9 ms·

New Zealand PM: No open borders for 'a long time'

89 points by Reedx 6y ago

daxfohl 6y ago
The irony of this is that the countries who were worst at their handling of the covid problem will be at an advantage at the end of it.
- KerryJones 6y ago
  How do you mean? They likely will have much higher deaths -- only if they decide to quarantine longer could I imagine that they have a success -- but "not handling covid 19 well" does not mean they will quarantine longer or that they will do a good job after their bang-up job.
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    It feels deeply wrong to cold-heartedly choose a course of action that will result in the death of many people and the resulting suffering of those who survive their loved ones. But people are resilient. People face death from other causes all the time. Yes, there will be a measurable increase due to covid-19 but in countries that are already ravaged by poverty, crime, disease, wars, etc, it might not significantly alter the emotional balance of those who survive. That's particularly true in those countries whose authorities successfully downplay the effects of covid-19, e.g. by not doing much testing. From that POV, all other things being equal, one could expect that those countries might grow their economies while the rest of the world loses opportunities. I'm not sure I buy that argument though. World economy is not entirely a zero sum game
    - KerryJones 6y ago
      This feels like it's based on a lot of "gut feel", though I appreciate he devils-advocate argument. Specifically, these points: > it might not significantly alter the emotional balance of those who survive. That's particularly true in those countries whose authorities successfully downplay the effects of covid-19, e.g. by not doing much testing. Most countries in the world rely on global supply chains, and many countries are now closing their borders to external trade, meaning that their own prices will sky-rocket, likely causing layoffs and bankruptcies, causing stimulus packages and therefore inflation. The world is very interconnected (as I'm sure you know) In addition, I believe that many people would suffer significantly _more_ if many more people were dying around them. They would have friends and family who died or who were tied to people who died. I don't think it would be something as simple as "eh, someone else's problem". In addition, it's not just deaths -- there is a lot of data showing that there are long-term lung issues that develop if you do survive.
      - ardy42 6y ago
        > Most countries in the world rely on global supply chains, and many countries are now closing their borders to external trade, meaning that their own prices will sky-rocket, likely causing layoffs and bankruptcies, causing stimulus packages and therefore inflation Which countries, exactly, are closing their borders to trade? There are definitely a lot of restrictions being placed on travel and tourism, but banning cargo makes no sense in this context. If anything, things will probably just get lonelier for merchant seamen.
    - daxfohl 6y ago
      I wasn't implying that nations should choose this course. But say a year from now when most of their population is immune and the disease is no longer worrisome within that nation (relative to the zillion other things you can die from), then from that point they my ironically be better off. Of course this assumes 1. some kind of immunity (which I'd think indications are pointing toward, or I'd expect to have seen more repeat contractions by now) 2. the response was dorked up down to the individual level (which is most decidedly not the case -- plenty of individuals (especially among highish-income) are choosing to self isolate and take precautions, and thus will not contract the virus for quite some time no matter how bad the government response was, so immunity within these groups will never form, so the government will not be able to reopen anyway) So even in the absence of other considerations, the 2nd point above pretty much cancels out my original post.
      - orwin 6y ago
        >> 1. some kind of immunity (which I'd think indications are pointing toward, or I'd expect to have seen more repeat contractions by now) Not necessarily, you can have a short-term immunization that only last a year or two. This is why the "herd immunity" might be a poor idea when we don't know much about this virus. Anyway, i demanded a work/vacation visa to NZ for this October, i fear this won't be possible :/
    - Nasrudith 6y ago
      Ask Ireland or its overlords how choosing short term economy over people worked out for them with the Irish Potato Famine. Andrew Carnegie became wealthy in the US instead of generating income for the UK - regardless of one's opinions of his overall morals or lack of them he was far more productive than the harvest they sold. That was a more extreme case of 20% to 25% of the population but losing a sizable percentage of productivity with the population is very expensive in ways apparent both on and off the balance sheets. It is the epitome of penny wise pound foolish to make such a trade - the bloody gains will fade away in time while the loss echoes.
      - ithkuil 6y ago
        Yes, the size and age of the group matters though
- atlasunshrugged 6y ago
  Why do you say that?
  - edgefield0 6y ago
    Herd immunity? Assuming such a thing can exist for Covid and it doesn't mutate every season like influenza.
    - BeefySwain 6y ago
