5 ms·

No idea how it looked in New Zealand, but after covid "ended"* there were a lot of people who simply wanted to go out - after spending so much time indoors. I

by rvba 2mo ago

No idea how it looked in New Zealand, but after covid "ended"* there were a lot of people who simply wanted to go out - after spending so much time indoors. I suspect that people went out more in 2023-2025, but then they reversed to the mean + economic impacts (of money printing everywhere) hit. * by the way, did covid officially ever end? the new variants seem to be still there, but it just stopped being covered by media after Russia invaded Ukraine)

sitharus 2mo ago
New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries, but other than people with health problems I see no signs that people aren't going out any more due to Covid. However due to other reasons people definitely have less money for discretionary activities, especially the youth. And no, Covid never ended. It's still here, it's still killing and disabling people, but due to vaccines and antivirals it's less prevalent than it was.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- mvdtnz 2mo ago
  What? NZ had one of the strictest, most prolonged and most extreme lockdown regimes in the world. Especially Auckland.
  - javascriptfan69 2mo ago
    Not really. The international border quarantine was quite extreme, but the rest of the country was (mostly) business as normal.
    - Taniwha 2mo ago
      Yeah, we had a very strict initial lockdown, and closed the border, once the number of cases went to 0 we opened up again, we then had regional lockdowns after cases broke the border quarantine.
    - mvdtnz 2mo ago
      Our level 4 lockdown was scored at 95/100 ("extreme") by the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker. Our border lockdowns and MIQ system were extreme and very prolonged stretching into 2022 and even impacted returning citizens.
      - javascriptfan69 2mo ago
        Our level 4 lockdown didn't last very long. The strictness index (which is what I'm assuming you're referring to) varied over time as the response changed.
        mvdtnz 2mo ago
        The claim I was initially responding to was, "New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries". Not specifically length. NZ lockdown was especially strict in some regards (level 4, border lockdown) and especially prolonged in others (Auckland lockdown, border and MIQ).
        keithnz 2mo ago
        we just locked down quick and strict, we then were one of the only places you could go about life relatively normally without too much worry while the rest of the world went through comparatively ineffective lock downs and rrestrictions.
        inigyou 2mo ago
        The claim meant less time. The lockdown periods in NZ were very short. That's because they actually worked.
        fennecfoxy 2mo ago
        Yes, also because I imagine people generally followed the dog damned rules there.
        inigyou 2mo ago
    - lostlogin 2mo ago
      I’m guessing you weren’t in Auckland?
      - EdwardDiego 2mo ago
        You Aucklanders are still really hung up on that extra lockdown you got because Delta turned up. As in, the most lethal variant of Covid. But never mind that, it was bad for the local economy, right? You know what's worse? Excessive deaths due to Delta.
        lostlogin 2mo ago
        I agreed with the lockdown and still do. I was pointing out that for a lot of us it was far from business-as-usual for a significant chunk of time.
  - slyall 2mo ago
    NZ had very strong lockdown but once the country had zero covid there were months of no lockdowns at all. Other countries had longer lockdowns or even when they didn't people were not going to concerts etc.
    - fennecfoxy 2mo ago
      Yep, as a Kiwi living in UK I actually went back to NZ to redo my visa about December 2019, then that was all sorted and I returned about late Jan-early Feb 2020. I had a stopover in Bangkok and _everyone_ was wearing masks. Not just Asian people, _everyone_. And that's when I was like "oh...this covid thing in the news is gonna be a bit bigger than we thought". Then I land in the UK after that and all my friends & colleagues either haven't heard of covid or aren't really bothered by it ("it won't come here"). Was back at work for 2 weeks, then the first lockdown hit. And we had lockdown, after lockdown, after lockdown. I would walk to the supermarket (the one thing we were allowed to do as per the rules) and be walking past parks filled with moron families socialising in the middle of lockdown. The UK had so many long lockdowns because people here are quite selfish and cannot follow rules - and before people take offence - this is in contrast with NZ culture. There's much more "me me me" and "mine mine mine" culture here in the UK.
  - lostlogin 2mo ago
    I hear people describe their lockdowns and how difficult shopping was, and work, and seeing friends. That ceased in Auckland, and was policed hard, it was very aggressive. And the worst part of our 7 day lockdown? The first 3 months.
