Ireland vs New Zealand

RandomName2

Cupatae wrote: »

Hate? No. Just utterly dumbfounded. They allowed the mess we are currently in to develop.

I'm just a random arsehole on the internet. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you import a virus with a 3% morality rate and R0 of about 3-4 that you're going to end up with a shut-down economy or tens of thousands of people dead (or if really unlucky, both).

WhErE WoUld wE qUarAntiNe pEopLe? say the asshats who think that getting infected with COVID-19 was a prudent decision.

There's literally 2 large hotels right at Dublin airport, and many more in the surrounding area. If you disallowed tourists from problem regions, and said that people being repatriated and necessary visitors be quarantined for two weeks there's thousands of rooms available to do so. This would be expensive for the government, but practically free compared to a lockdown.

Supposing this is too much for the HSE. They wracked their heads and couldn't work out how to make the necessary phone calls for that plan to happen. They could tell everyone coming from these locations to self-isolate, and anyone that they would be staying with to self-isolate for two weeks. Ensuring that any workers unduly affected by this are not in danger of losing their jobs or income would be necessary for this to work.

But suppose this is too much of a hassle! Suppose the HSE says 'nah, that just could not work'. Poor HSE, what are they to do? How about reading the temperatures of people coming off planes, quarantining the couple of people who might be running fevers, test everyone else, advise everyone else to self-isolate for 24 hours until the test results come back. Take the peoples' addresses, and test them all again in a weeks' time. Then the people could go back to work and school with it being relatively risk free.

This still is not being done. None of this is being done. Planes are still coming into Dublin airport.
https://www.dublinairport.com/flight-information/live-arrivals

If we get to the position that New Zealand are now in we can be sure that the HSE will do sweet f all to stop another outbreak.

Moreover we have to coordinate with Stormont if there's any hope.

mandrake04

RandomName2 wrote: »

WhErE WoUld wE qUarAntiNe pEopLe? say the asshats who think that getting infected with COVID-19 was a prudent decision.

There's literally 2 large hotels right at Dublin airport, and many more in the surrounding area. If you disallowed tourists from problem regions, and said that people being repatriated and necessary visitors be quarantined for two weeks there's thousands of rooms available to do so. This would be expensive for the government, but practically free compared to a lockdown.

Supposing this is too much for the HSE. They wracked their heads and couldn't work out how to make the necessary phone calls for that plan to happen. They could tell everyone coming from these locations to self-isolate, and anyone that they would be staying with to self-isolate for two weeks. Ensuring that any workers unduly affected by this are not in danger of losing their jobs or income would be necessary for this to work.

This is what Australia and then NZ did.

Australia did ask people to self isolate at the start in their own homes, but then they found out people were nipping down to the shops or out for a coffee.

So they changed the rules ....anyone stepping off international flight was escorted to a hotel and you had to stay in your room for 14 days with no room key and the hallways were guarded by Navy/Army.

Only exceptions was government officials (who obviously job was on the line) or if you had a medical reason you could stay in your own home.

This was a major game changer.

RandomName2

RandomName2 wrote: »

Hate? No. Just utterly dumbfounded. They allowed the mess we are currently in to develop.

I'm just a random arsehole on the internet. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you import a virus with a 3% morality rate and R0 of about 3-4 that you're going to end up with a shut-down economy or tens of thousands of people dead (or if really unlucky, both).

WhErE WoUld wE qUarAntiNe pEopLe? say the asshats who think that getting infected with COVID-19 was a prudent decision.

There's literally 2 large hotels right at Dublin airport, and many more in the surrounding area. If you disallowed tourists from problem regions, and said that people being repatriated and necessary visitors be quarantined for two weeks there's thousands of rooms available to do so. This would be expensive for the government, but practically free compared to a lockdown.

Supposing this is too much for the HSE. They wracked their heads and couldn't work out how to make the necessary phone calls for that plan to happen. They could tell everyone coming from these locations to self-isolate, and anyone that they would be staying with to self-isolate for two weeks. Ensuring that any workers unduly affected by this are not in danger of losing their jobs or income would be necessary for this to work.