      Do we know it won't mutate? I was under the impression this was unknowable at this point.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        There are already several mutations in circulation, so we know it does mutate. The questions remaining are: * how much does it mutate? * does exposure to one mutation lend immunity to another mutation? * does exposure to one mutation lend immunity to the same mutation?
    - Endlessly 6y ago
      Herd immunity is commonly not well understood in my opinion by the general public. All it means is the point where the spread is no longer “viral” — as in for ever person that’s infected, that person infects less than 1.0 people. People still get infected, die, etc. Higher the true R0 value for the virus, higher the threshold for reaching herd immunity and the eventual point the infection rate reaching 0.0; globally, without a vaccine, very possible corona will continue to exist years, if not longer.
      - kube-system 6y ago
        > People still get infected, die, etc. Yes, but fewer of them, which is the point.
  - ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
- centimeter 6y ago
  Sure, if you define “worst at handling covid” as “had a relatively small overreaction”. Sweden is looking great now (look at actual total mortality numbers, not the pessimistic “projections” they keep changing). No substantial QALY loss from covid, and substantially less economic devastation, stress, and depression compared to those countries that overreacted.
  - glangdale 6y ago
    You have to be on a different planet to define Sweden's mortality numbers to be "great". They are 5-10x worse than the other Nordics, have one of the highest death rates in the world, and it's not obvious that they will have a long-run advantage despite all the propagandizing for it. Their approach is highly experimental, which makes it all the more bizarre that they aren't testing very much. They have a "developing world" or "overwhelmed country" cases:deaths ratio (about 1:8) which suggests that they have a huge number of cases they don't know about. It's not clear why a country taking a radically experimental approach to COVID-19 would also test so lightly - it suggests that they don't want to know what's going on. It's possible that they don't want to have embarrassingly high case numbers, but it's just as possible that their numbers are embarrassing in the other direction - i.e. while they've killed a huge bunch of oldies, they also haven't got nearly enough cases to have herd immunity. We will also get to see, long term, what the morbidity effects of taking this approach are. They will not look super-intelligent if there is any kind of effective treatment or vaccine developed in the next 6-12 months. They only look good when you compare them with hard-hit countries. The difference is that Belgians and Spaniards aren't patrolling every goddamn social media site announcing how well they've done with the virus. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?time=2020-03-12..&country=NOR+FIN+DNK+SWE+FRA+ESP+ITA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi...
    - iso947 6y ago
      You can infer cases from deaths, as a whole you’re going to get the same death rate. Getting the death rate is tricky, what you need to look at is the increase in mortality over the 5 year average.
- xupybd 6y ago
  Yeah it's likely that could be true. Here in NZ we've not yet been hit by the economic toll as the government is paying wage subsidies. That's a short term fix. Years of high taxes will follow. Job losses will mount as the tourism sector falls over. It will not be pretty. So was it a wise move to shut down? Maybe, given the information they had at the time. Better to be safe than sorry. In hindsight with all the facts we have now maybe not but they didn't have those facts at the start.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  The countries that are ruthless in dealing this will be able to reopen their economies quickly, reopen borders with other sane countries. Economically they will recover very quickly. Countries like the US which have no unified and sane policy are going to take a full decade to recover. Some parts will never recover.
  - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    It's likely going to be the opposite as recent tests in Korea seem to show immunity does happen. The countries that did little to stop the spread will have or be close to immune while the countries that aggressively locked down will not be able to interact with most of the world.
    - iso947 6y ago
      No country has got anywhere near 50% of infections. There seems no appetite currently for 4,000 deaths per million people that reaching herd immunity levels would require, at least in the western economies.
      - Gibbon1 6y ago
        Deniers keep assuming that everyone will haplessly let themselves get infected. And the pandemic will be over in a couple of weeks. That is an incredibly stupid thing to believe. Consider. Lets say that because people are terrified of the virus they protect themselves. Which to their credit most people are. And the growth rate drops from 35% to 5% a week. So how long does it take to get from 2% infected to 60%? Do the math and you find out it's 70 weeks or 18 months.
        iso947 6y ago
        You could get Bill Gates to infect everyone with 5g?
- op03 6y ago
  What advantage? More likely unintended consequences and costs will keep mounting. And at some point cross covid costs. After that political tunes will change. It's not like the ant hill can just build a border around itself and survive for ever.
- procinct 6y ago
