’s totally flawed but has been used since the earliest days to dismiss examples of less incompetent governance.

If Ed thought population density mattered so much and they wanted a first world country with a similar population density to the UK they might for example look to Italy...

Interesting that all health boards in NZ had Covid infections and that over half of their deaths occurred in care homes.

*The wording of my post might not be 100% accurate.

Norway and New Zealand -  both have female prime ministers! Just saying

In reply to Blue Straggler:

No peeve intended, just pointing out something that both countries have in common, you can throw Iceland into the equation too, if you want. Maybe women in authority engender (no pun intended) more trust and respect than men? 

In all fairness, though the government have been a total shower of shit the people of the country are also to blame. Lots of people including members of this forum have been both ignoring and looking for loop holes in the rules (waiting for someone to say its not a rule it was advice) 

Think of Italy as the 70 year old couple going to the coast in a caravan, you sit behind for so long then boot it when you get the chance. We never win major sporting events or the song contest, maybe someone in government decided we were going to win Covid 19

Or that a well functioning democracy will allow excellent female politicians to rise to the top, whereas a dysfunctional system will tend to select for men, the image-obsessed, those with connections in the media and those with lowest-common-denominator populist appeal.

That makes the UK a well functioning democracy then?

It would be interesting to understand how Australian dealt with it. It’s easy to see the contrast between Boris and Jacinda, but 3 months ago Scott Morrison would’ve been grouped together with Johnson and Trump as one of the new right wing leaders. Yet, Australian have dealt with COVID every bit as well as New Zealand. Has his (Or the individual states’) approach differed greatly from the U.K. approach? 

Can't quite see 6000 people turning up for an illegal rave during social distancing in New Zealand somehow...  Maybe it's just as much to do with the populaces of each country as it is the governments.

The photo of the rubbish left behind was unreal.

The governments can set the tone through careful messaging, which goes on to influence people’s behaviour.  Ours set a tone of no concern with thinks like the “hand shaking” comment and lining up to defend a special advisor who did what he wanted at the worst possible time.  

Very true - unfortunately.

Cheers, I deleted my post before seeing your reply, as it was a bit petulant of me (for anyone that is confused, I had a little whinge - not really directed at AndyC - about the use of "Just saying" after saying something )

Interesting data here: https://twitter.com/danc00ks0n/status/1272107759585165313?s=20

This guy has used Google data to estimate workplace activity across Europe during the pandemic.

The UK seems to have shut down harder than anywhere else. What is most striking is that workplace activity reduced by twice the amount that it did in Germany.

Looking back, the first recorded case of C19 in Germany was 27 January and they locked down on 22 March. The UK had its first case on 31 January and locked down on 23 March.

A cautionary tale on interpreting that post - the date he's presenting is June 4th, 2.5 months after lockdown started.  It's no surprise that the UK is locked down more than Germany at this point, as Germany hammered new cases down 6 weeks or so ago and has been returning to normal.

If you look at their video here [1] it's clear that the UK wasn't shut down harder than anywhere else, we've just been in the shutdown for much longer...  So the net economic effect is much worse, yet unlike all the other countries on the map it hasn't allowed us to beat the virus down into submission.

[1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/ql9nnxf020ihap3/COVID%20Lockdown%20EU%20Map%205th...

Norway is 8.5% or less BAME. UK is approximately 13.5% BAME, but the areas with some of the highest rates of Covid-19 infections and deaths have a BAME % in excess of 40% (Birmingham) or 47% (Leicester). I was trying to compare the situation in similar countries simply based on my personal experience. I wonder if New Zealand's BAME population as as geographically concentrated as they are in the UK? There are, of course, other factors and I do think that NZ have done a fantastic job.

New Zealand’s health minister hardly led by example.

Twice breaking lockdown guidelines yet not being sacked  by his prime minister.

Sound familiar?

Not really

• NZ - minister accepts they were wrong, apologies, tenders resignation but is instead demoted and told to keep working.
• UK - special advisor admits no wrong doing, gives incredibly brazen cock and bull story to the nation, facilitated by the prime minister no less.  No apology, no  tendering of resignation, no demotion.

The familiar part is a government person flouting the rules.  Everything that follows is dissimilar in the extreme.

But the Health Minister story does detract from your theory about setting the tone through good leadership which then goes on to influence people’s behaviour.

I don’t think so.  

The NZ response to the event reinforced the fundamental messages over there of the importance of lockdown for all - the minister has clearly done wrong, there was shame and contrition and there were negative consequences for the minister. It was made clear even ministers get told off for breaking the rules.  

Here we had the polar opposite.  We had the government endorsing an attitude of “I’m alright Jack, and I don’t give a monkeys what anyone else thinks”.

Bad things happen including government members taking the mickey, and it’s the response to them that makes the difference.  The NZ response was clear, proportionate, timely, and reinforced the key messages.  Ours, not so much.

Slightly, but i remember at the time it was made very clear he broke the rules and was very lucky not to be fired. Which meant the message from the gov was still consistent and clear. A minor bump dealt with very well.

Yes, I had a look at the video but thought the graph on the 4th page of the Tweet was clearer. The UK and Germany went into lockdown at pretty much the same time after detection of first case. Germany didn't lock down as hard as the UK but did use a lot of test and trace. Germany was able to come out of lockdown much earlier as you say.

That sounds a bit trite but given that the countries who have been most most successful in combating C19 have been [mainly?] those with aggressive test and trace strategies it strongly suggests to me that the problems we have experienced in the UK are at least in a large part due to not taking this approach.

This thread also suggests that peak of infections occurred pretty much as we went into Lockdown: https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1272228248848601091 

It would be interesting to compare this to other countries and also to see if it is possible to find a correlation between test and trace rates and the rate of reduction of infections.

There’s enough people in NZ who don’t think that the NZ prime ministers response was proportionate nor that it reinforced the key messages.

The response was clear - one rule for us, one rule for you.

Luckily the people of NZ appear not to have followed their health minister’s example.

You’ll notice that this is not a defence of Cummings’ or Johnson’s actions.

What makes you say that? No one i know over here has suggested that. And opinion polls suggest labour are doing well ahead of the elections this year because of their response to covid and the mosque attack last year.

The response was clear, one rule for all of us.

The population densities aren't remotely comparable to here in the UK though. I just had a check, and there are *at least* 70 UK cities with a population density higher than Aucklands. 

