Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

A very twisted logic there. We're where we are now because....oh it's not worth it as you have that mindset for two years now.

FFS imagine living in New Zealand. Arden has lost the plot. As bad as our lads have been once we realized we were out of the woods they opened up no messing.

I hear some jobs are asking WFH staff to come back to the offices for 3 days starting next month. Personally i think we are just now moving on from covid but until its so far past in the rear view mirror we are not over it...

What I mean is let's see what happens winter 2022 like November and December.

wFH had worked for 80% of people as good if not better than being in the office

there is no actual benefit to forcing people back into offices

Perhaps you misinterpreted me.

I mentioned wfh staff now being asked back - as in we are now starting to move past covid. Being asked back as being another sign. But let's see what happens winter time to see if we are truly "over covid" once and for good.

In other words things are looking good now however let's just see what happens later in the year winter time.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, the poster has a lot of their "boards.ie capital" tied up in trying to be right on this one, noticeable that it's a conspiracy theorist that's still thanking him :)

There is a bit of truth in it that the highest peaks are unsustainable but that seems to be more the virus running out of social contacts to spread towards, with lockdowns the numbers drop rapidly, with restrictions the numbers drop so far but not completely (as we've seen last year from September onwards with a small growth rate but much less than R in an unrestricted environment), but with no restrictions the case counts stay high enough to overwhelm the health system, which is fine if the poster wants to advocate who should be treated and who shouldn't (you know, just in case their hare-brained idea was wrong and to have a backup plan), but they consistently run away from that question.

They've just started the acceptance phase and are preparing people for normality They should begin to abandon Zero-COVID quite soon. For Kiwis that will be ugly and shocking but by April/May they'll be out of it.

Looking at their most recent updates, New Zealand have moved to a "living with covid" plan. Overall seems pretty sensible. They have a Red/Orange/Green system for restrictions based on case prevalence. The Red status isn't even as tight as we were just last week; most venues open (including nightclubs), just requiring a vaccine pass. They're 95% vaccinated, so it's not big deal.

There's a bit of consternation about their isolation rules. Everyone who is positive has to isolate for 14 days. Their household contacts have to restrict their movements for those 14 days AND for ten days after that (assuming they don't test positive in the meantime).

This is a very long time in comparison, but the basis of it is sound - that your household contact could still catch it from you on day 12 of your isolation.

The purpose here (as far as I can tell) is not to try and eliminate Covid, but ultimately to drag out the infections over a longer period. They can take some lessons from the rest of us, but not others. The number of people who've had covid in NZ is very low, so they have to proceed with a bit more caution than the likes of the UK who were riddled with covid before Omicron even appeared. They cannot assume their hospitals won't be overwhelmed with high infection rates.

The fact that they've been basically open for the last two years, and their restriction regime doesn't introduce many curbs on everyday life, means they will be well able to maintain this over a period of 5-6 months while Omicron does its thing and the public will be kept onside.

I'd say there's a good chance their isolation rules might start being a problem once Omicron really bites and they'll be forced to review them down to keep the economy open. Likewise the restriction system might start to look silly if the entire country is in the Red zone and hospitals are doing OK.

But they are well prepared and well informed. Which is more than any other country can say.

How does previously having been riddled with Covid work better than being 95% vaccinated?

Does prior infection work better in some regards (esp transmission) than being vaccinated?

I thought it was the other way around (even though I know vaccinations may not work well in preventing transmission I thought they did have some efficacy, even though that info ,if correct was Delta related)

Looks like Israel Wave peaked on the 25th and on the decline now.

And that 'nut job' is reporting on the next thing to maybe concerned with?

"NeoCov" ??????

The point is that we don't know. Nobody does. We can make pretty good guesses, but that's not really how this ever worked in any country. When you have some uncertainty you work off the more cautious assumption rather than the "be grand" one.

As yet there isn't really any data in terms of Omicron spread & severity versus previous covid infection prevalence in a region. It worked out OK for SA (high prevalence) and UK & Ireland (medium-high prevalence). We haven't yet seen anyone with low prevalence having to deal with Omicron.

We're pretty clear on the fact that well-vaccinated populations are well protected in general. This is why the NZ approach has no concept of lockdown.

But for a country with very low previous rates of infection, there's always a possibility of a sting in the tail. For example, we have 6,000 deaths recorded. Is there a proportion of those deaths which were basically inevitable with or without vaccination?

It's a possibility. What it means for the likes of NZ is that once they open up, they may see a very severe flood of ICU admissions and deaths from highly vulnerable people newly-exposed to Covid. We didn't see this because these people were already dead. They can't save all of these people, they know that. But at the same time, the insane infectiousness of Omicron could still cause NZ's hospital system to become overwhelmed. Hence the slightly cautious, dragged-out approach.

It may not happen at all. There may be no difference in what happens in NZ than what happened elsewhere. The vaccine rates might hold up. But it's an uncertainty.

Christ don’t let Orla and Co see this. There will be a total meltdown 😆😆😆

It's almost like I am having a one sided conversation and you just wanted to say all that garbage because you read a few keywords I what I wrote....

Ah sure. Now that things are lifting the moaners gotta be creative to have another moan right?

There are countless others, don’t google bats and coronaviruses 😂 Now if scientists would just refrain from gain of function research that might help.

Seem to be lots of variables in play

As you say ,steady as she goes.

I expect they also have the better quality masks available now which should work in their favour too.