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In NZ we just about eliminated flu (and COVID until recently), with resulted in the negative excess deaths reported in the article.

lostlogin 5y ago
It’s slightly jarring to see a negative number, and even more jarring how much airtime those championing unlocking, unmasking and being antivax are getting here.
- usaphp 5y ago
  If you ban people from driving cars and make them walk everywhere - you could also eliminate car accident deaths, it's not sustainable though...
  - wbsss4412 5y ago
    I mean maybe you’re onto something and don’t realize it. Banning cars would be more akin to totally locking down rather than incentivizing vaccination, masks and other public health measures that aren’t as invasive. Maybe, similarly discouraging car y use and encouraging walking is a good thing.
    - aronpye 5y ago
      So basically destroy rural populations which are also the source of all our food? Unless I’m mistaken in that cities are actually the source of all life sustaining industries.
      - pm90 5y ago
        Enough with the hyperbole. Discouraging car use won’t destroy rural populations; it would improve the QoL of urban ones.
        aronpye 5y ago
        You can’t survive in a rural area without a car
        pm90 5y ago
        The parent said: > Maybe, similarly discouraging car y use and encouraging walking is a good thing. That policy won’t take cars away from the rural populace.
        wbsss4412 5y ago
        Is discouraging synonymous with destroying in your lexicon? Most people don’t live in rural areas and most deadly accidents don’t occur in rural areas either. Discouraging car use in cities has next to no effect on rural populations.
        aronpye 5y ago
        Approx 19.3% of Americans live in rural areas, and a higher proportion of rural residents are in poverty. Therefore, measures to discourage car use are likely to disproportionally adversely impact some of the poorest in society. Unless those measures somehow completely avoid affecting rural populations. I’d support city only measures like a city income tax to fund public transportation and conversion of stroads to pedestrian friendly streets. But what is likely to happen are general taxations on car users such as fuel duty and onerous regulations which push up the cost of car ownership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_areas_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_areas_in_the_United_Stat...
        wbsss4412 5y ago
        You’re making a lot of assumptions as to what “discouraging car use” entails. We both agreed that rural areas would not be a good place to target such policies, so why assume I was saying we should push policies that are overly broad?
        Auracle 5y ago
  - quadrangle 5y ago
    What do you mean not sustainable??? If we limited and regulated car use pretty extremely and stuck with trains, bikes, and walking, we would be half the way there toward a completely sustainable society. Cars are a major source of the least sustainable aspects of humanity on earth today.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      Most of America needs cars. Society would collapse if you just "limited and regulated car use pretty extremely". If there's a solution to that, then let's just do that, and skip the authoritarian part afterward.
      - quadrangle 5y ago
        You mean most of America is designed to be car-dependent. So, yes, in the current design it needs cars. I wasn't saying we could just suddenly ban them tomorrow. The solution is hard because of how bad we've gotten things. But the solution has little authoritarian about it. We just change our priorities for the design of public infrastructure. We don't even need to actually ban cars at all. Make it practical and enjoyable to do everything by train, bike, or walking whenever possible and most people will happily do it. The result is a huge decrease in deaths both through healthier living and less cars. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos describes things pretty well and accessibly. In short: the Netherlands was on track 40 years ago to be nearly as car-dependent as the U.S. and yet protesters blocked some highway proposals and the country went in a different direction. Today, it's the best designed place in the world, and its even better for drivers too.
        josephcsible 5y ago
        > But the solution has little authoritarian about it. The authoritarian part was limiting/regulating car use pretty extremely. I'm perfectly fine with making alternatives to cars more practical, just not with making cars less practical.
  - dr_zoidberg 5y ago
    It's pretty sustainable on cities witth proper public transport. And I say that living on a city with pretty much subpar public transport, but on which I manage to go everyday just walking, save for a few trips from time to time where I definitely need to move by car (it's a bit under once per week, think 30-40 times a year).
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    If you banned cigarettes, you'd save many lives, and it's also pretty much sustainable for everybody except the tobacco industry. I'm not sure which country (NZ?) implemented a law, that everyone born after some year, will not be able to buy cigarettes anymore, so old smokers can still buy them, but kids just turning 18 can't anymore, and never will be able to.
    - usaphp 5y ago
      Banning cigarettes is not something that is comparable to banning people from traveling and gathering with their friends...
      - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        But it saves lives. In my country (Slovenia), cigarettes kill more people than covid did (in the last 2 years)... we had huge lockdowns, and pointed the fingers at anyone who ignored some of the rules (even though our constitutional court ruled afterwards that most of the lockdowns were unconstitutional), but just banning smoking would save more lives than covid took away.
        kspacewalk2 5y ago
        > but just banning smoking would save more lives than covid took away. ... Assuming people wouldn't buy on the black market, drive down to Croatia, Italy or Austria to replenish their supply, etc.
        ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        If you did an age-ban (anyone born after 2003 can't buy them), there'd probably be less younger smokers, because driving across the border takes time and money.
        lostlogin 5y ago
        You may know this, but smoking is being banned in New Zealand.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  How long do you want the country to isolate itself from the rest of the world? Your view of managing COVID seems extremely conservative.
  - space_rock 5y ago
    Well it resulted in one of the lowest restrictions on people in any country besides international travel. Giving people freedom to meet people and work is good
    - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
      We have strong restrictions relative to our COVID cases. Majority of the country has practically no cases, yet they are at the middle alert level rather than the lowest one. Auckland previously had a very strict lockdown based on very low case numbers relative to the rest of the world. Of course there is the argument that if we didn't have such restrictions we wouldn't have dealt with COVID as well, but even taking that into account I think the government has been very conservative.
      - space_rock 5y ago
        One perspective to consider is the length of these restrictions. Other countries have had years of lockdowns and restrictions. New Zealanders were going to concerts while the world was in lockdown. Even if New Zealand's restrictions have been strict the restrictions have been intermittent and only in some regions
        ZephyrBlu 5y ago
        This is true, but again I would compare restrictions relative to the severity of COVID outbreak. Other countries have much longer/stronger restrictions, but they have also had much more severe outbreaks. The government seems to be very slow to come around on changing their COVID strategy, especially given that the stakes are pretty low in NZ relative to other countries.
- umvi 5y ago
  > and even more jarring how much airtime those championing unlocking, unmasking and being antivax are getting here Not everyone agrees "excess deaths" is the ultimate variable society should optimize for at the expense of all other variables.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    If election results are to be believed, New Zealanders like the results achieved.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - tracerbulletx 5y ago
    Wearing a mask and getting a vaccine are not even tradeoffs. The choice is between being willfully obstinate and participating in measures that save lives.
    - throwaway55421 5y ago
      Wearing a mask is obviously a massive tradeoff, it's an ongoing "hey, hey, be afraid of me, I might coronise you!" indicator. It makes most people uncomfortable both physically and mentally. Of course, even if it were free, it's essentially pointless because unless you live in China and they actually remain zero covid forever, you're going to repeatedly get coronavirus anyway cause it ain't ever going anywhere. Vaccination is not even in the same league, it's an obvious easy win that gives you a far better chance when (not if) you get it.
      - subsection1h 5y ago
        > It makes most people uncomfortable [...] mentally. Citation needed.
- Zigurd 5y ago
  If anything, the story will be that those who have the choice are happy not being in the office all the time, and that road deaths and deaths from other infectious diseases will be down due to anti-COVID measures.
- qybaz 5y ago
  Imagine the amount of disease, death and suffering we could prevent if we lived in pods like in The Matrix.
  - usaphp 5y ago
    Welcome to Metaverse
- aronpye 5y ago
  Nationwide mandates are oppressive and don’t allow people freedom to choose their own level of acceptable risk. Regional level variations are probably more tolerable allowing people to choose what type of society they want to live in.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    I think you might be missing the fact that it's an airborne virus at pandemic levels. Regional restrictions can't work because people can just move and spread it everywhere, including places where local inhabitants don't want to "accept the risk".
    - aronpye 5y ago
      Why would anyone who wants freedom move into an area where people are forced into isolation?
      - sofixa 5y ago
        Because their family is there, or because there's better work there, or they like the weather better or any number of reasons.
      - prawn 5y ago
        They don't need to move there to spread risk, just move through, and as such tourism is one factor. Early in the pandemic, I had an assignment to photograph in a particular area that was actively dissuading visitors, had signage up as such, etc. I had to stop to refuel the car, but that was the extent of my contact with people and interiors otherwise. I live in a state that had closed borders for most of the pandemic until recently (when our adult vax rate hit 80%). They're now open and cases are predictably rising. Opening the borders seems to have had a political backlash because while families can move in/out of the state, the rising cases has brought about business lockdowns but without the support/stimulus from last year.
  - bena 5y ago
    We don't have the "freedom to choose [our] own level of acceptable risk" in a lot of areas. So that's obviously not a point anybody is really, honestly concerned about.
- StephenJGL 5y ago
  It might be even more jarring when a population two years from now is hit by a flu they didn't get almost any exposure to this year. There is a complexity here that is hard to wrap your head fully around.