And even then, the lowest on that list (number 70) is still over twice as high as Aucklands. There's likely way over 100 cities with higher population densities. 

Then you need to factor in that Heathrow is an international hub airport. The second busiest airport on planet earth, in regards to international travel. 

There's so many factors that make comparing countries difficult when it comes to response. 

We botched our response, no doubt. But the idea we could have pulled off a miracle and stopped widespread infection is crazy talk imo. Our unique set of circumstances makes it difficult. It was going to happen regardless of what we did, short of closing down everything in January when we first heard about what was going on in China. But everyone would have complained. 

We could have done better though. 

No worries

Program on Radio 4 at the moment - "The Smack of Firm Leadership" - they were briefly discussing Merkel and other women leaders. 

Like Indira Gandhi? 

Yes but the health minister apologised immediately and said he was wrong to do it. Most of the public as I understand it, forgave him and his apology meant everyone kept to the lockdown.

I agree; I don’t think we could have pulled off an NZ level response but an order of magnitude less spread in cases should have been possible, and indeed was for eg Germany which is much closer to the UK than NZ in terms of travel links etc.

Have a look at figure 7 in the paper linked below.  I doubt the most compelling government could have convinced the UK to accept a travel shutdown with mandatory quarantine for returning residents in January or even early February but there’s a vast, vast gulf between that and what actually happened.

https://virological.org/t/preliminary-analysis-of-sars-cov-2-importation-es...

..and after the travellers get off the planes at Heathrow, mingle with thousands of others they probably get back onto another plane or take the underground into central London and get onto a train or a bus with lots of other people.

I've just looked at a map of infections per 100K of population for the UK,  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/14/coronavirus-uk-map-latest-dea...

and populaton density:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Isles_population_density_20...

I see a correlation.

Edit: In fact I proudly announced my findings to my wife and she already knew. At least in Scotland there's a known correlation. 

Err Bavaria was going into lockdown before the 13th when they declared a state of medical emergency and other states followed around the same time. The lockdown from the German government was produced later to try to introduce some coherent rules across the republic. The schools etc shut down on the 14th.

Outside of FB and Twitter echo chambers, I disagree. Even at the end of lockdown a significant minority wanted to continue lockdown further. Approval ratings for complete lockdown were in the region of 85%. In politics, that is overwhelmingly high. I know of very few individuals who *actually* disapprove of the government's handling of COVID (but a few more who want to make political capital it, as they can't possibly countenance a young, centre-left, woman making a success of anything - but when pushed will grudgingly admit "it was a good response by all of us" as an inelegant admission of support). I'm not sure how many your "enough" might be but I would guess a minority. 

I work in health so clearly I will have a biased opinion. I vaguely know the Health Minister (friend of friends) and agree he's made a colossal dick of himself by really not thinking through his actions. He is also genuinely contrite - and the drive of a few km for a thrash on the mountain bike is not really up to Barnard Castle levels of arrogant, calculating, machiavellian scheming). In the midst of a pandemic sacking the Health Minister probably isn't massively helpful (compare Neil Ferguson or the Scottish minister who had to resign) but he did get an almighty bollocking; the country have accepted that and moved on with his decisions now a minor footnote and object lesson to other politicians on how to threaten your career.

b

Fair enough but have a look at this graph:  https://twitter.com/danc00ks0n/status/1272141249269637120/photo/1

You'll see that activities in workplaces certainly started dropping within a day or two of each other. I note that as you say Germany started locking down around the middle of March but the UK wasn't far behind at all.

I wasn’t saying that the NZ people were critical of the PM’s handling of the Covid crisis but that they were not all happy with her handling of the health minister’s actions.

I’m certainly not going to argue with someone like yourself who actually lives in NZ and obviously has a far better handle on how things are perceived there.

A short drive for a bit of exercise, returning the same day? I've considered that fairly reasonable throughout (though, not driving, I've not been able to do it, and have travelled no more than 2.8km from home).

Hardly compares with travelling 260km while knowingly infected, and staying weeks with vulnerable relatives. Never mind the arrogant "it doesn't matter what you think", the utter lack of contrition, the bullshit story about the eyetest/family birthday outing, the enforced support from cabinet ministers and scientific advisors, and the silencing or sacking of anyone who refused to follow Cummings' edict and issue the required support.

Individual Länder started elements of lock down late February. Health is decided in Länder, not in Berlin.

Also mid march to UK lockdown is a week, at 20-30% daily growth that is 3 to 6 times more cases. Coincidentally Germany has 8000 deaths, we have 42000 deaths.

Deaths in Germany are declining faster too, down factor of ten in the time deaths here down by a factor of three.

There was a good article in FT about how Germany got it right.

https://www.ft.com/content/cc1f650a-91c0-4e1f-b990-ee8ceb5339ea

Population density isn't a reliable measure - how big the backyards are in Auckland (big!) doesn't affect the transmission rate. The true indicators are number of people and surfaces coming into contact on a daily basis. With regards to that - Auckland has very high numbers of private car ownership and relatively low public transport. This factors in. But the supermarkets, office buildings, childcare centres are all practically the same.

I completely agree - the whole debacle is a low point for UK politics, which in itself hasn't really demonstrated many highs over the last decade. Particularly the defending of the utterly indefensible. How they manage to keep a straight face and switch off their human decency and outright lie filters (that I assumed all of us have to some degree) is beyond comprehension.

I don't think anyone can reasonably say that DC was justified in any way (other than in his own mind, where the ends always justifies the means).  

The differences between Jacinda Ardern's response and Boris Johnson's supine rollover are polar opposites.

b

The Australia update... 102 deaths and not completely smooth sailing (e.g. 10% of cases linked to cruise ships, doh). But overall pretty good, as Helen R* said above, it has been very much a team "Australia" feel to it. 

The differences with the UK have been manifest - track and trace app was launched in April and people installed it, testing widely available and for anyone (regardless of symptoms, free obviously), political leadership has been mostly good (very good when it mattered, partisan politics put aside, a rare thing here). Yes, internal state borders are closed but large sectors of the economy have continued throughout.

The BIG change here will be next Monday when we can go and have a beer with 49 of your closest mates and no requirement to buy a meal

*Hi

I love the irony here:

- People lambasting the UK government response

- People lambasting Brits for not getting behind UK government decisions

I didn't criticise the gov response though (on here anyway!)

But people would have got behind the gov much more readily if they showed good leadership. Oops, i did criticise the gov...