But suppose this is too much of a hassle! Suppose the HSE says 'nah, that just could not work'. Poor HSE, what are they to do? How about reading the temperatures of people coming off planes, quarantining the couple of people who might be running fevers, test everyone else, advise everyone else to self-isolate for 24 hours until the test results come back. Take the peoples' addresses, and test them all again in a weeks' time. Then the people could go back to work and school with it being relatively risk free.

This still is not being done. None of this is being done. Planes are still coming into Dublin airport.
https://www.dublinairport.com/flight-information/live-arrivals

If we get to the position that New Zealand are now in we can be sure that the HSE will do sweet f all to stop another outbreak.

Moreover we have to coordinate with Stormont if there's any hope.

The one thing everyone forgets on these threads when talking about what Ireland should have done in February - New Zealand acted no earlier than we did. They just had a tiny volume of people coming from impacted regions during March, compared to 10's of thousands a day here.

Cupatae

RandomName2 wrote: »

Hate? No. Just utterly dumbfounded. They allowed the mess we are currently in to develop.

I'm just a random arsehole on the internet. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you import a virus with a 3% morality rate and R0 of about 3-4 that you're going to end up with a shut-down economy or tens of thousands of people dead (or if really unlucky, both).

WhErE WoUld wE qUarAntiNe pEopLe? say the asshats who think that getting infected with COVID-19 was a prudent decision.

There's literally 2 large hotels right at Dublin airport, and many more in the surrounding area. If you disallowed tourists from problem regions, and said that people being repatriated and necessary visitors be quarantined for two weeks there's thousands of rooms available to do so. This would be expensive for the government, but practically free compared to a lockdown.

Supposing this is too much for the HSE. They wracked their heads and couldn't work out how to make the necessary phone calls for that plan to happen. They could tell everyone coming from these locations to self-isolate, and anyone that they would be staying with to self-isolate for two weeks. Ensuring that any workers unduly affected by this are not in danger of losing their jobs or income would be necessary for this to work.

But suppose this is too much of a hassle! Suppose the HSE says 'nah, that just could not work'. Poor HSE, what are they to do? How about reading the temperatures of people coming off planes, quarantining the couple of people who might be running fevers, test everyone else, advise everyone else to self-isolate for 24 hours until the test results come back. Take the peoples' addresses, and test them all again in a weeks' time. Then the people could go back to work and school with it being relatively risk free.

This still is not being done. None of this is being done. Planes are still coming into Dublin airport.
https://www.dublinairport.com/flight-information/live-arrivals

If we get to the position that New Zealand are now in we can be sure that the HSE will do sweet f all to stop another outbreak.

Moreover we have to coordinate with Stormont if there's any hope.

Its easy to say what should and shouldn't have been done with the benefit of hindsight from comfort of the sidelines, there was massive decisions to be made and knee jerk reactions could have made it worse.

Xertz

The reality it is we are in a region with an outbreak of COVID-19. New Zealand isn’t.

*all* passengers entering Ireland would have had to have been quarantined to have any impact and many of them would be Irish residents / citizens returning home.

We couldn’t have quarantined around 51,900 people a day. It’s just not physically possible. It would have been 726,000 people if you’d 14 says worth!

We travel a hell of a lot and they’re mostly short hops.

Our only long haul routes of any significance are straight into the US hotspots too. So they were also problematic.

Basically this comparison doesn’t make any sense.

Learn some lessons from NZ, but we are in Europe and right now Europe is a COVID-19 épicentre and we are next door to the US, complete with customs / immigration pre clearance and massive familial, historical and cultural ties and it’s only a few hours cheap flight away. So that’s also a huge exposure.

Basically we are fully part of that epicentre that spans the EU, UK and USA. There’s no getting away from that.

The difference is geography. Swap the two physical locations and everything changes for both countries.

JP Liz V1

100 days without a case in NZ, no masks also

ronivek

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

100 days without a case in NZ, no masks also

Well you don't need masks when nobody in your country has the virus. Fair play to them all the same and long may it continue.