- disambiguation 5y ago
  NZ is an island at the edge of the world, and their population is a fraction of most major cities, let alone states, provinces, and countries. Policies that work for them might not work for others. Further, its a bit early to call victory if perpetual lockdowns are the only thing holding back the disease. What happens once they open the flood gates and covid is still active?
  - throwaway788 5y ago
    The 95%+ vaccinations rates (12+) in the three major cities and 92% overall (also 12+) would somewhat help. Along with the fact community spread is already present and has been for a few months, the measures in place have kept uncontrolled spread in check. NZ keeps new introductions to a minimum to ensure that contact tracing is not overwhelmed and this adds to the effective decrease in reproduction offered by vaccinations. New Zealand being a season behind also allows the Northern hemisphere to burn through a wave and NZ can then decide when to lift international arrival restrictions to a time when the incidence levels are low from common arrival locales (UK, US etc).
_dain_ 5y ago
- space_rock 5y ago
  Actually the domestic restrictions on people in NZ have been much less than other countries. They got negative press for proactive restrictions on an exponentially spreading virus. Lockdown after 1 detection
- throwaway788 5y ago
  Over the entire pandemic to date, NZ has had lower levels of restrictions than all other OECD countries. For the majority of the pandemic there were zero restrictions and businesses and people were operating as normal. NZ had a election mid-way through the pandemic and overwhelmingly re-elected the current government based on the approach being taken. Under the MMP system the current single party government is unique (governments are normally coalitions of multiple parties – like Germany). These talking points from right-wing media about Australia and NZ suffering and having civil liberties destroyed is so far from the truth that when seeing news items covering it from the USA, it is so absurd to be comical.
- manuelabeledo 5y ago
  > along with your civil liberties This is untrue, and part of a dangerous narrative that puts the wants of individuals as more important than the needs of a society.
  - claytongulick 5y ago
    > part of a dangerous narrative that puts the wants of individuals as more important than the needs of a society. This is part of a dangerous narrative that grants ownership of self to the state, rather than the individual.
    - manuelabeledo 5y ago
      Right, because killing your neighbour is worth being able to go to your favourite restaurant. I mean, if we are to accept the absurd take that civil liberties were under attack because of the response to a global pandemic, something that didn't happened, then it's equally possible that the people against lockdowns and other measures are just whining, because they are slightly inconvenienced by rules that may prevent their fellow humans' deaths.

lostlogin 5y ago

It’s slightly jarring to see a negative number, and even more jarring how much airtime those championing unlocking, unmasking and being antivax are getting here.

usaphp 5y ago
If you ban people from driving cars and make them walk everywhere - you could also eliminate car accident deaths, it's not sustainable though...
- wbsss4412 5y ago
  I mean maybe you’re onto something and don’t realize it. Banning cars would be more akin to totally locking down rather than incentivizing vaccination, masks and other public health measures that aren’t as invasive. Maybe, similarly discouraging car y use and encouraging walking is a good thing.
  - aronpye 5y ago
    So basically destroy rural populations which are also the source of all our food? Unless I’m mistaken in that cities are actually the source of all life sustaining industries.
    - pm90 5y ago
      Enough with the hyperbole. Discouraging car use won’t destroy rural populations; it would improve the QoL of urban ones.
      - aronpye 5y ago
        You can’t survive in a rural area without a car
        pm90 5y ago
        The parent said: > Maybe, similarly discouraging car y use and encouraging walking is a good thing. That policy won’t take cars away from the rural populace.
        wbsss4412 5y ago
        Is discouraging synonymous with destroying in your lexicon? Most people don’t live in rural areas and most deadly accidents don’t occur in rural areas either. Discouraging car use in cities has next to no effect on rural populations.
        aronpye 5y ago
        Approx 19.3% of Americans live in rural areas, and a higher proportion of rural residents are in poverty. Therefore, measures to discourage car use are likely to disproportionally adversely impact some of the poorest in society. Unless those measures somehow completely avoid affecting rural populations. I’d support city only measures like a city income tax to fund public transportation and conversion of stroads to pedestrian friendly streets. But what is likely to happen are general taxations on car users such as fuel duty and onerous regulations which push up the cost of car ownership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_areas_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_areas_in_the_United_Stat...
        wbsss4412 5y ago
        You’re making a lot of assumptions as to what “discouraging car use” entails. We both agreed that rural areas would not be a good place to target such policies, so why assume I was saying we should push policies that are overly broad?