  I don’t really understand how so. Countries that have handled it aggressively at least have the option to open borders and allow the virus to spread if they felt like that would for some reason put them in a better position. But this way they can hold off for a vaccine or effective treatment and have a far better outcome.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    The concern is that they might not have that option. A politician would have to be extraordinarily brave to get on TV and say "we've decided we should let the Americans come give us coronavirus".
macspoofing 6y ago
What's 'a long time'? Two weeks? Two months? Six months? 2 years?
- whycombagator 6y ago
  > "We will not have open borders for the rest of the world for a long time to come." Does not sound like two weeks is likely. I imagine the statement was purposefully non specific as COVID-19 will likely be a threat for a long, yet undetermined, amount of time.
  - guidedlight 6y ago
    The Australian tourism minister is saying overseas travel is not likely until 2021. https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/australians-may-not-be-able-to-travel-overseas-until-2021-due-to-coronavirus/news-story/5b29c380cef922d256fec79b85b261ab https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/...
- iso947 6y ago
  I suspect until there’s a proven vaccine. NZ has always been the best place in the world to survive the end of days.
  - lukifer 6y ago
    ...so long as you don't live near the coastline :/
    - gpm 6y ago
      My impression of new Zealand is that it's mountainous, easy to move inland a short distance for the minority who would be effected.
      - pixelbash 6y ago
        Not many mountains here in Auckland, lots of volcanoes plus one major (and often choked) road in and out though.
sergiotapia 6y ago
Pretty stupid, their citizens will never develop herd immunity. And what then, when they open up, one person will tumble everything down again.
- gunn 6y ago
  It buys time to prepare, and for vaccines and other treatments.
  - y-c-o-m-b 6y ago
    Yes, this point is being strongly overlooked. Worst case scenario they end up like the rest of the world now with a struggling economy and thousands of cases. By closing their borders it gives them time to build up their healthcare infrastructure, wait for vaccines and other experimental treatments to be vetted so by the time their borders open up again it won't devastate the country like it has everywhere else. These are all luxuries every nation wishes it could have taken advantage of. Criticizing New Zealand's response right now is extremely premature.
    - vondur 6y ago
      Isn't tourism a large portion of the economy there? I'd imagine this isn't going to help. Although no one is really traveling now, so maybe the damage is already done.
      - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
        For New Zealand the largest source of tourists are from Australia. The opposite isn't true due to the nations population imbalance but New Zealand is still a large source of tourism for Australia. It may surprise some people but the number of Australians that visit countries overseas is roughly equal to tourists visiting Australia. As wealthy diversified nations tourism for Australia and New Zealand is a net wash in terms of foreign cash flows. Citizens spend as much overseas as tourists coming to Australia. The issue isn't foreign currency gains/losses but a more simple case of the economy and jobs are setup to service a certain number of tourists who are no longer there. Both nations leaders have met and discussed encouraging bilateral tourism. Honeymoons, family overseas trips, etc. will be bilateral and internal for the time being. If the previously external tourism can be directed internally it'll actually more or less be a wash on topline numbers.
AnotherGoodName 6y ago
For reference both Australia and New Zealand each have fewer than 1000 active COVID cases right now, many from a cruise ship, The Diamond Princess that was allowed to dock in Australia. There's very few new cases appearing each day and of those new cases there's no surprises and they are traceable to the source. It makes sense for these two nations to trade and have tourism internally and bilaterally. A source of current numbers of active/new cases: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ It's quite clear that both nations are close to extinguishing COVID-19 within their own borders. The reason for this is both nations closed the borders early back in February. When that happened the fuckwit Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization came on national TV of Australia and said "There's no reason to restrict travel". This was in February. Listen to the fuckwit say it here: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/is-closing-borders-to-chinese-citizens-the-right-move/11933686 https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/is-closing-borders-... Lawrence Gostin, an official in WHO is also quoted in the above "it is unlawful, unnecessary and in breach of international law". I normally wouldn't be so harsh on criticism but this was in February. The border closure wasn't some racist Donald Trump style effort. It was two countries doing the right thing but the WHO is so corrupt and fucked up they tried to stop it, even threatening they'd bring the border closures to the international courts.
- glangdale 6y ago
  Entertainingly, the Chinese government also tut-tutted about our border closures as being racist. Since then they have implemented border closings of their own. Speaking of fuckwittery, the Diamond Princess debacle is really in a class of its own. There's some suspicion that it's also linked to (one of?) our worst fatality cluster in that medical personnel from the Diamond Princess may have gone to a eldercare facility straight after. Nice. As far as I'm concerned, every cruise ship that docks in Australia can pay $1M for the right to not be greeted with an Exocet missile until that industry has paid back the hideous damage it's done.