Denmark - another country with a female prime minister - has also performed well (if not as well as Norway and Finland). What has impressed me most is the absolute clarity of the communications from the government combined with the way other stakeholders, such as unions (more than 70% of working Danes belong to a union), have been included in the decision-making process. The communication from my employer has been similarly clear. 

Life here has made significant returns to normal. 

As others have pointed out, population density is complex, involving a number of socio-economic factors. For example, I believe Stockholm has the highest rate of single person households in Europe. 

I think the tone was set early on when Johnson told people not to go to the pub, and within hours, his father was popping up telling the world and his wife that he'd be going to the pub if he felt like it. 

Is it really? I would be disappointed if NZ had not been out of this pretty quickly. It’s not Europe or any of the other big country’s. Pretty isolated. 

What has population density got to do with it? Close to home: Guernsey. Enormous population density, excellent covid response and outcome.

Further from home: Vietnam. Population density same as the UK. No advance warning, few of the economic power and development benefits we should have enjoyed, big tourism and travel economy. Incredible response and outcome.

Britain's 'throughput' continually re-seeding infections in the midst of a pandemic was a political choice, we have control of our borders, the leaders you chose, those whose choices you're here to defend chose not to exercise it. The price: tens of thousands of lives.

You were right when you came on here weeks ago claiming 'we're not Italy'. We're much much worse, as was abundantly clear even then.

It's a developed country with cities and all the same issues others have plus a significant tourism economy, the choice to lock down hard and early wasn't cost free, the virus wasn't stopped by oceans, rolling hills and picket fences. Geography didn't save them, exceptional leadership did just as it has condemned us.

As an economic conservative I'm surprised you're not a little miffed at the position they've put us in. There's nothing pent up about my frustration with our excuse for a government, it isn't frustration, it is pure incandescent rage.

Bravo New Zealand and all the others who really did make the right choices at the right time, the future is yours now.

jk

How about Guernsey where I live then?

1) International finance centre with people coming and going all the time from all over the place to organise their money laundering and tax evasion & avoidance (many through Heathrow & Gatwick)

2) Population with generally similar outlook and culture to the mainland UK

4) Law and order generally similar to the UK

4) One of the highest population densities in the world - 965/km2 England 430/km2. 

45 days no new cases, coming out of lockdown completely* on saturday. We locked down on the 23rd March, with self-isolation restrictions for incomers depending on place of origin for about 2 weeks leading up to that. We locked down harder and tested and traced harder than mainland UK, but consequently got things under control properly and have been able to come back out of lockdown faster.  We only locked down because we weren't getting test results back from the UK fast enough for test and trace to work, it was taking up to 5 days to get a result back.  Now we have our own testing ability we should be able to test and trace effectively. 

* we will still have 2 weeks self-isolation for incoming travellers with max £10k fine (plus the same for their employer if it's a work trip).  One guy has already been fined £7k. The problem we have with opening borders is most of our travel links are with mainland UK and the UK hasn't got itself in order. Travel 'bridges' with countries with low prevalence of the virus are going to be investigated seriously iminently.

That doesn't explain why Austria, Greece, Norway, Croatia, Portugal, Czechia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania are doing far better than the UK.

Isn't that to be expected? An effective lockdown causes the 'peak' rather than coinciding with it, without lockdown the peak we observe would have just been another part of the exponential growth curve which would have eventually 'peaked' as natural or regulatory restrictions brought R under 1.

jk

We are talking about NZ not those other countries.

If at the start of a pandemic you had the choice of one country you could go to it would be NZ for the blatantly obvious reasons.

It is hardly surprising in the overall scheme of a global pandemic.I am surprised that people are surprised.

Also an excellent Public Health Director , who is a bit of a heroine on the Island so sources tell me.

Brother lives in Vietnam so feedback is as follows.

It has a very disciplined post Communist population who do exactly as they are told( in his words ff the govt says jump, you jump- no questions asked). Lack of obesity and other health issues which are found in Western Europe.

If you have a choice of countries you are considering other countries.

Are you not surprised by Croatia then? Similar population to NZ and few deaths. Does it share the blatantly obvious with NZ?

Just been listening to an official from NZ on radio 2, apparently they followed a SARS model and we followed a flu model. 

By all accounts you can't test and trace flu but you can SARS and C19. 

Well, they don’t have our government!  Perhaps that’s why ClimberEd thinks it’s not sensible to compare the UK with anywhere else.  Currently we are peerless.

I have for example no idea how they have performed in their care homes .There are lots of countrys who have performed better ( although it is fair to point out that the pandemic is not over, so we still have someway to go before the figures are all tottted up).There are also countrys who have just as bad totals as the UK.We are not particulary unique- are we?Nor is Croatia and others at the other end.

But I come back to the main point. We would all be off to NZ if we could.... it is not a surprise.

Probably because they learnt from South Korea etc, when really NZ is a Pacific not a European country ( which is what we think they are)

There are few developed nations doing as badly as the UK (US, Italy, Spain, Belgium, perhaps few enough to remember). The developed nations doing better are too many to remember.

We might wish to be off to NZ, but it's not necessary. Importing a run of the mill government from a developed nations would suffice.

You are still in denial we ARE unique in the western world in the per capita excess deaths (and excess deaths in care homes) being top. Top in Europe on numbers as well. What makes that much worse is that EU countries nearest to us in these shameful statistics were hit harder, earlier (less time to plan) and in the added stress of flu season.  The UKs response as regarded internationally is also generally top or second (to the US) of the worst.

I thought we imported 1300 cases from Spain and that there was no patient zero. Being a major transport hub for Europe would probably mean we were uniquely placed and it’s no surprise we had a massive problem that accelerated out of control more quickly than expected and didn’t meet the models.  
 

The other European countries Germany, Italy, Spain, France seem to have had similar problems.

In my view France, Germany and the UK are similar economically and with simailar set ups.Germany is the only one to have come so far with a superb track record.If France was the same as Germany then I would agree.

A mixed bag of results.

The pandemic is still not over we have a long way to go( unless you think it is all finished). Uk's figures could be even worse by the time the pandemic is over or better.

It didn't accelerate faster than expected.  It accelerated just as fast as it did in China and then in Italy.  Nobody presented any credible evidence as to why the UK would be different - and in hindsight you and others are keen to point out the reasons why we were more exposed than Italy and China, so if anything we should have expected it to accelerate faster than it did in those places.