      - Auracle 5y ago
- quadrangle 5y ago
  What do you mean not sustainable??? If we limited and regulated car use pretty extremely and stuck with trains, bikes, and walking, we would be half the way there toward a completely sustainable society. Cars are a major source of the least sustainable aspects of humanity on earth today.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Most of America needs cars. Society would collapse if you just "limited and regulated car use pretty extremely". If there's a solution to that, then let's just do that, and skip the authoritarian part afterward.
    - quadrangle 5y ago
      You mean most of America is designed to be car-dependent. So, yes, in the current design it needs cars. I wasn't saying we could just suddenly ban them tomorrow. The solution is hard because of how bad we've gotten things. But the solution has little authoritarian about it. We just change our priorities for the design of public infrastructure. We don't even need to actually ban cars at all. Make it practical and enjoyable to do everything by train, bike, or walking whenever possible and most people will happily do it. The result is a huge decrease in deaths both through healthier living and less cars. https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes/videos describes things pretty well and accessibly. In short: the Netherlands was on track 40 years ago to be nearly as car-dependent as the U.S. and yet protesters blocked some highway proposals and the country went in a different direction. Today, it's the best designed place in the world, and its even better for drivers too.
      - josephcsible 5y ago
        > But the solution has little authoritarian about it. The authoritarian part was limiting/regulating car use pretty extremely. I'm perfectly fine with making alternatives to cars more practical, just not with making cars less practical.
- dr_zoidberg 5y ago
  It's pretty sustainable on cities witth proper public transport. And I say that living on a city with pretty much subpar public transport, but on which I manage to go everyday just walking, save for a few trips from time to time where I definitely need to move by car (it's a bit under once per week, think 30-40 times a year).
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  If you banned cigarettes, you'd save many lives, and it's also pretty much sustainable for everybody except the tobacco industry. I'm not sure which country (NZ?) implemented a law, that everyone born after some year, will not be able to buy cigarettes anymore, so old smokers can still buy them, but kids just turning 18 can't anymore, and never will be able to.
  - usaphp 5y ago
    Banning cigarettes is not something that is comparable to banning people from traveling and gathering with their friends...
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      But it saves lives. In my country (Slovenia), cigarettes kill more people than covid did (in the last 2 years)... we had huge lockdowns, and pointed the fingers at anyone who ignored some of the rules (even though our constitutional court ruled afterwards that most of the lockdowns were unconstitutional), but just banning smoking would save more lives than covid took away.
      - kspacewalk2 5y ago
        > but just banning smoking would save more lives than covid took away. ... Assuming people wouldn't buy on the black market, drive down to Croatia, Italy or Austria to replenish their supply, etc.
        ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        If you did an age-ban (anyone born after 2003 can't buy them), there'd probably be less younger smokers, because driving across the border takes time and money.
      - lostlogin 5y ago
        You may know this, but smoking is being banned in New Zealand.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
How long do you want the country to isolate itself from the rest of the world? Your view of managing COVID seems extremely conservative.
- space_rock 5y ago
  Well it resulted in one of the lowest restrictions on people in any country besides international travel. Giving people freedom to meet people and work is good
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    We have strong restrictions relative to our COVID cases. Majority of the country has practically no cases, yet they are at the middle alert level rather than the lowest one. Auckland previously had a very strict lockdown based on very low case numbers relative to the rest of the world. Of course there is the argument that if we didn't have such restrictions we wouldn't have dealt with COVID as well, but even taking that into account I think the government has been very conservative.
    - space_rock 5y ago
      One perspective to consider is the length of these restrictions. Other countries have had years of lockdowns and restrictions. New Zealanders were going to concerts while the world was in lockdown. Even if New Zealand's restrictions have been strict the restrictions have been intermittent and only in some regions
      - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
        This is true, but again I would compare restrictions relative to the severity of COVID outbreak. Other countries have much longer/stronger restrictions, but they have also had much more severe outbreaks. The government seems to be very slow to come around on changing their COVID strategy, especially given that the stakes are pretty low in NZ relative to other countries.
umvi 5y ago
> and even more jarring how much airtime those championing unlocking, unmasking and being antivax are getting here Not everyone agrees "excess deaths" is the ultimate variable society should optimize for at the expense of all other variables.
- meepmorp 5y ago
- lostlogin 5y ago
  If election results are to be believed, New Zealanders like the results achieved.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- tracerbulletx 5y ago
  Wearing a mask and getting a vaccine are not even tradeoffs. The choice is between being willfully obstinate and participating in measures that save lives.
  - throwaway55421 5y ago
    Wearing a mask is obviously a massive tradeoff, it's an ongoing "hey, hey, be afraid of me, I might coronise you!" indicator. It makes most people uncomfortable both physically and mentally. Of course, even if it were free, it's essentially pointless because unless you live in China and they actually remain zero covid forever, you're going to repeatedly get coronavirus anyway cause it ain't ever going anywhere. Vaccination is not even in the same league, it's an obvious easy win that gives you a far better chance when (not if) you get it.
