Australian Response

NZ finally giving up up on elimination, thus ending the Zero COVID experiment.

They still did not get that ether with vaccination or without it, a lot of people with underlying conditions are going to die from Covid. Especially, when there is no natural immunity developed in their population. A real shite show is still ahead of Australia and Nz. Feel sorry for them.

Zero COVID made sense pre-vaccination and pre-Delta, the NZ govt know this

And in fairness the NZ government have one thing going for them that even the most anti-lockdown-ist would agree with, communication!

Well said - I find it crazy how many people seem to think this somehow "proves" zero covid was a failure, when it has been such an absolutely massive success. For every Kiwi mourning a family member lost to covid, about 200 Irish people are. That's the difference. It's enormous. It's what all the restrictions were about. They also got to go about their lives pretty much as normal for the bulk of the pandemic. Zero covid didn't have to be forever to be a massive success, every single day that it lasted saved lives, allowed hospitals to continue dealing with other ailments, and allowed time for the vaccine program to get going.

So having fared far, far better than the rest of the world for the last year and a half, their only failure is that they're now going to be in the same boat as the rest of us going forward now that things are going a lot better, since their vaccine program is well underway now.

Not that it was ever an option for Ireland. Where they have thousands of miles of pacific ocean, we have a land border with one of the most reckless governments on the planet, which we can't easily close for all kinds of very contentious historic reasons.

Jacinda explicitly said in yesterdays press conference that we are not dropping the zero covid policy, so not sure why people think this

Probably because of articles like this that quote her as saying it

"New Zealand drops Covid-19 elimination strategy"

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-extends-auckland-lockdown-eases-some-curbs-2021-10-04/

You seem to be the only one who thinks she didn't. They are moving from elimination to suppression. Suppression is not Zero COVID and it's what we started out with in March 2020.

Both of them were in a position to effectively have a closed system and that is as far as the experiment goes. It's not a model that could be widely replicated elsewhere. Where many countries blew it in deaths was on NHs and not keeping the more at risk groups well enough protected.

One thing that I think the folks in Oz & NZ are not thinking about or don't appear to me to be thinking about is the future.

We have over 90% vaccinated. Yet with this being at a higher level than what Australia plans to start opening up with, we still have circa 5 deaths per day from Covid. This is 35 people a week who are still dying "with" Covid and going down as Covid deaths.

It would be safe to assume that when the reopening does come in NZ & Oz, with similar levels of vaccination (which might be hard to get to in Oz) that you will see similar levels of Covid deaths? I would even go further, that we have many many more vulnerable people who have been exposed to Covid and sadly the weakest have passed on. Deaths are still occurring with Covid and vaccinations in place. It is a fact of life now.

To me, this is a major shift in thought process for people to get that to be understood and accepted as we in Europe have done.

Oz & Nz are still kicking the can down road. Vaccine uptake is very poor. Moreover vaccines will not give enough of protection for people with underlying conditions. As as they realize that, they'll lockdown indefinitely. It is good to be so far away from that Zero Covid madness.

Gral6's observations are largely fact-free. He says that "vaccination uptake is very poor". In reality, vaccine supply has been very poor but, now that that problem has been addressed, vaccine uptake is among the fastest in the world. He asserts without evidence that the Australians are as yet unaware that vaccines provlde limited protection to people with underlying conditions, when in reality this problem is widely discussed in Australia. And he claims that the Australian response to this will be to lock down indefinitely, when in reality Australia has announced and is already implementing a phased programme of ending lockdown restrictions.

I'm not sure what Gral6's problem is. Maybe in his childhood he had a traumatic experience involving a kookaburra or something, and he's been acting out ever since?

I think the people in Oz / Nz should keep an eye on what is happening in Singapore, as this could be your future.

They have been fairly successful in restricting the virus to date and deaths are really low (133).

They have hit a really good vaccination level - (77.8%) of the population are fully vaccinated

On opening up case numbers are really beginning to spike upwards now (over 3.5K yesterday)

I think for you this is the closest country as they have not had various waves of infections that has been seen in Europe.

Australia is huge but 71% of people live in the major cities. Why not compare population densities in Sydney / Melbourne to Singapore?