So, if it's no surprise, then why on Earth didn't we take stricter action sooner?

Indeed it seems a lot of medical professionals and epidemiologists were saying this loudly and clearly back in early March.  Here are 229 scientists saying this in mid-march

http://maths.qmul.ac.uk/~vnicosia/UK_scientists_statement_on_coronavirus_me...

Italy and Spain had overwhelmed hospitals. Covid deaths soar in such circumstances as do effects on the system to cope with other illness. The UK had none of that, no flu shock and all that extra notice and yet we came off worse. Our per capita excess deaths are double that of France, 20% more than Italy and just above Spain (but people in the UK still dying at a faster rate).

https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

What are heart disease, Diabetes and obesity figures like around Europe? 

22 deaths in NZ, 16 of them(at least) in care homes.

Maori and Pacific Islanders more affected than Pākehā.

Older more affected than younger.

Underlying conditions adding to chance of serious effects.

All health boards across the country reported infections

We need to not conflate the issues of spread and lethality. Countries that did well controlled the spread, countries with young/fit skewed populations and poor control of spread still get lots of deaths. 

Britain's response is indefensable.

Jk

You can have 100 times fewer deaths by controlling the spread.

You can't have 100 times fewer deaths by being better doctors.

I do not believe that the French are particularly pleased with the way things have gone.

There are quite a few countrys out there which are not particularly happy. And if you speak to Russians, put your phone well away from your ears.

We didn't import cases from Spain and Italy because we're a transport hub, we did because we foolishly kept hosting international football after the away teams had closed their grounds due to rampant outbreaks, we didn't advise against ski holidays long after they were clearly a serious source of infection. The problem wasn't flight changes at Heathrow!

Yes but none mismanaged anywhere nearly as badly as ours has been, most now well along the road toward a manageable new norm. We may or may not be, I wouldn't bet either way at the moment.

jk

"Not as bad as despotic Russia" is not much of an endorsement.

People do come to London for overnight stays before continuing on. 
 

We had 1m people overseas. What do we do, just leave them there? 
 

Based on what? That a few people might have a virus? 

Yes but that was a political choice to allow them to keep doing so at the cost of thousands, probably tens of thousands of British lives. Even ignoring the human cost, looking only at the money we took from them we must balance that now against the cost of a worse outbreak, a longer lockdown and a less clear route back to normality as a direct result of the infection chains they started.

Other countries brought them home with measured and clearly prescribed precautions, mostly self isolation (adequate and and easy sell) or quarantine in hotels (better from a PH perspective). Even issuing advice not to travel to hot spots would have given clear warning and allowed people to make insurance claims on cancelled travel but again the instinct was for corporate over public protection, the irony being both were ultimately shafted by the inaction.

I'm not sure what this relates to, sorry, do you mean why wouldn't I bet we're on the road to slow faltering recovery or a second wave and second lockdown? If so, yes, because there is still quite a lot of virus in circulation and that looks to be the new norm as we aim to manage R around 1. Plus it isn't especially clear which control measures keep R low while maximising our socio economic activity so fine tuning in the weeks to come to maintain balance will likely prove hit and miss since we don't yet really understand the efficacy or consequences of more targeted sectororal and regional control measures on the virus and an economy being weaned off its life support. Nor do we know how a tidalwave of unemployment and the resulting social tension will impact our ability to control the virus and maintain something like normal economic activity, if those people are all pushed back onto universal credit we have a homelessness epidemic shortly followed by a another banking system collapse coming, if they're not, if personal social security provision is maintained more in line with the furlough scheme than UC the right wing of the party threatens the government's stability. We still have interesting times ahead.

jk

Based on a solid evidence base that tens of thousands of those people would have been exposed to a virus that tore the arse out of Wuhan province and required previously unseen levels of confinement to get back under control and that was repeatedly shown to be spread by peoples without symptoms and that right from the start was suspected to kill medics through viral load.

To dismiss the weight of evidence back in early March as “that a few people might have the virus” is astounding.  Did you read the open letter I posted?  That came after two weeks of many experts outside of government saying exactly the same thing.  Now look at the timeline on figure 7 on my other reference on this thread.  We had bloody solid reason to believe disaster was about to hit and we did basically nothing.

Why do you paint the only option as leaving 1m people abroad?  It’s not hard to find some middle grounds, say quarantining returnees from the worst affected countries, and if they go on to develop symptoms contact tracing travellers who sat near them on aircraft for self isolation?  That seems proportionate to the weight of evidence at the time over a thousand infected people streamed in to the UK.

No. What’s with all the doom and gloom. Housing market is already picking up. Queues outside retail outlets. I have a full order book...

What I mean is that when it hit the U.K., the only other countries that had been affected were China and Italy. We were still learning about the virus. France, Spain and Germany also just seeing their first infections. It was supposed to grow exponentially and it wasn’t even proved to be transmitted via asymptomatic means. You can’t shut down a country on ‘might be’. It was also thought to be a lung disease treatable by ventilators...
 

New Zealand on the other hand were over 8 weeks behind Europe before they saw their first infection. It’s all very well, saying New Zealand handled it really well, they had a lot of examples to learn from and a lot more information on how it spread, who it affected and what the effects were. 

Well apart from the dozen or so medical studies dating back to between mid February and mid March that you keep ignoring.  I’ve linked some of them before.  There was hard epidemiological evidence by mid February that people without symptoms were spreading the virus.  Western medical experts did the epidemiology and published it.  

Even if that dozen or so studies don’t meet your evidential standard under any sensible approach to risk management their highly severe consequences make them worth taking seriously at a probability level well below 50/50, and I’d say those studies put them at or above that level.

We knew it was ruddy lethal and spread like wildfire from data out of China and then Italy.  When faced with lots of data points on why it was likely so, what’s more sensible, (1) doing nothing in the hope new data appears contradicting what had already come to pass in Wuhan or (2) taking sensible precautions early on. 

Answers on a postcard...

They have now identified the Covid strain as mainly coming from Italy, Spain and France. Did they know that back in March ?

And France?  

That is the paper I linked up thread.  Who knows what the government knew then, they don’t exactly believe in openness.  The well publicised case of the British businessman who brought it back from Singapore back in early February was a pretty obvious clue about what was happening and that it was into European ski resorts and spreading out from them.

New Zealand had stopped Chinese visitors earlier. 
 

Still goes back to my earlier point. Is anybody really surprised that NZ has done well . 