TheValeyard

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

100 days without a case in NZ, no masks also

No other country around them either. Easy to get virus free when isolated. Fair fcuks to them.

Not saying it's you, but it's unfair to try compare us to them. Completely different ball game going on.

sydthebeat

Similar to Aran Islands.....

JP Liz V1

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

100 days without a case in NZ, no masks also

There it is folks. Masks are useless.

JP Liz V1

I mean no masks now, I think they may have used masks at the beginning

They acted fast closing to incoming travel

Bit cynical

New Zealand's approach makes sense for New Zealand and they did a very good job of executing it. They still need to be very vigilant until they have a vaccine available. A lot of the rising cases in Europe are from those countries and regions that had a very low outbreak initially and may have thought they had it beaten.

Jacinda Ardern is a very impressive leader.

ceadaoin.

What are they supposed to do if the promised vaccine doesn't appear though? Stay closed indefinitely and lose all the tourism revenue that comes with it? Its one of their main industries and they will suffer without it. If they have to reopen without a vaccine they will be in a worse position than a lot of the rest of the world when it comes to the populations vulnerability to the virus.

Hego Damask

ceadaoin. wrote: »

What are they supposed to do if the promised vaccine doesn't appear though? Stay closed indefinitely and lose all the tourism revenue that comes with it? Its one of their main industries and they will suffer without it. If they have to reopen without a vaccine they will be in a worse position than a lot of the rest of the world when it comes to the populations vulnerability to the virus.

That's exactly it, and even now .... look at what happened in Melbourne, it could somehow sneak in.

NZ got lucky...

MadYaker

ceadaoin. wrote: »

What are they supposed to do if the promised vaccine doesn't appear though? Stay closed indefinitely and lose all the tourism revenue that comes with it? Its one of their main industries and they will suffer without it. If they have to reopen without a vaccine they will be in a worse position than a lot of the rest of the world when it comes to the populations vulnerability to the virus.

This is a bit wrong. First of all we will 100% have a vaccine there’s no question of us not having one eventually. That is why NZ chose this course of action. We also don’t know how long natural immunity lasts so there’s no guarantee that a country like the USA or Brazil where’s there’s loads of community transmission will have a population somehow less vulnerable. NZ have done very well and I see no reason why they won’t keep it up until there’s a vaccine. Pity it’s not an option for us.

Fr_Dougal

MadYaker wrote: »

This is a bit wrong. First of all we will 100% have a vaccine there’s no question of us not having one eventually. That is why NZ chose this course of action. We also don’t know how long natural immunity lasts so there’s no guarantee that a country like the USA or Brazil where’s there’s loads of community transmission will have a population somehow less vulnerable. NZ have done very well and I see no reason why they won’t keep it up until there’s a vaccine. Pity it’s not an option for us.

We have never successfully made a vaccine for a coronavirus before.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-17/coronavirus-vaccine-ian-frazer/12146616

MadYaker

MadYaker wrote: »

This is a bit wrong. First of all we will 100% have a vaccine there’s no question of us not having one eventually. That is why NZ chose this course of action. We also don’t know how long natural immunity lasts so there’s no guarantee that a country like the USA or Brazil where’s there’s loads of community transmission will have a population somehow less vulnerable. NZ have done very well and I see no reason why they won’t keep it up until there’s a vaccine. Pity it’s not an option for us.

Really yeah? Any source on this? My understanding is RNA viruses are difficult to find a vaccine for due to how much they mutate. HIV is an RNA virus and we still don't have a vaccine for that.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Really yeah? Any source on this? My understanding is RNA viruses are difficult to find a vaccine for due to how much they mutate. HIV is an RNA virus and we still don't have a vaccine for that.

Just like influenza, yellow fever and hepatitis a? all rna viruses with successful vaccination programmes. We just haven’t gone after coronaviruses that much because the only 2 previous ones serious enough to warrant intervention died out before we could get very far.

ceadaoin.