- pixelbash 6y ago
  We (NZ) had -1 new cases a couple of days ago, it's working pretty well.
Exmoor 6y ago
As insane as it seems I imagine we'll see closed borders in many countries for a long, long time (months, maybe years?). It's going to be very hard to justify risking even a small chance of introducing additional virus cases if you've just spent the last few months trying to get a point where even minimal non-"essential"* can begin to reopen there's going to be very little support for any increased risk of any kind. *I put "essential" in quotes here because I believe the definition of essential changes the longer services are closed. For instance, a dentist isn't really essential when they're closed for a month, but a 3 month closure is going to be increasingly problematic for people needing something more than a standard cleaning.
- jddj 6y ago
  You'd think so, but France has recently come out and said that they don't even plan to require 14 day quarantines for arrivals from the EU or UK. The UK border, despite their having the highest death toll in Europe, is similarly comparatively open compared to most other anglophone countries.
  - sonofgod 6y ago
    The UK currently has nothing to fear from open borders: why worry about the risk of a planeload of cases when there's ten new planeloads* of homegrown coronavirus every day? Everyone else, however, may well have something to fear from the UK... * 747: 450 passengers; new cases 4400 (5 May)
    - jddj 6y ago
      Right now that's a really good point. If the route out of lockdown is to test and trace, though, international travel without quarantine makes that pretty tough.
- Someone 6y ago
  Years? IMO, looking at the stats of Western European countries, who are all slowly lessening restrictions, typically showing both carrot and stick (“we think x will be allowed again in w weeks, if you all keep following the rules”), unlikely, at least not for countries with significant tourist industries. They will feel pressure to allow tourist visits, certainly from ‘safe’ regions such as Australia and New Zealand. (Whether those tourists will go on holiday is another question. Tourists may be wary of going far away on holiday, and if social distancing will be compulsory inside planes, and trains, travel likely will become much more expensive) It also will be hard for countries to withstand the pressure from their population to allow them to go on holiday in other countries. In the end, the better choice may be to allow some tourist visits, as that may mean people will follow restrictive rules better than when they wouldn’t be allowed to have go on holiday/to make some money from tourism.
lixtra 6y ago
> But it, too, has "flattened the curve" of infections. It‘s sad that the article uses the term in such a sloppy way. NZ was aiming for containment and eradication from the beginning. There are three common strategies to fight the Corona virus: „Herd immunity“ - Naturally letting it run out of steam. The problem is that your health system might get overwhelmed. Therefore „flatten the curve“. Advantages: new infections imported from abroad don’t matter; cost of the counter measures to society is minimized. Disadvantage: virus damage is maximized. Sweden is the classic example. GB, NYC probably. „Dancing“ - try to keep the numbers low but live with fact that you cannot eradicate the virus. If necessary bring the cases down by using the „hammer“ first. Advantage: imported cases can be contained; possibly time will bring better treatment/vaccination. Disadvantage: expensive measures for indefinite time. JP, HK Eradication - Advantage: back to normal if achieved. Disadvantage: not robust against imported cases. Possibly very expensive/unachievable. NZ As one can imagine, changing from one strategy to another at first gives you the disadvantages without the advantages.
daxfohl 6y ago
If this goes on for years, I imagine the increased number of suicides due to depression will surpass the covid-19 deaths.
- ashildr 6y ago
  We will adapt. But there will be a time before COVID19 and after and they will be different in many ways we can‘t know, yet. I myself have this feeling of “One day the vaccine will be there and everything will be as it was before“. That‘s wrong I think, we already left the known track and while a vaccine-like intervention will come, it will not get us back into the timeline we were in, before.
thinkingemote 6y ago
Given the NZ borders are open to residents does that mean they are open for NZ tourists elsewhere? Or is it a one way border? If you are a New Zealander are you allowed to go to Italy for a vacation? Or a conference in the USA later on?
- Erwin 6y ago
  According to https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/international-travel-document-news/1580226297.htm https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/international-travel-docume... New Zealand has a 14 day isolation in a government facility if you enter it.
  - thinkingemote 6y ago
    So if you lived in NZ and went to Australia for a week?
- em-bee 6y ago
  i don't think any country is concerned about people leaving, only people arriving. the reason the border is open for residents is because you can't reasonably stop people from returning home.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - thinkingemote 6y ago
    So those residents returning home have to go into quarantine? Or only non residents?
    - em-bee 6y ago
      depends on the country. in china everyone has to go into quarantine, and i believe i heard the same from germany too. i expect it will be the same in many other places