I thought Ferguson had said the other week at the HofL that it is only know now they knew it come from Europe?

Even something as simple as taking temperature at airports would have helped, taking contact details for tracing purposes. 

Personally I would have enforced quarantine on anyone coming to the country. 

As I have said before when a mate of mine came back from China in late January he wasn't checked in any way, he was given no advice so he rang NHS 111 off his own back and was told because he was showing no symptoms he was fine to back to his public facing job despite just spending 18 hours in 3 different metal tubes in close proximity to hundreds of other people.

Fortunately word got round the office and the other 30 public facing people told the manager that they would all be off sick if my mate went back in on the Monday so he was given 2 weeks extra leave and didn't get ill, probably wasn't asymptomatic either because there was not an outbreak at his work when he did go back. 

He can say what he likes, the evidence was there from epidemiology / contact tracing back in February that it was in continental ski resorts and was spreading across Europe as tourists went home.  It was in the English language papers and the medical literature.  It was enough for me to cancel a visit to a physio in early March because they’d just returned from skiing in Italy.  My back is still feeling that decision...

Have a look at figure 7 in this for a recent analysis - https://virological.org/t/preliminary-analysis-of-sars-cov-2-importation-es...

More surprised we did so badly given our advantages such as NHS and advanced warning of watching Italy.

Personally I no problem with those uk  dates on lockdown.  I was in hospital having urgent treatment done which would have been postponed. I suspect that was part of the risk that they had to balance. I saw  a department being restructured to cope. My own view is that it allowed them breathing space to switch the nhs to managing the crises. Only a personal opinion though. 

Swings and roundabouts - an earlier lockdown may have meant a shorter lockdown - different winners and losers for non-covid healthcare, but more winners than losers with an earlier lockdown.

After much discussion from the scientists within my organisation shut down face-to-face contact representing perhaps 150,000 contact hours about 10 days before lockdown.  Businesses up and down the country were making similar decisions, and many households I know started to isolate well before lockdown.  Much of this was against government guidance at the time.

I shudder to think what would have happened had a lot of people not been more on-the-ball than their government.  

Again. You can’t prove that would have been the case without the benefit of hindsight. 

I just don’t think you understand what you’re talking about if you think hindsight comes in to this.  Did you read the letter I linked from March from several hundred scientists?  Saying in foresight what the government’s scientists are saying in hindsight.  You might write me off as a random internet punter but take a look at the signatories on the open letter - how do you write off their foresight?  The last sentence effectively pleading for a way in to SAGE.  It’s clear things really didn’t work well here.

Also it’s bloody obvious that lockdown slows transmission and therefore deaths, and the sooner you lock down in the exponential phase the less infection and therefore deaths there are.  Most governments understood this whilst ours came out with the frankly nonsensical “waiting for the right time” claptrap. Which only makes sense if your goal is either herd immunity or killing off a load of old and vulnerable people.

Yep. Petitions to nominate her for a knighthood going round.  Being a virologist by trade helps though  https://gsy.bailiwickexpress.com/gsy/news/who-dr-brink/#.Xuf0SOd7lGM

So the nudge strategy was bearing fruit?

I think the U.K. gov made some key errors - they clearly overplayed the idea of lockdown fatigue (perhaps assuming that we are all like Dom). In addition they hoped to persuade rather than enforce, and they felt that because we were well prepared for Flu, we were well prepared for C-19.

If you're worried about 'lockdown fatigue', then you're better off locking down early, to limit the peak in rapid exponential growth, and keep that curve low, allowing the lockdown to be relaxed sooner, as numbers of infected fall to manageable levels.

Imagine how much sooner we would have reached current levels of infection and death if we'd locked down a week earlier; pre-lockdown R was about 3.5, and post-lockdown about 0.8. That means a fast rise and slow decay. Catch that fast rise early, limit the peak, and the slow decay reaches current levels much sooner.

And their run of virus free days is broken by......people travelling from the UK!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53059633

Just read that. One of the pair traveled once there despite having mild symptoms.

But as I said earlier...lightweight and mobile:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/121850292/government-suspends-com...

Indeed, NZ will inevitably handle these things well. Just goes to show though how much of a risk the UK is to this global effort to try and suppress the virus. Our borders should be closed to protect the rest of the world! 

For me and the people I knew it wasn't the "nudge strategy" it was the international news and the pre-prints forming a mental picture.  It sounds similar for Dax and his colleagues in a post above.

I expect we'll all find out at some point.  The thing I don't understand about "lockdown fatigue" is that it's bally obvious that the later one locks down the harder and/or longer one has to lock down, so saying it's being delayed to reduce fatigue just doesn't make sense to me.

The problem is you can’t just lockdown everyone or you risk huge damage to businesses. We have 10,000 people in our building. It took a week to get everyone who could already work from home, working from home and checking the system could handle that level. Then it took another couple of weeks to get everyone else either working from home or re-organising the offices so that they could still come in. In all it was 6 weeks before the building was empty. 
 

That was at enormous cost and disruption. 
 

Trying to persuade businesses to spend millions of pounds in this way would have been practically impossible given only the evidence from China and Italy. 

Given that they were attending the funeral of a parent there’s a good chance that they were NZ nationals returning home.

They were. 

Yes you can. It was done.

Just because something takes time does not mean it has to be delayed.

Everything you describe could have been done earlier with far less cost and disruption.

You’re still ignoring my last line. 
 

It couldn’t and so it wasn’t. 

That makes no difference, they came from the UK, everyone coming from the UK is a risk to whichever country they are going to. 

My brother didn't come over from Australia for my father's funeral as it was felt too irresponsible to travel. Plenty of people are not attending funerals due to this. "We" (not me, or many on here, but our country) have voted in a shower of incompetent clowns and we now have to deal with the consequences of that. Unfortunate if you are a foreign national and didn't get the option to vote. We still all have to deal with this shitshow because our nation couldn't vote for someone who could lead.

Yet it would have been easier if government messaging had been clear and consistent from January that we must plan for such a lockdown if it becomes necessary.  There were two months where organisations could have spent a small fraction of the cost preparing contingency plans incase they were needed which would have made it easier, faster, lass risky (business wise) and more acceptable to shutdown when it became necessary.  Although I would expect an organisation of > 10,000 in a building to have a disaster recovery plan for sudden loss of facility already...

