New Zealand

[arcobob]

South Island is now 16 days with no new cases, it is time the restrictions are off here at least, and probably the whole country. There is now direction and no plan from these bumbling fools. Schools are back this week with up to 120 kids in a class room but those same kids can't go to chapel at school unless there are less than 10 in the chapel, I mean what sort of moron makes up rules like that?

UK government. Meetings limited to six people and team sports can resume. Ever heard of three aside rugby or soccer?

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

UK government. Meetings limited to six people and team sports can resume. Ever heard of three aside rugby or soccer?

Beach volleyball?

 

[arcobob]

Beach volleyball?

Are spectators allowed?

 

[stewart]

NZ has done spectacularly well in managing the virus. Congratulations.

By comparison we have seen a disaster although it could have been worse. Early on there was talk here of up to 500,000 deaths if we did nothing and that 20,000 deaths would be "a good result".

It was always going to be so much harder to control here than in NZ though for all the reasons folk have already given. The UK abandoned any effective border controls decades ago, just look at how many illegal immigrants, drugs and firearms arrive here each year! Combine that with the political reality that we will never accept any move towards a police state and any government here would have failed.

The big question now is what next?

NZ is going to have to reframe the economy and return to a greater reliance on primary industry exports. This is probably Jacinda's Achilles heel. She had made it clear throughout her leadership that she wants to see the NZ economy reduce its reliance on agriculture and horticulture. She now faces an existential crisis of economic reality. I wonder why we've heard nothing from Sir Michael Cullen recently?

We are no better though. Our travel, tourism and hospitality sector is almost as proportionally big as that of NZ and is now screaming for the rules to relax, effectively saying that deaths are a price worth paying. Our car industry is facing collapse, commercial landlords are facing a new reality where their income will be decimated and their demand will never recover (many business now realise they don't NEED big offices as home working does actually work). Throw Brexit into the mix and the attempt to negotiate new trade deals whilst we can't even agree internally what we want from them and the future is very uncertain.

In both countries the hard bit is about to start: how do you wean the economy off the emergency support without it collapsing?

We are living through "interesting times".

I agree, it was always going to be harder to contain in a country with a large mobile population, however the efforts the UK government went to to at least try and contain it were fairly pathetic, combine that with the UK individualistic mindset and it was a recipe for disaster.

For clarity the comment regarding being individualistic is not intended to be a criticism , it is an admirable quality at times, however there can be consequences to it, coronavirus being one of them.

NZ along with many other countries is going to have to do a major reset, in NZs case it will likely be back to the future, with more reliance on primary industries. It is not just Jacindas policies that have tried to move NZ away from agriculture, previous governments have done the same, mainly trying to move away from livestock based production, the oft quoted phrase of "dirty dairying " was regularly in the media, conveniently ignoring the fact that the urban populations were contributing more to environmental problems with sewerage than farmers were with their livestock.

There has been no move away from horticulture though, quite the opposite, the development of horticulture in our area is staggering, fruit and vegetable production is seen as clean and green, with very little if any impact on the waterways, one of the sacred cows in NZ and particularly the Labour Party is swimmable rivers, despite what the media may report on water quality I still believe ours is fine, so much so that our drinking water comes straight out of the lake.

The hard bit worldwide is about start and whilst Jacinda has done an outstanding job through this pandemic I do not think her government has the smarts to get us through the upcoming financial turmoil, we have an election due in September and on present polls Cindy is a shoe in, she has the highest rating of any leader not only in NZ but possibly worldwide, she communicates well and is exceptionally media savvy.

You are correct, we are living through interesting times.

 

[stewart]

Beach volleyball?

Are spectators allowed?

Finest spectator sport there is.

 

[arcobob]

Finest spectator sport there is.

View attachment 882928

Tasty

 

[Courier]

The uk has 38 million visitors each year that's ten times as many and millions more brits travel abroad as we are very close to other countries.
BAMES are far more likely to die from covid and I suspect we have a larger number here in proportion, I would suspect that as a general we arent as healthy in the UK either. NZ has done well in controlling ITS infection but the UK is a very different situation

And the basic fact that NZ locked down and introduced 14 day incoming isolation 4 days BEFORE their first death, whereas UK waited and waited and dithered to introduce a half hearted lockdown when there were already 335 daily deaths and the virus was widely distributed throughout all 4 countries of UK and is still to this day only pondering incoming isolation measures ...