89 points by Reedx 6y ago

The irony of this is that the countries who were worst at their handling of the covid problem will be at an advantage at the end of it.

KerryJones 6y ago
How do you mean? They likely will have much higher deaths -- only if they decide to quarantine longer could I imagine that they have a success -- but "not handling covid 19 well" does not mean they will quarantine longer or that they will do a good job after their bang-up job.
- ithkuil 6y ago
  It feels deeply wrong to cold-heartedly choose a course of action that will result in the death of many people and the resulting suffering of those who survive their loved ones. But people are resilient. People face death from other causes all the time. Yes, there will be a measurable increase due to covid-19 but in countries that are already ravaged by poverty, crime, disease, wars, etc, it might not significantly alter the emotional balance of those who survive. That's particularly true in those countries whose authorities successfully downplay the effects of covid-19, e.g. by not doing much testing. From that POV, all other things being equal, one could expect that those countries might grow their economies while the rest of the world loses opportunities. I'm not sure I buy that argument though. World economy is not entirely a zero sum game
  - KerryJones 6y ago
    This feels like it's based on a lot of "gut feel", though I appreciate he devils-advocate argument. Specifically, these points: > it might not significantly alter the emotional balance of those who survive. That's particularly true in those countries whose authorities successfully downplay the effects of covid-19, e.g. by not doing much testing. Most countries in the world rely on global supply chains, and many countries are now closing their borders to external trade, meaning that their own prices will sky-rocket, likely causing layoffs and bankruptcies, causing stimulus packages and therefore inflation. The world is very interconnected (as I'm sure you know) In addition, I believe that many people would suffer significantly _more_ if many more people were dying around them. They would have friends and family who died or who were tied to people who died. I don't think it would be something as simple as "eh, someone else's problem". In addition, it's not just deaths -- there is a lot of data showing that there are long-term lung issues that develop if you do survive.
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > Most countries in the world rely on global supply chains, and many countries are now closing their borders to external trade, meaning that their own prices will sky-rocket, likely causing layoffs and bankruptcies, causing stimulus packages and therefore inflation Which countries, exactly, are closing their borders to trade? There are definitely a lot of restrictions being placed on travel and tourism, but banning cargo makes no sense in this context. If anything, things will probably just get lonelier for merchant seamen.
  - daxfohl 6y ago
    I wasn't implying that nations should choose this course. But say a year from now when most of their population is immune and the disease is no longer worrisome within that nation (relative to the zillion other things you can die from), then from that point they my ironically be better off. Of course this assumes 1. some kind of immunity (which I'd think indications are pointing toward, or I'd expect to have seen more repeat contractions by now) 2. the response was dorked up down to the individual level (which is most decidedly not the case -- plenty of individuals (especially among highish-income) are choosing to self isolate and take precautions, and thus will not contract the virus for quite some time no matter how bad the government response was, so immunity within these groups will never form, so the government will not be able to reopen anyway) So even in the absence of other considerations, the 2nd point above pretty much cancels out my original post.
    - orwin 6y ago
      >> 1. some kind of immunity (which I'd think indications are pointing toward, or I'd expect to have seen more repeat contractions by now) Not necessarily, you can have a short-term immunization that only last a year or two. This is why the "herd immunity" might be a poor idea when we don't know much about this virus. Anyway, i demanded a work/vacation visa to NZ for this October, i fear this won't be possible :/
  - Nasrudith 6y ago
    Ask Ireland or its overlords how choosing short term economy over people worked out for them with the Irish Potato Famine. Andrew Carnegie became wealthy in the US instead of generating income for the UK - regardless of one's opinions of his overall morals or lack of them he was far more productive than the harvest they sold. That was a more extreme case of 20% to 25% of the population but losing a sizable percentage of productivity with the population is very expensive in ways apparent both on and off the balance sheets. It is the epitome of penny wise pound foolish to make such a trade - the bloody gains will fade away in time while the loss echoes.
    - ithkuil 6y ago
      Yes, the size and age of the group matters though
atlasunshrugged 6y ago
Why do you say that?
- edgefield0 6y ago
  Herd immunity? Assuming such a thing can exist for Covid and it doesn't mutate every season like influenza.
  - BeefySwain 6y ago
    Do we know it won't mutate? I was under the impression this was unknowable at this point.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      There are already several mutations in circulation, so we know it does mutate. The questions remaining are: * how much does it mutate? * does exposure to one mutation lend immunity to another mutation? * does exposure to one mutation lend immunity to the same mutation?