MadYaker wrote: »

This is a bit wrong. First of all we will 100% have a vaccine there’s no question of us not having one eventually. That is why NZ chose this course of action. We also don’t know how long natural immunity lasts so there’s no guarantee that a country like the USA or Brazil where’s there’s loads of community transmission will have a population somehow less vulnerable. NZ have done very well and I see no reason why they won’t keep it up until there’s a vaccine. Pity it’s not an option for us.

Yeah, "Eventually". No one knows how long that will be considering its never been done before (coronavirus vaccine) or so quickly. NZ took a big gamble to trying to wait it out until a vaccine. If one isn't forthcoming they are screwed tbh. Its unsustainable because once they reopen, and they will have to, they will be in the same position everyone else was, just at a later date.

MadYaker

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Yeah, "Eventually". No one knows how long that will be considering its never been done before (coronavirus vaccine) or so quickly. NZ took a big gamble to trying to wait it out until a vaccine. If one isn't forthcoming they are screwed tbh. Its unsustainable because once they reopen, and they will have to, they will be in the same position everyone else was, just at a later date.

Of course a coronavirus vaccine has never been done before, why would it have???? Go read the vaccine and treatments thread. We’ll have a vaccine mass produced by 2022. They didn’t take more of a gamble than anyone else. Every approach is a gamble and what they are doing is absolutely sustainable until a vaccine is ready. If you want to continue engaging in the fantasy of there being no vaccine I won’t respond. It’s not a matter of opinion.

MadYaker

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

We have never successfully made a vaccine for a coronavirus before.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-04-17/coronavirus-vaccine-ian-frazer/12146616

Yes. Why would anyone spend millions making a vaccine for a virus that only existed in bats?

SuperS54

Looking at the mess Ireland has made of this and the arguments on here, I'm very glad to live on another Covid free island, densely populated and close to the epicenter! Key control has been restricting entry through ports and airports and putting in place strong quarantine measures with proper supervision.

Currently 387 cases imported, 55 local and 7 deaths recorded. There is some indication that there is possibly more community transmission in Taiwan however the prevalence of masks, temperature checks and hand sanitisers seems to have been a significant factor in preventing any large scale outbreak.

Diarmuid

SuperS54 wrote: »

Looking at the mess Ireland has made of this and the arguments on here, I'm very glad to live on another Covid free island, densely populated and close to the epicenter! Key control has been restricting entry through ports and airports and putting in place strong quarantine measures with proper supervision. .

Congrats. However Ireland shares a land border with the UK (which is open under the Good Friday agreement) and has massive trade links with our neighbours who are a few hundred km away. Comparing Ireland to NZ is really poorly informed.

httpete

Diarmuid wrote: »

Congrats. However Ireland shares a land border with the UK (which is open under the Good Friday agreement) and has massive trade links with our neighbours who are a few hundred km away. Comparing Ireland to NZ is really poorly informed.

Taiwan has massive trade links with God knows how many countries..you might have noticed the "Made in Taiwan" text down the years in various items.

They have had the best coronavirus response in the world, far better even than New Zealand. The key is mandatory quarantine at the airport. They have been essentially covid free from the start..all imported cases caught at the airport quarantine.

wadacrack

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1293118358855069701

Irish Steve

Auckland has been put into Level 3 lockdown as a result of 4 cases, New Zealand has responded fast and hard to an outbreak of Covid 19 after over 100 days with no cases.

They are investingating this cluster to try and work out where it has come from, and try to prevent it from spreading.

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater

4 cases in 1 family in South Auckland from an unknown source. Wonder was it something to do with any of those tools who broke out of managed isolation.

Bollocks anyway.

Fr_Dougal

Was only a matter of time.

nw1dqsv7amx026

MadYaker wrote: »

Yes. Why would anyone spend millions making a vaccine for a virus that only existed in bats?

Maybe you should inform yourself before replying.

There are seven corona viruses that affect humans. Some of them serious, check out SARS and MERS, some of them potentially very lucrative for a pharmaceutical company that developed a vaccine as they are one of the causes for the common cold.
There are also corona viruses that only affect animals and afaik they don't have vaccines for these either.
All of that said, there are huge resources being applied.