 

[czechmate]

Incredibly similar statistics between New Zealand and Slovakia. You don’t need to be an island

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

And the basic fact that NZ locked down and introduced 14 day incoming isolation 4 days BEFORE their first death, whereas UK waited and waited and dithered to introduce a half hearted lockdown when there were already 335 daily deaths and the virus was widely distributed throughout all 4 countries of UK and is still to this day only pondering incoming isolation measures ...

And even now is basing the quarantine of incoming people on trust as the border force and police have both said they can't enforce it!

 

[Courier]

And even now is basing the quarantine of incoming people on trust as the border force and police have both said they can't enforce it!

I suppose that because the virus is endemic throughout the UK then in the overall scheme of things then it’s already far too late - this thing is going to run, and run until an effective vaccine is available to produce “herd immunity”.

Countries which manage to eliminate the virus will need to continue strict border controls but at least they will be able to open up cafes, bars, shopping malls and major public events and concentrate on economic revival rather than continuing to furlough many a significant proportion of their working population...

 

[kiwi pom]

I've been waiting for this story to pop up.
Upcoming driver shortage.

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

 

[Hindsight]

New Zealand's first Covid cases in 24 days came from UK

The two women had been given special exemption to visit a dying parent in New Zealand.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I've been waiting for this story to pop up.
Upcoming driver shortage.

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

I read yesterday of people in Te Anau who've lost their tourism jobs starting to retrain for farm work.

 

[kiwi pom]

I read yesterday of people in Te Anau who've lost their tourism jobs starting to retrain for farm work.

Yes for those that are keen I'm sure they could do many of the jobs, some of these contractors may have to offer a bit more training instead of just pointing at a tractor but that shouldn't be a problem if they're as desperate as they claim.
They'll just have to be more competitive with other driving jobs.
Two new imported cases of covid today so I'm guessing the government wont be that keen on reducing restrictions.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Two new imported cases of covid today so I'm guessing the government wont be that keen on reducing restrictions.

Hard top set how they can reduce restrictions in the face of these cases without admitting they were wrong before.....

Have you seen this blog post?

Both of New Zealand's Post Covid19 Futures are Bad

After ten days of no new Covid19 cases many New Zealanders are likely to be feeling a mixture of relief and complacency. The country dodged ...

theemperorsrobes.blogspot.com

 

[arcobob]

I was speaking to a cousin from Feilding and her daughter and partner had moved to Queenstown not so long ago and had recently been made redundant. I am not sure what profession they were in but almost certainly strongly connected to tourism.

 

[DaveGrohl]

New Zealand's first Covid cases in 24 days came from UK

The two women had been given special exemption to visit a dying parent in New Zealand.

www.bbc.co.uk

Just watched this reported on BBC Breakfast. Funny they didn't mention that the cases came from the UK in spite of it being on their own website.

 

[kiwi pom]

Hard top set how they can reduce restrictions in the face of these cases without admitting they were wrong before.....

Have you seen this blog post?

Both of New Zealand's Post Covid19 Futures are Bad

After ten days of no new Covid19 cases many New Zealanders are likely to be feeling a mixture of relief and complacency. The country dodged ...

theemperorsrobes.blogspot.com

Not a big Ardern fan is he.

We certainly have some big problems to overcome, the decision was taken to try and stamp the virus out based on what was known at the time. To be fair the PM made her mind up and stuck to it.
Long term it may prove to be wrong, we shall see.

 

[arcobob]

Not a big Ardern fan is he.

We certainly have some big problems to overcome, the decision was taken to try and stamp the virus out based on what was known at the time. To be fair the PM made her mind up and stuck to it.
Long term it may prove to be wrong, we shall see.

Again, it is easy to be wise after the event. Of course mistakes have been made everywhere and one single course of action does not suit all economies or political situations. I think that all developed countries have differing approaches and all have been wrong in different ways because there is no precedent to this situation.
In my view the guy was to a great degree quite right in hindsight but what were his views in March?

 

[arcobob]

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WTF is that all about?