  - Endlessly 6y ago
    Herd immunity is commonly not well understood in my opinion by the general public. All it means is the point where the spread is no longer “viral” — as in for ever person that’s infected, that person infects less than 1.0 people. People still get infected, die, etc. Higher the true R0 value for the virus, higher the threshold for reaching herd immunity and the eventual point the infection rate reaching 0.0; globally, without a vaccine, very possible corona will continue to exist years, if not longer.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      > People still get infected, die, etc. Yes, but fewer of them, which is the point.
- ApolloFortyNine 6y ago
centimeter 6y ago
Sure, if you define “worst at handling covid” as “had a relatively small overreaction”. Sweden is looking great now (look at actual total mortality numbers, not the pessimistic “projections” they keep changing). No substantial QALY loss from covid, and substantially less economic devastation, stress, and depression compared to those countries that overreacted.
- glangdale 6y ago
  You have to be on a different planet to define Sweden's mortality numbers to be "great". They are 5-10x worse than the other Nordics, have one of the highest death rates in the world, and it's not obvious that they will have a long-run advantage despite all the propagandizing for it. Their approach is highly experimental, which makes it all the more bizarre that they aren't testing very much. They have a "developing world" or "overwhelmed country" cases:deaths ratio (about 1:8) which suggests that they have a huge number of cases they don't know about. It's not clear why a country taking a radically experimental approach to COVID-19 would also test so lightly - it suggests that they don't want to know what's going on. It's possible that they don't want to have embarrassingly high case numbers, but it's just as possible that their numbers are embarrassing in the other direction - i.e. while they've killed a huge bunch of oldies, they also haven't got nearly enough cases to have herd immunity. We will also get to see, long term, what the morbidity effects of taking this approach are. They will not look super-intelligent if there is any kind of effective treatment or vaccine developed in the next 6-12 months. They only look good when you compare them with hard-hit countries. The difference is that Belgians and Spaniards aren't patrolling every goddamn social media site announcing how well they've done with the virus. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?time=2020-03-12..&country=NOR+FIN+DNK+SWE+FRA+ESP+ITA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-mi...
  - iso947 6y ago
    You can infer cases from deaths, as a whole you’re going to get the same death rate. Getting the death rate is tricky, what you need to look at is the increase in mortality over the 5 year average.
xupybd 6y ago
Yeah it's likely that could be true. Here in NZ we've not yet been hit by the economic toll as the government is paying wage subsidies. That's a short term fix. Years of high taxes will follow. Job losses will mount as the tourism sector falls over. It will not be pretty. So was it a wise move to shut down? Maybe, given the information they had at the time. Better to be safe than sorry. In hindsight with all the facts we have now maybe not but they didn't have those facts at the start.
Gibbon1 6y ago
The countries that are ruthless in dealing this will be able to reopen their economies quickly, reopen borders with other sane countries. Economically they will recover very quickly. Countries like the US which have no unified and sane policy are going to take a full decade to recover. Some parts will never recover.
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  It's likely going to be the opposite as recent tests in Korea seem to show immunity does happen. The countries that did little to stop the spread will have or be close to immune while the countries that aggressively locked down will not be able to interact with most of the world.
  - iso947 6y ago
    No country has got anywhere near 50% of infections. There seems no appetite currently for 4,000 deaths per million people that reaching herd immunity levels would require, at least in the western economies.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      Deniers keep assuming that everyone will haplessly let themselves get infected. And the pandemic will be over in a couple of weeks. That is an incredibly stupid thing to believe. Consider. Lets say that because people are terrified of the virus they protect themselves. Which to their credit most people are. And the growth rate drops from 35% to 5% a week. So how long does it take to get from 2% infected to 60%? Do the math and you find out it's 70 weeks or 18 months.
      - iso947 6y ago
        You could get Bill Gates to infect everyone with 5g?
op03 6y ago
What advantage? More likely unintended consequences and costs will keep mounting. And at some point cross covid costs. After that political tunes will change. It's not like the ant hill can just build a border around itself and survive for ever.
procinct 6y ago
I don’t really understand how so. Countries that have handled it aggressively at least have the option to open borders and allow the virus to spread if they felt like that would for some reason put them in a better position. But this way they can hold off for a vaccine or effective treatment and have a far better outcome.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The concern is that they might not have that option. A politician would have to be extraordinarily brave to get on TV and say "we've decided we should let the Americans come give us coronavirus".