    - subsection1h 5y ago
      > It makes most people uncomfortable [...] mentally. Citation needed.
Zigurd 5y ago
If anything, the story will be that those who have the choice are happy not being in the office all the time, and that road deaths and deaths from other infectious diseases will be down due to anti-COVID measures.
qybaz 5y ago
Imagine the amount of disease, death and suffering we could prevent if we lived in pods like in The Matrix.
- usaphp 5y ago
  Welcome to Metaverse
aronpye 5y ago
Nationwide mandates are oppressive and don’t allow people freedom to choose their own level of acceptable risk. Regional level variations are probably more tolerable allowing people to choose what type of society they want to live in.
- sofixa 5y ago
  I think you might be missing the fact that it's an airborne virus at pandemic levels. Regional restrictions can't work because people can just move and spread it everywhere, including places where local inhabitants don't want to "accept the risk".
  - aronpye 5y ago
    Why would anyone who wants freedom move into an area where people are forced into isolation?
    - sofixa 5y ago
      Because their family is there, or because there's better work there, or they like the weather better or any number of reasons.
    - prawn 5y ago
      They don't need to move there to spread risk, just move through, and as such tourism is one factor. Early in the pandemic, I had an assignment to photograph in a particular area that was actively dissuading visitors, had signage up as such, etc. I had to stop to refuel the car, but that was the extent of my contact with people and interiors otherwise. I live in a state that had closed borders for most of the pandemic until recently (when our adult vax rate hit 80%). They're now open and cases are predictably rising. Opening the borders seems to have had a political backlash because while families can move in/out of the state, the rising cases has brought about business lockdowns but without the support/stimulus from last year.
- bena 5y ago
  We don't have the "freedom to choose [our] own level of acceptable risk" in a lot of areas. So that's obviously not a point anybody is really, honestly concerned about.
StephenJGL 5y ago
It might be even more jarring when a population two years from now is hit by a flu they didn't get almost any exposure to this year. There is a complexity here that is hard to wrap your head fully around.
disambiguation 5y ago
NZ is an island at the edge of the world, and their population is a fraction of most major cities, let alone states, provinces, and countries. Policies that work for them might not work for others. Further, its a bit early to call victory if perpetual lockdowns are the only thing holding back the disease. What happens once they open the flood gates and covid is still active?
- throwaway788 5y ago
  The 95%+ vaccinations rates (12+) in the three major cities and 92% overall (also 12+) would somewhat help. Along with the fact community spread is already present and has been for a few months, the measures in place have kept uncontrolled spread in check. NZ keeps new introductions to a minimum to ensure that contact tracing is not overwhelmed and this adds to the effective decrease in reproduction offered by vaccinations. New Zealand being a season behind also allows the Northern hemisphere to burn through a wave and NZ can then decide when to lift international arrival restrictions to a time when the incidence levels are low from common arrival locales (UK, US etc).

_dain_ 5y ago

space_rock 5y ago
Actually the domestic restrictions on people in NZ have been much less than other countries. They got negative press for proactive restrictions on an exponentially spreading virus. Lockdown after 1 detection
throwaway788 5y ago
Over the entire pandemic to date, NZ has had lower levels of restrictions than all other OECD countries. For the majority of the pandemic there were zero restrictions and businesses and people were operating as normal. NZ had a election mid-way through the pandemic and overwhelmingly re-elected the current government based on the approach being taken. Under the MMP system the current single party government is unique (governments are normally coalitions of multiple parties – like Germany). These talking points from right-wing media about Australia and NZ suffering and having civil liberties destroyed is so far from the truth that when seeing news items covering it from the USA, it is so absurd to be comical.
manuelabeledo 5y ago
> along with your civil liberties This is untrue, and part of a dangerous narrative that puts the wants of individuals as more important than the needs of a society.
- claytongulick 5y ago
  > part of a dangerous narrative that puts the wants of individuals as more important than the needs of a society. This is part of a dangerous narrative that grants ownership of self to the state, rather than the individual.
  - manuelabeledo 5y ago
    Right, because killing your neighbour is worth being able to go to your favourite restaurant. I mean, if we are to accept the absurd take that civil liberties were under attack because of the response to a global pandemic, something that didn't happened, then it's equally possible that the people against lockdowns and other measures are just whining, because they are slightly inconvenienced by rules that may prevent their fellow humans' deaths.