The government did not persuade businesses to spend a penny. They used the law to "persuade". That could and should have been done earlier to save lives, shorten the lockdown, save jobs and save money.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2020/7/contents/enacted

This is what we did in my organisation. We'd activated and updated our business continuity plans, and most areas had already run practice remote working days in the two weeks leading up to the NZ lockdown. We had a comms plan, had identified essential staff and processes, had decision making structures for the tricky stuff in place. In the end, NZ had 2.5 days warning of full lockdown (which was earlier and stricter than we'd expected). Some people worked so hard in those few days (I was getting phone calls at 11 at night), but it went surprisingly smoothly.

NZ was probably better prepared than most for this. We had these mostly in anticipation of natural disasters, we'd learnt from colleagues in Christchurch, and in fact, as we still had power, water and comms, it was much easier than the plans anticipated. But again, clear messaging from the government with clear expectations helped enormously. 

Two people chose to travel from the U.K. to another country.

They were in quarantine in NZ but despite one of them displaying symptoms they attended a funeral.

And somehow this is the fault of the U.K. government?

A very good point.  The lack of “proper” natural disasters in the UK means business resilience isn’t tested by fire very often and perhaps doesn’t always get the serious treatment it should.

And yet even we’ll prepared government isn’t immune from criticism -

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328348

There are a number of sectors of the economy which had pandemic plans in place and had been forced down that route by the Gov.In particular Financial Services ( which as we all know is huge in the UK) organisations linked with the Bank of England had pandemic plans.It is why instituitions like the Banks and Stock Exchange etc easliy switched over. Whole trading floors in the City changed. These plans were rehearsed. Nothing to do with Covid in particular, they were part of resilience planning.

My daughter works as a software developer for a fintech company in securites automation, their plan was 2 years old. they had rehearsed it in autumn, checked it in February and then implemented it.

It will be the same on critical infrastructure.

If the plans work well, you do not hear about them.But let us say we have not had power, water and " cash" issues.So it is fair to say the planning for those sectors worked.

Could we have been better prepared? Absolutely. As ben b said above, some of the recent modelling suggests that if lockdown had been delayed by just a few days, our under-resourced health system could have been swamped.

But, as BruceM points out, NZ is quick to pivot. Just today, a complete shake up of the district health board system recommended:
 https://nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12340227 

Never let a crisis go to waste...

I would agree that NZ should probably never have let them in in the first place or not granted permission to leave the quarantine facility. However, we have a crazy number of infected people, so this will continue to happen. And our high rate of infections is the govs fault. Our borders should be shut until they can sort out our mess rather than unlocking everything willy nilly and pretending we are ok. We are not!

Sorry, it wasn’t a criticism of NZ policy just an observation that there’s always someone who thinks that they know better.

I’m not sure that a total closure of U.K. borders is possible.

The recent cases in NZ show the difficulties of coming out of a lockdown in international terms.

Eradicating the virus domestically is one thing but international travellers pose a huge problem.

The Isle of Man has a similar dilemma - lockdown eased on the island but closed to anyone but residents.

All good. (And it's usually an academic )

I'd actually have liked to have seen a bit more scrutiny of the gov response in NZ. There was nothing I didn't agree with, and I support the actions that were taken. But it was handled very tightly, with little access and limited scrutiny except by the online panel. The few press asking tricky questions were lambasted in social media. It's been great to see the country pulling together, and we've had a great result (so far) but there should always be room for a little robust debate.

Of course we can close the borders!! Shut the airports to passenger flights and same with ferry terminals and the tunnel. It can be done. It needs a leader who will take it seriously though.

As for reopening, if we all take it seriously at a domestic level, eventual reopening becomes much simpler. Only other countries with low rates get to fly in, and if we can actually get track and trace functioning (much simpler to do when infections are low) then that is how we continue to monitor it as we unlock. 

What do we do about all the goods delivered by HGV, vans, etc from Europe?

As in all that trade that if stopped or delayed would cripple the U.K. - as discussed extensively in the Brexit debate?

I said passenger!

I know you did.

However, it hardly closing the borders if there’s thousands of potential virus carriers not only allowed into the country each day but, by the very nature of their job, also travelling around the country and meeting people.

They should have been tested before leaving the UK.

They were supposed to have been tested in NZ when in quarantine but weren't.

Testing is key.

The lack of anyone to vote for who was capable of leading is probably a bigger factor than "our nation's" poor voting.

No, it's a clear illustration of how we'll end up isolated, a pariah as other nations bring their outbreaks to heel following near-eradication strategies our plan increasingly appears to be live with it at or about this intensity but basically pretend it's not happening.

It's unfortunate for the UK to be highlighted as a seed of new NZ cases but hardly surprising, countries that have done well will inevitably hold up a light to those that have mismanaged their crisis as Britain has.

Jk

Countries which have eradicated the virus are the ones with the dilemma.

Any migration into those countries risks another outbreak, no matter how small.

Criticism of our government is all well and good but right now we need solutions.

Our concern, being where we are and not where we might have been, is how to live with the virus.

I don't think anyone replied you here yet?

So masks... they've talked about it, but have not come out recommending face coverings (yet). I was thinking about your question today, as I went for a walk downtown at lunchtime for the first time, so I counted. It was less than half as busy as 'normal', fewer tourists and many are still working from home, but there were plenty of people about. I saw a total of 3 people wearing masks. (Well, 4. But the 4th had it round his chin while smoking a cigarette). All were (at quick glance) elderly Asian people, a demographic who often wore masks 'pre-covid'. This compares with just before lockdown, where I did see more than usual numbers wearing masks in the supermarket (but still low numbers). 

For tracing, there is an govt app, and you can scan into shops, libraries, etc and some workplaces via QR code. Before restrictions were completely lifted it was stricter... restaurants took all your details for example, but now it's voluntary. I think about 20% of the population have downloaded the app, but I haven't seen widespread usage now we're at 'level 1'. I think everyone's hoping (assuming?) there's no virus out there. The cases announced today might change behaviour again.

We know at work that if there's a case we'll be shut for 2 weeks with little (or no) notice. I think it will depend if more  isolated cases turn up, people might be a bit more cautious. But today, apart from being a little quieter than normal, you wouldn't know there was a pandemic going on.

There is no dilemma; you bar entry for travellers from those countries (such as the UK) until such time as they catch up, or use more prison like quarantine conditions for arrivals (you know, a bit like we did for the cruise ship types in Ellesmere Port in Jan / Feb until we decided it wasn't necessary.....).