macspoofing 6y ago

What's 'a long time'? Two weeks? Two months? Six months? 2 years?

whycombagator 6y ago
> "We will not have open borders for the rest of the world for a long time to come." Does not sound like two weeks is likely. I imagine the statement was purposefully non specific as COVID-19 will likely be a threat for a long, yet undetermined, amount of time.
- guidedlight 6y ago
  The Australian tourism minister is saying overseas travel is not likely until 2021. https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/australians-may-not-be-able-to-travel-overseas-until-2021-due-to-coronavirus/news-story/5b29c380cef922d256fec79b85b261ab https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/...
iso947 6y ago
I suspect until there’s a proven vaccine. NZ has always been the best place in the world to survive the end of days.
- lukifer 6y ago
  ...so long as you don't live near the coastline :/
  - gpm 6y ago
    My impression of new Zealand is that it's mountainous, easy to move inland a short distance for the minority who would be effected.
    - pixelbash 6y ago
      Not many mountains here in Auckland, lots of volcanoes plus one major (and often choked) road in and out though.

sergiotapia 6y ago

Pretty stupid, their citizens will never develop herd immunity. And what then, when they open up, one person will tumble everything down again.

gunn 6y ago
It buys time to prepare, and for vaccines and other treatments.
- y-c-o-m-b 6y ago
  Yes, this point is being strongly overlooked. Worst case scenario they end up like the rest of the world now with a struggling economy and thousands of cases. By closing their borders it gives them time to build up their healthcare infrastructure, wait for vaccines and other experimental treatments to be vetted so by the time their borders open up again it won't devastate the country like it has everywhere else. These are all luxuries every nation wishes it could have taken advantage of. Criticizing New Zealand's response right now is extremely premature.
  - vondur 6y ago
    Isn't tourism a large portion of the economy there? I'd imagine this isn't going to help. Although no one is really traveling now, so maybe the damage is already done.
    - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
      For New Zealand the largest source of tourists are from Australia. The opposite isn't true due to the nations population imbalance but New Zealand is still a large source of tourism for Australia. It may surprise some people but the number of Australians that visit countries overseas is roughly equal to tourists visiting Australia. As wealthy diversified nations tourism for Australia and New Zealand is a net wash in terms of foreign cash flows. Citizens spend as much overseas as tourists coming to Australia. The issue isn't foreign currency gains/losses but a more simple case of the economy and jobs are setup to service a certain number of tourists who are no longer there. Both nations leaders have met and discussed encouraging bilateral tourism. Honeymoons, family overseas trips, etc. will be bilateral and internal for the time being. If the previously external tourism can be directed internally it'll actually more or less be a wash on topline numbers.

AnotherGoodName 6y ago

For reference both Australia and New Zealand each have fewer than 1000 active COVID cases right now, many from a cruise ship, The Diamond Princess that was allowed to dock in Australia. There's very few new cases appearing each day and of those new cases there's no surprises and they are traceable to the source. It makes sense for these two nations to trade and have tourism internally and bilaterally. A source of current numbers of active/new cases: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ It's quite clear that both nations are close to extinguishing COVID-19 within their own borders. The reason for this is both nations closed the borders early back in February. When that happened the fuckwit Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization came on national TV of Australia and said "There's no reason to restrict travel". This was in February. Listen to the fuckwit say it here: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/is-closing-borders-to-chinese-citizens-the-right-move/11933686 https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/is-closing-borders-... Lawrence Gostin, an official in WHO is also quoted in the above "it is unlawful, unnecessary and in breach of international law". I normally wouldn't be so harsh on criticism but this was in February. The border closure wasn't some racist Donald Trump style effort. It was two countries doing the right thing but the WHO is so corrupt and fucked up they tried to stop it, even threatening they'd bring the border closures to the international courts.

glangdale 6y ago
Entertainingly, the Chinese government also tut-tutted about our border closures as being racist. Since then they have implemented border closings of their own. Speaking of fuckwittery, the Diamond Princess debacle is really in a class of its own. There's some suspicion that it's also linked to (one of?) our worst fatality cluster in that medical personnel from the Diamond Princess may have gone to a eldercare facility straight after. Nice. As far as I'm concerned, every cruise ship that docks in Australia can pay $1M for the right to not be greeted with an Exocet missile until that industry has paid back the hideous damage it's done.
pixelbash 6y ago
We (NZ) had -1 new cases a couple of days ago, it's working pretty well.

