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As others have pointed out they're able to totally control their border and quarantine every single arrival. But more importantly, how will it end for them? Au

As others have pointed out they're able to totally control their border and quarantine every single arrival. But more importantly, how will it end for them? Australia and New Zealand are among the worst corona zealot nations. New Zealand just shut down everything over a single case and the PM told people to not even talk to each other anymore. How will they get out of this? If they looked at the facts they'd understand they will have to open up eventually, might as well do it now. Instead they're now trapped in eternal 'zero covid'.

InvertedRhodium 5y ago
Got a source on the NZ PM saying they can't talk to one another anymore?
- areyousure 5y ago
  "Don't talk to your neighbours." https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-children-are-at-home-even-if-parents-are-essential-workers-ardern/C6BCQOAV5EJGAU3ZPVZCYE4BUE/ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-children-...
  - InvertedRhodium 5y ago
    To expand upon your quote: > "We ask people to stay two metres away from anyone you pass," she said. "Stay local. Do not congregate. Don't talk to your neighbours. Please, keep to your bubble." To interpret that as anything other than physical distancing measures can only be deliberate obtuseness. You can talk to anyone you want, just pick up the phone.
nojs 5y ago
Your comment is slightly out of date. The stated position of both the Australian PM and NSW state premier is that elimination is impossible, and vaccination/reopening is the goal. https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-update-we-cant-stay-in-the-cave-pm-hits-back-at-state-opposition-to-covid-normal/b73cbada-773e-4559-97f9-2ab46ae74281 https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-update-we-cant...
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  So their initial strategy turned out impossible to follow, but now they have a new one you trust? Did they refund the fines of those people who protested or are people still fined and arrested?
- nradov 5y ago
  If that's correct then why have they been so slow to distribute vaccines?
  - Rooki 5y ago
    Incompetent governance.
  - BigJono 5y ago
    Because the federal government is full of incompetent conservative fuckwits that couldn't organise a root in a brothel and would struggle to win 5% of the vote without decades of the worst Murdoch propaganda behind them that makes Fox News look reasonable. We have one of the worst governments in the entire democratic world. We just got insanely lucky that at the start of the pandemic they decided to lay off as much responsibility as possible to the state governments who have mostly been fantastic.
    - eskaytwo 5y ago
      This got downvoted for the emotional language, but the facts of the matter are sadly correct.
  - strken 5y ago
    I recognise you may not have the backstory on why this is the case. Australia relied mainly on AstraZeneca and the UQ molecular clamping vaccine for its vaccine strategy, both of which could be manufactured locally. It signed other contracts for vaccines lackadaisically and with a late delivery time. AstraZeneca is less effective than mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna, and causes a rare blood clotting condition that's fatal at a rate of 1 per millions. The UQ molecular clamping vaccine failed clinical trials despite being effective because it caused some patients to return a false positive result for HIV. This meant that domestic vaccine production in Australia was limited to one less effective vaccine that sometimes (very rarely) kills the people who get it, which the media have had a field day with. The government now faces the problem of having millions of doses of a vaccine that few people want, few doses of the vaccines everyone wants, drug manufacturers who've already signed agreements with everyone else, a low rate of infection (due to lockdowns) that means they don't deserve emergency support, and a population that has no idea what's happening because the situation is complicated. On top of this, the government has made some bad decisions with the roll-out itself. It doesn't allow the age groups most vulnerable to COVID-19 to receive the marginally safer and significantly more effective mRNA vaccines, on the basis that this age group has a clear benefit from receiving AstraZeneca and a lower risk of blood clotting, so there's significant vaccine hesitancy and less effective vaccine coverage among the very group who's most likely to die from the disease. It also didn't allow young people to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine for a long time, and even now requires them to give informed consent to a doctor or pharmacist before receiving it, so the roll-out requires finding qualified doctors and pharmacists as well as nurses, at a time when the medical system is already strained.
dunco 5y ago
you misunderstand the zero covid strategy. The endgame is not zero covid forever. The endgame is zero-covid until we get as many people vaccinated as possible. This is the best result that can be achieved. less deaths, AND less economic disruption. "They might as well do it now" is misguided. Would you prefer to release a virus into an unvaccinated or fully vaccinated population?
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  Why are they not vaccinated yet? Everyone here in Western Europe has had access by now if they wanted to get vaccinated. Could it be their "strategy" changes every week and isn't a strategy at all?
  - dunco 5y ago
    Bad luck on vaccine betting and incompetent government are the main reasons. Others have elaborated in this thread.
- klipt 5y ago
  At this point, in the US any adult who wants to be vaccinated, is. But we still have to mask up due to Delta getting past the vaccines, and children not being vaccinated.
  - dunco 5y ago
    in Aus we don't have enough vaccines to give to the people that want them. bad luck on vaccine betting and incompetent government are the main reasons.
dogpuncher 5y ago
> New Zealand just shut down everything over a single case It's maddening to see someone peddling this narrative in a discussion on HN.
- Clewza313 5y ago
  No, that's a literal description of what they did last week: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/new-zealand-to-go-into-national-lockdown-over-one-covid-case https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/new-zealand-to... One (1) positive case, entire nation placed on maximum level 4 lockdown where you can't leave your house except for a very short list of permitted reasons.
  - tjpnz 5y ago
    NZ now has more than 100 cases. I wonder how high it would be now if they didn't.
  - dogpuncher 5y ago
    It's not a literal description of what happened. Read the article you linked to, not just the headline. It explains the additional factors that informed the decision. The "1 positive case" narrative is nonsense.
    - Clewza313 5y ago
      I'm quite well aware of what's happening in NZ, thank you, and the reason they locked down the whole nation is because that one case a) could not be immediately linked to another case, implying there were likely others out there, and b) had moved around quite a bit, meaning other cases were likely widely spread. As we now know both these turned out to be true. Nevertheless, it is still a literally true statement that the entirety of NZ was locked down over one (1) case, because if they hadn't found that one case, they wouldn't have done that.