Given that this is likely to isolate us from large parts of the world at a time when that really isn't good, we need to get from where we are to where we need to be asap. Which is as virus free as possible. The concern is how to get those idiots in Clowning Street to realise that as well.

International travelers become a big problem if the infection spreads inside the country they enter. Even if a traveler infects ten* people (R=10) because they go to hotels, bars, family events or tourist attractions it only becomes a huge problem if those ten people infect more than ten people (R>1).  That is determined by R for locals within the country.

The measures to contain community infections are the measures that deal with international travel.

*hopefully you keep R much less by quarantine, temperature tests before/after boarding flights, blood tests etc

Listen to, learn from, defer to, shamelessly plagiarise from and hire on secondment from successful countries, back those you hire to the hilt.

The UK is not exceptional, it is entirely business as usual for the virus.

Commit to making the timely and difficult decisions on the basis of uncertain information.

Find out if it works, then negotiate a licence for the app used in Australia since April.

Master the detail.

Don't be an innumerate imbecile who can't extrapolate from a few cases growing at 20% per day. 

Don't be an invisible coward.

We can live with the virus indefinitely provided we assume outbreaks WILL occur and make sure they die out rather than explode. That depends on keeping R low indefinitely or letting R rise but having the political courage and competence to respond as soon as an outbreak is detected.

You may find this of interest.

https://www.academia.edu/42829792/What_Went_Wrong_Corona_and_the_World_afte...

I don't agree that poses much of a dilemma. Small outbreaks can be contained by countries capable of eradication, while they fight those fires few people die, life goes on pretty normally. People understand the compromises necessary and good governments will maintain public trust in the balances they strike. 

In countries with a pretend we can't eradicate, pretend it's not happening policy individuals are forced to weigh their health against their need to function economically, those dilemmas result in injustice and ultimately economic dysfunction. As international business opens up countries maintaining high infection levels will find themselves increasingly isolated. Ultimately we may need to go through the pain of lockdown twice to get back into step with our peers. 

Developing good policy requires we examine and understand our failures and those of others, that we hold those in power to account, without consequences we cannot expect them to consistently act responsibly in the public interest. So yes, now is the time to critique. 

Living with as little of it as is practically possible makes that much easier, safer and more equitable.

Jk

I take it you have no elderly family living abroad? 

The solution here, in this case, is not to shut the border.: reading this, first time I thought was 'WTF, they released them early from quarantine without testing? In a country that's eradicated the virus?' Stupid in capitals! I mean, why would take that risk, throw all that away?? Test & re-test. We have the technology. 

I hope that I don't need to get to Ireland urgently: my dad lives there and is 86. If he was dying, I'd either go there legally or illegally (if I could somehow - get to NI and travel south). I think legally would be best, after a test and re-test.

No, but my brother couldn't come over for my Dad's funeral last month. So yes, I understand the problem, but there is a global pandemic and we have to treat it with that level of severity! 

Indeed, that does seem daft. It also sounds like one of them played down there symptoms as part of another condition. 

However, they were in the UK, contracted it here, so I see it as our problem and our fault. People should not be leaving here while we have high rates of infection! As a country, we were irresponsible at the outset, now is the time to start being responsible and not put the rest of the world in our position!

Testing is not a great indicator of you not having it. A positive test is accurate, but a negative is not necessarily. There is a 30% false negative rate. 

It was sufficient while the rest of lockdown was in place, infections were still dropping so I guess they were not largely carrying the virus in. Presumably freight being flown in gets picked up by local lorries etc, so you are just looking at a skeleton crew flying the plane. Land and ferry freight drivers presumably don't actually interact much with the general population as they sleep in their trucks. 

...and that's going to take quite some time given the relaxation in restrictions. The number of live cases in the UK is dropping, but sooner or later the relaxed restrictions are going to see them rise again before they get down to a level that other countries will remove travel restrictions at.  The government is getting into an impossible situation - they need to tighten lockdown / test and trace better to get the case volumes down, yet people and the economy don't want a second lockdown and government doesn't want to admit it's screwed up.

Edit - interestingly, Germany looks to have halved its live cases from the 24th May, and the UK from the 22nd, so the rate of decline in the UK hasn't been too bad in comparison. However, the UK still has about 4x the number of live cases by my calculations, and of course isn't testing as thoroughly.

This is where 'travel bridges' / bubble expansions come in - you only let in people from places in as good a situation as your own country.  As more countries eradicate the virus so your national bubble expands.  Anyone who really wants to travel will do the quarantine / testing necessary for other destinations.  Anyone who really wants to go on holiday will go to a country available to them via a travel bridge.

Whatever else, really sorry to hear about your dad and your brother. A terrible situation. 

When you say Germany is testing more thoroughly, what do you mean?  Certainly in terms of crude numbers the UK has performed about twice as many tests per capita than Germany.

Who's in charge of our response to Covid?

No dilemma. Plus, the bigger picture. Yes, the current state is hurting the tourism of both NZ and Australia, but in August travel between the two will be allowed. Over time that bubble will be extended, E.g. Vietnam. 

The longer term implications for the “brand” of countries like NZ are hugely positive. I expect that tourism from China, India etc. will bounce back and grow. Ag exports will boom due to trust in the reputation of the brand, people want clean, safe food. Handling a crisis well on the world stage and a tag line of 100% Pure NZ... if you were buying baby formula for the most precious thing in your life, which country would you buy from??

NZ barely produces anything on the global stage. It is not comparable. 

I would be more excited about this, but the only work trip this year that's not been cancelled is to Canberra.

PS. Hi back! Hope all is good with you

Exactly.  Such a pathetic little country:

"Below are the 15 countries that exported the highest dollar value worth of milk during 2019, encompassing both unsweetened and unsweetened varieties of product.

1. New Zealand: US$6.3 billion (21.8% of total milk exports)

2. Germany: $2.9 billion (10.2%)

3. Netherlands: $2.4 billion (8.4%)

4. United States: $1.9 billion (6.7%)

5. Belgium: $1.8 billion (6.4%)

6. France: $1.7 billion (5.8%)

..."

I feel your pain - I had a meeting that was meant to be in Budapest last week. Instead, I get to go to Invercargill.

I know the Antarctic Riviera is lovely but 4 degrees vs the blue Danube in June....

Swap you Canberra for Invervegas?

b

We're an island, you idiot. Even landlocked countries in the EU managed to close their borders! For a government who's central policy involves taking back control of our borders, it should be "the easiest deal ever" to close the borders. Or we could keep them open, with quarantine and testing for all arrivals, like other countries.