Exmoor 6y ago

As insane as it seems I imagine we'll see closed borders in many countries for a long, long time (months, maybe years?). It's going to be very hard to justify risking even a small chance of introducing additional virus cases if you've just spent the last few months trying to get a point where even minimal non-"essential"* can begin to reopen there's going to be very little support for any increased risk of any kind. *I put "essential" in quotes here because I believe the definition of essential changes the longer services are closed. For instance, a dentist isn't really essential when they're closed for a month, but a 3 month closure is going to be increasingly problematic for people needing something more than a standard cleaning.

jddj 6y ago
You'd think so, but France has recently come out and said that they don't even plan to require 14 day quarantines for arrivals from the EU or UK. The UK border, despite their having the highest death toll in Europe, is similarly comparatively open compared to most other anglophone countries.
- sonofgod 6y ago
  The UK currently has nothing to fear from open borders: why worry about the risk of a planeload of cases when there's ten new planeloads* of homegrown coronavirus every day? Everyone else, however, may well have something to fear from the UK... * 747: 450 passengers; new cases 4400 (5 May)
  - jddj 6y ago
    Right now that's a really good point. If the route out of lockdown is to test and trace, though, international travel without quarantine makes that pretty tough.
Someone 6y ago
Years? IMO, looking at the stats of Western European countries, who are all slowly lessening restrictions, typically showing both carrot and stick (“we think x will be allowed again in w weeks, if you all keep following the rules”), unlikely, at least not for countries with significant tourist industries. They will feel pressure to allow tourist visits, certainly from ‘safe’ regions such as Australia and New Zealand. (Whether those tourists will go on holiday is another question. Tourists may be wary of going far away on holiday, and if social distancing will be compulsory inside planes, and trains, travel likely will become much more expensive) It also will be hard for countries to withstand the pressure from their population to allow them to go on holiday in other countries. In the end, the better choice may be to allow some tourist visits, as that may mean people will follow restrictive rules better than when they wouldn’t be allowed to have go on holiday/to make some money from tourism.

lixtra 6y ago

> But it, too, has "flattened the curve" of infections. It‘s sad that the article uses the term in such a sloppy way. NZ was aiming for containment and eradication from the beginning. There are three common strategies to fight the Corona virus: „Herd immunity“ - Naturally letting it run out of steam. The problem is that your health system might get overwhelmed. Therefore „flatten the curve“. Advantages: new infections imported from abroad don’t matter; cost of the counter measures to society is minimized. Disadvantage: virus damage is maximized. Sweden is the classic example. GB, NYC probably. „Dancing“ - try to keep the numbers low but live with fact that you cannot eradicate the virus. If necessary bring the cases down by using the „hammer“ first. Advantage: imported cases can be contained; possibly time will bring better treatment/vaccination. Disadvantage: expensive measures for indefinite time. JP, HK Eradication - Advantage: back to normal if achieved. Disadvantage: not robust against imported cases. Possibly very expensive/unachievable. NZ As one can imagine, changing from one strategy to another at first gives you the disadvantages without the advantages.

daxfohl 6y ago

If this goes on for years, I imagine the increased number of suicides due to depression will surpass the covid-19 deaths.

ashildr 6y ago
We will adapt. But there will be a time before COVID19 and after and they will be different in many ways we can‘t know, yet. I myself have this feeling of “One day the vaccine will be there and everything will be as it was before“. That‘s wrong I think, we already left the known track and while a vaccine-like intervention will come, it will not get us back into the timeline we were in, before.

thinkingemote 6y ago

Given the NZ borders are open to residents does that mean they are open for NZ tourists elsewhere? Or is it a one way border? If you are a New Zealander are you allowed to go to Italy for a vacation? Or a conference in the USA later on?

Erwin 6y ago
According to https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/international-travel-document-news/1580226297.htm https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/international-travel-docume... New Zealand has a 14 day isolation in a government facility if you enter it.
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  So if you lived in NZ and went to Australia for a week?
em-bee 6y ago
i don't think any country is concerned about people leaving, only people arriving. the reason the border is open for residents is because you can't reasonably stop people from returning home.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  So those residents returning home have to go into quarantine? Or only non residents?
  - em-bee 6y ago
    depends on the country. in china everyone has to go into quarantine, and i believe i heard the same from germany too. i expect it will be the same in many other places