InvertedRhodium 5y ago

Got a source on the NZ PM saying they can't talk to one another anymore?

areyousure 5y ago
"Don't talk to your neighbours." https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-children-are-at-home-even-if-parents-are-essential-workers-ardern/C6BCQOAV5EJGAU3ZPVZCYE4BUE/ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-children-...
- InvertedRhodium 5y ago
  To expand upon your quote: > "We ask people to stay two metres away from anyone you pass," she said. "Stay local. Do not congregate. Don't talk to your neighbours. Please, keep to your bubble." To interpret that as anything other than physical distancing measures can only be deliberate obtuseness. You can talk to anyone you want, just pick up the phone.

nojs 5y ago

Your comment is slightly out of date. The stated position of both the Australian PM and NSW state premier is that elimination is impossible, and vaccination/reopening is the goal. https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-update-we-cant-stay-in-the-cave-pm-hits-back-at-state-opposition-to-covid-normal/b73cbada-773e-4559-97f9-2ab46ae74281 https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-update-we-cant...

trompetenaccoun 5y ago
So their initial strategy turned out impossible to follow, but now they have a new one you trust? Did they refund the fines of those people who protested or are people still fined and arrested?
nradov 5y ago
If that's correct then why have they been so slow to distribute vaccines?
- Rooki 5y ago
  Incompetent governance.
- BigJono 5y ago
  Because the federal government is full of incompetent conservative fuckwits that couldn't organise a root in a brothel and would struggle to win 5% of the vote without decades of the worst Murdoch propaganda behind them that makes Fox News look reasonable. We have one of the worst governments in the entire democratic world. We just got insanely lucky that at the start of the pandemic they decided to lay off as much responsibility as possible to the state governments who have mostly been fantastic.
  - eskaytwo 5y ago
    This got downvoted for the emotional language, but the facts of the matter are sadly correct.
- strken 5y ago
  I recognise you may not have the backstory on why this is the case. Australia relied mainly on AstraZeneca and the UQ molecular clamping vaccine for its vaccine strategy, both of which could be manufactured locally. It signed other contracts for vaccines lackadaisically and with a late delivery time. AstraZeneca is less effective than mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna, and causes a rare blood clotting condition that's fatal at a rate of 1 per millions. The UQ molecular clamping vaccine failed clinical trials despite being effective because it caused some patients to return a false positive result for HIV. This meant that domestic vaccine production in Australia was limited to one less effective vaccine that sometimes (very rarely) kills the people who get it, which the media have had a field day with. The government now faces the problem of having millions of doses of a vaccine that few people want, few doses of the vaccines everyone wants, drug manufacturers who've already signed agreements with everyone else, a low rate of infection (due to lockdowns) that means they don't deserve emergency support, and a population that has no idea what's happening because the situation is complicated. On top of this, the government has made some bad decisions with the roll-out itself. It doesn't allow the age groups most vulnerable to COVID-19 to receive the marginally safer and significantly more effective mRNA vaccines, on the basis that this age group has a clear benefit from receiving AstraZeneca and a lower risk of blood clotting, so there's significant vaccine hesitancy and less effective vaccine coverage among the very group who's most likely to die from the disease. It also didn't allow young people to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine for a long time, and even now requires them to give informed consent to a doctor or pharmacist before receiving it, so the roll-out requires finding qualified doctors and pharmacists as well as nurses, at a time when the medical system is already strained.

dunco 5y ago

you misunderstand the zero covid strategy. The endgame is not zero covid forever. The endgame is zero-covid until we get as many people vaccinated as possible. This is the best result that can be achieved. less deaths, AND less economic disruption. "They might as well do it now" is misguided. Would you prefer to release a virus into an unvaccinated or fully vaccinated population?

trompetenaccoun 5y ago
Why are they not vaccinated yet? Everyone here in Western Europe has had access by now if they wanted to get vaccinated. Could it be their "strategy" changes every week and isn't a strategy at all?
- dunco 5y ago
  Bad luck on vaccine betting and incompetent government are the main reasons. Others have elaborated in this thread.
klipt 5y ago
At this point, in the US any adult who wants to be vaccinated, is. But we still have to mask up due to Delta getting past the vaccines, and children not being vaccinated.
- dunco 5y ago
  in Aus we don't have enough vaccines to give to the people that want them. bad luck on vaccine betting and incompetent government are the main reasons.

dogpuncher 5y ago

> New Zealand just shut down everything over a single case It's maddening to see someone peddling this narrative in a discussion on HN.

Clewza313 5y ago
No, that's a literal description of what they did last week: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/new-zealand-to-go-into-national-lockdown-over-one-covid-case https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/new-zealand-to... One (1) positive case, entire nation placed on maximum level 4 lockdown where you can't leave your house except for a very short list of permitted reasons.
- tjpnz 5y ago
  NZ now has more than 100 cases. I wonder how high it would be now if they didn't.
- dogpuncher 5y ago
  It's not a literal description of what happened. Read the article you linked to, not just the headline. It explains the additional factors that informed the decision. The "1 positive case" narrative is nonsense.
  - Clewza313 5y ago
    I'm quite well aware of what's happening in NZ, thank you, and the reason they locked down the whole nation is because that one case a) could not be immediately linked to another case, implying there were likely others out there, and b) had moved around quite a bit, meaning other cases were likely widely spread. As we now know both these turned out to be true. Nevertheless, it is still a literally true statement that the entirety of NZ was locked down over one (1) case, because if they hadn't found that one case, they wouldn't have done that.