So just think about that a bit. They have found 2 cases, at the point of arrival. We aren't even testing arrivals.

Only if you let them become internal travellers. If you eradicate domestically, then by quarantine, test, track and trace, you can identify all potential sources of new cases.

but they can make a sensible plan as to how to open up while minimising and controlling risk.

Remember the Brexit debate where it was often said that even a short delay at Dover would totally disrupt our supply chain?

And you want a complete shut down of that link plus the tunnel and all other commercial ports? Or maybe we could just quarantine all those drivers for two weeks.

The NZ authorities didn’t discover their two recent Covid cases on arrival.
Thanks for calling me an idiot.

Not a chance matey. I've already done my required time in Invercargill for this year. (On the way to stewart island tramping, but still....).

The wind whistles through like nowhere else. It was freezing in Feb, so in June... enjoy!

Seriously though, the cases today might show up some issues in the NZ quarantine system. Listening to Jacinda today, I wouldn't be surprised if we go back to level 2 (serious social distancing, small gatherings only) if they find further breaches/cases in the next few days. Fingers crossed it was a one off. Any view from the health side?

Still true, but as pointed out by someone upthread, that is for goods, which dont carry the virus. We are talking about people, who do.

No need; get a EU based driver to drop it at (say) calais; use port loading / unloading facilities to transport, use UK based driver in the UK. This happens already; it would just need to become the standard for a while.

Didn't they? Ok, I thought they did.......i sit corrected.

No sweat, snowflake   *

* This is UKC. I regard these discussions as "Pub style banter". I don't actually regard you as a genuine idiot, even though you are pushing it on occasion.............

But what it does produce is as economically essential to New Zealanders as what you produce is to you. Countries that handled this crisis well are now or very soon will be well placed to reconnect with each other, start trading, travelling and earning again. We are not.

jk

New Zealand have now installed martial law!

Well, they’ve put the army in charge anyway. 
 

Interesting when you listen to the Prime Ministers of Iceland and New Zealand when asked why they did better than other countries, they say, mainly luck and demographics. Comparing different countries isn’t very helpful. 

No they haven't.

It's only been put in charge of quarantine. Let's hope it pays off promptly without having to increase population level restrictions, we know they can ultimately regain control having just watched them do it.

Modesty. Demographics by which we mostly in this context mean population age profile have little to do with limiting the spread of the virus, only how many it kills if it spreads.

Were you saying in March that comparisons are unhelpful while our outbreak had yet to surface and Italy was getting hammered, was their problem back then bad luck or another example of poor government?

jk

Do you have links for Prime Ministers of Iceland and New Zealand saying it was mainly luck and demographics as such modesty is pretty uncharacteristic for a politician.

They’ve cut bits out but here you go. 
 

youtube.com/watch?v=z8IfA9CAT-I&

Thanks for that. One day you’ll spot when someone is being serious I suppose. Of course they haven’t imposed martial law. 
 

But I strongly suggest that we would never employ those methods here. The population wouldn’t entertain it. It’s difficult enough to get people to allow an app on their phone. 
 

I’ve linked to yesterday’s edition of Good Morning where you can see a lucky and humble prime minister. 

I doubt it, partly a wiring thing in my head, partly an internet Poe's law thing. Neither is getting fixed any time soon

Really, we were positively sold stories of the army managing logistics, building and staffing field hospitals, they're currently running testing stations all over the place. It's no leap at all from there to managing quarantine centres is it?

The bigger leap is managed quarantine in hotels/sanitariums rather than home isolation. We might get there as the caseload becomes manageable, a significant part of our problem does seem to have been long transmission chains within families.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if our 14 day self isolation quarantine policy falls apart pretty soon because it's basically pointless, isolating and there is little public respect for it or the government imposing it. If the government are adamant about maintaining and enforcing the policy (unlikely, it looks like misjudged populist tokenism) we will almost certainly need to call on the forces in some capacity as home isolation is unlikely to be and be perceived to be widely respected.

jk

I haven't seen any government communication pushing me to download an app.

And, since it's been developed by one of Cummings chums, I would certainly be reluctant. That may prove your point, but it also shows the level of distrust that this government has managed to achieve.

This is exactly what happens here all the time. The trailers get dropped off at a yard in Portsmouth port, the stevedores put them on the ferry, stevedores here take them off the ferry and put them in a trailer park at the top of the ramp and local hauliers pick them up later.  It may not be as convenient or cheap as having a driver stay with their rig, but it's certainly doable.

When it mattered at the start of the outbreak Germany tested better than the UK did.  The UK has tested more overall because they've had to due to a higher level of infection overall which has dragged on.

Humility and science seemed to feature more prominently than luck.

yes - but that does not translate well to the situation now which you alluded to in your initial statement regarding current case numbers.

Is the app still a thing? i must admit i've stopped watching any of the daily briefings / Question & "Answer" sessions, but it all seems to have gone very quiet on the app front......

Likewise.

Should be ready by winter, apparently...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53083340

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53069690

Wow.  There was some talk of Apple and Google releasing a generic app directly to developing countries where the government couldn’t get their own app together using the Apple+Google API.  Perhaps we could join that list...

Just in time, then.

What's the betting Cummings' chum will pay back the millions they've been paid, due to non-delivery on contract...?

Or maybe said 'conract' was simply a time & materials contract with no delivery terms...

Maybe they're just very modest, unlike ours, who'll take credit for anything even things they didn't achieve.

It's not very helpful, when you're topping the league tables of "shittest responses".

For our politicians...

One assumes if we wanted modest politicians we would elect them. 
 

We are not Iceland or Sweden or New Zealand or, thank god, America. 

It’s a huge leap from having the army helping out to having them run something. 
 

It’s something that, in Britain, is very carefully avoided. 

Demographics and when the virus arrived is the luck part. Parts of the interview have been cut. 

I heard this morning it'll be "ready for winter". Quite a departure from the messaging we had a few weeks back! 

I'd assume it's a complete failure which won't be widely used even when it is rolled out because of data security concerns, because it exposes people to the risk of multiple periods of 'sick' in a highly stressed job market and because all being well by the time it eventually arrives we won't have much virus at large anyway.

Jk

What exactly do you mean by demographics?

We had weeks of watching China control their outbreak and Italy suffer, we can't claim we got unlucky with an early outbreak.

Jk