[St Charles Owl]

Australia and New Zealand went all out for a zero covid strategy and it worked.

Problem is they need to build up immunity via vaccination, but their uptake has been terrible and there have been serious supply problems. Looking at the media it seems the public are quite resistant to it as well.

Also note that NZ, under Ahern's leadership, and roughly the same size as Scotland with a similar sized population, has only lost 27 people to COVID since Feb 2020 - a massive difference in response, swift mitigation measures and unpopular tough decisions.

Although being a small island and being remote absolutely helped them. But both them and Australia were adamant that closing the borders and not their domestic economy was the right move and it worked. Certainly that is more difficult, if not impossible in say the EU or even in the UK if Scotland had tried it but England didn't, where movement of people between places with effectively no border control could not be stopped.

[0762]

Yep! I was just debating NZ's low number of deaths today and what mitigating factors must have contributed to Ahern's success in tackling COVID so effectively. I similarly concluded the geography of the North and South Islands and wide spread of the population certainly helped their cause. When COVID was at its peak in the UK and with no vaccinations in the pipeline, a lotta people in Scotland wanted the border shut down apart from commercial freight traffic being allowed in and out. But the issue was politicised by too many people in the media and opposing politics with a political agenda rather than considering if it would help to mitigate the impending threat from down south. The clinical experts apparently had the last word on it and advised the Scot govt to leave the border open!!?? I'm still not sure if that account was actually true re the real reasons given to justify it.

[St Charles Owl]

Yep! I was just debating NZ's low number of deaths today and what mitigating factors must have contributed to Ahern's success in tackling COVID so effectively. I similarly concluded the geography of the North and South Islands and wide spread of the population certainly helped their cause. When COVID was at its peak in the UK and with no vaccinations in the pipeline, a lotta people in Scotland wanted the border shut down apart from commercial freight traffic being allowed in and out. But the issue was politicised by too many people in the media and opposing politics with a political agenda rather than considering if it would help to mitigate the impending threat from down south. The clinical experts apparently had the last word on it and advised the Scot govt to leave the border open!!?? I'm still not sure if that account was actually true re the real reasons given to justify it.

Short of using the military there is no way it could have worked anyway. There are hundreds of places to cross the border and there are lots of people living in one side of it but working on the other. Applying rules once people are there was the best that could be done.

[themaclad]

And again no one has answered the question given Covid is going to be around for a lengthy period when does she open up to tourism to return to NZ

Zero Covid is impossible

Just as a matter of interest the R rate in England has reduced slowly this week

[themaclad]

One other thing about closing borders we are an island with trade coming and going to Europe
Anyway
Hands Glass Beer

[St Charles Owl]

And again no one has answered the question given Covid is going to be around for a lengthy period when does she open up to tourism to return to NZ

Zero Covid is impossible

Just as a matter of interest the R rate in England has reduced slowly this week

I agree we are going to have to find a way to live with Covid, it will not disappear completely. The vaccine is crucial to this, it is one of the most effective vaccines that we have ever seen and it seems to protect nearly all those who have taken it. The problem is the % that don't get it, and we are seeing the effects of that clearly here in the US. Learning from this is one of the ways we will learn to live with it going forward.

In terms of Australia opening up, they have stated that they will not open to visitors until next year at the earliest but because the country is in effect fully open internally I think they can sustain this for longer if they need to, certainly from an economic viewpoint. Their international tourist dollars are 44 billion, but they are also seeing their own citizens spending their money at home with not being able to travel so the hit is not as bad a some think. They are also struggling with vaccines, only 10% are fully vaccinated, so they really need to stay closed until they get a better handle on that.

[themaclad]

Double vaccinated people to isolate coming back from France, new variant in France accounting for 3.4% of new cases apparently might be more resistant to vaccine.
Meanwhile while mini Napoleon has riots on his hands due to forcing folks to vaccinate
At this rate utterly pointless ever booking a foreign holiday

[0762]

Double vaccinated people to isolate coming back from France, new variant in France accounting for 3.4% of new cases apparently might be more resistant to vaccine.
Meanwhile while mini Napoleon has riots on his hands due to forcing folks to vaccinate
At this rate utterly pointless ever booking a foreign holiday

That is one of the biggest threats - another variant that mutates to resist the current vaccines that are "doing a good job" to battle against this virus. The sudden high spread of infections in certain countries is the perfect "breeding ground" for COVID to mutate again.

[spireitematt]

Surely with the beta variant in France it would be sensible to stop all travel from and to France.

[themaclad]

They have acted quickly on the Beta variant which was first identified in Nelson Mandela Bay and as everybody has said Boris was slow to close the borders maybe Napoleon Macron should have done the same however the new variant could cause more problems given the scenes in many French cities were there have been mass protest against forced vaccinations. Maybe if those such as Ursula, Angela and Macron hadn't slagged off one vaccine they may not have had this problem.

Looks like there will be variant after variant arriving, it will be jab city from now until the end of time, in my view restrictions should end as there is sod all we can do

Portugal having more restrictions as are Catalonia noted even LA County going back to mask restrictions against the Delta variant.

Just watching the news 66% of all Britains are obese, since it start Suicides and Alcohol related deaths have risen, we have lost 18 months of our lives we won't get it back time to move on and get back to normal

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Sage predictions

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One final thing people complaining that their holiday abroad is being cancelled, who in their right minds books a holiday abroad when there's a pandemic about, gutetd really looked forward two my two weeks in North Korea