    - dosisking 2mo ago
      2 weeks to flatten the curve
kurthr 2mo ago
In the US deaths peaked at >450k in 2021 and then fell <80k in 2023. They have roughly halved each year since (on track for ~10k this year. There are about 30-40k deaths each year due to influenza so this isn't really news any more. Most everyone is vaccinated except the young who seem to have relatively mild infections. Of course there are probably excess cardiac deaths due to immune response, but that's even smaller and much more difficult to measure or determine cause for.
- BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
  Did the US reach 450k deaths in a single year? Wow, and there are still those who call it a hoax? Nothing much to be done about those who refuse free education I guess. I also figure they just have less empathy for their families.
  - dosisking 2mo ago
    > Did the US reach 450k deaths in a single year? Wow, and there are still those who call it a hoax? Miraculously, there were 0 flu deaths that year
    - abanana 2mo ago
      There's a wide spectrum from "outright hoax" to "very slightly exaggerated" (which is the point where I sit on this subject), but it all tends to get lumped together and criticised as one. I've always said I'm sure any politics university course must be based on the art of exaggeration. It's just what politicians do, so there's no way this one subject could be the sole one where they didn't. To make any point, they'll cherry-pick the least reliable studies, make examples of the outliers to imply they're the norm, use statistical obfuscation, etc. Graphs in the news were blatant - taking a line graph that was fluctuating up and down, and extrapolating by continuing the last tiny upward movement into a long straight line upwards, entirely ignoring the story the graph was really telling us. Misclassifying at least some flu deaths as Covid (due to the way symptoms were diagnosed at speed by a single doctor each time, all need for checking removed) appears to have been one way the figures were at least slightly inflated. It was clear throughout how politicians were determined to find the data to confirm the initial predictions. Slight exaggeration is far removed from "hoax", but is still a bad thing for anyone who's like to know the real figures.
inigyou 2mo ago
In New Zealand there were only a few weeks of lockdown followed by much time when people could go out without any fear. COVID never ended (we chose that). The pandemic turned to an endemic, which is a way of saying that the plan is now natural selection, as everyone will get infected (most people already have been). The death rates have somewhat reduced, but not to the extent that it's as harmless as the cold. Essentially it's now a particularly nastseasonal flu strain. If you're vaccinated, no you aren't, because COVID mutates as fast as any other flu and you last got vaccinated for it years ago.
- phyalow 2mo ago
  Auckland was locked down for months
  - EdwardDiego 2mo ago
    Initially it was locked down the same as the rest of NZ. And then it got locked down again a few months after the initial lockdowns, due to a Delta outbreak, the most lethal variant of Covid. It wasn't locked down for months on end while the rest of NZ was having fun in the sun, it was locked down the same as the rest of us initially, then it wasn't, then it was locked down again because a strain with a high lethality was present in the city. That strain was first detected in a rest home where it killed multiple elderly people. The second lockdown wasn't for shits and giggles. I really struggle to understand why Aucklanders don't understand this, and fixate on "We were locked down for months, unlike the rest of New Zealand, and it was really bad for our local economy" when the second lockdown was to save lives in Auckland and the lives of other Kiwis, because if it had spread from Auckland, there would have been plenty more dead Grandmas around the motu.
    - inigyou 2mo ago
      I don't understand this "we were locked down for months but being locked down for months doesn't count if there's a good reason." Were they locked down or weren't they?

by rvba 2mo ago

sitharus 2mo ago

New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries, but other than people with health problems I see no signs that people aren't going out any more due to Covid. However due to other reasons people definitely have less money for discretionary activities, especially the youth. And no, Covid never ended. It's still here, it's still killing and disabling people, but due to vaccines and antivirals it's less prevalent than it was.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
mvdtnz 2mo ago
What? NZ had one of the strictest, most prolonged and most extreme lockdown regimes in the world. Especially Auckland.
- javascriptfan69 2mo ago
  Not really. The international border quarantine was quite extreme, but the rest of the country was (mostly) business as normal.
  - Taniwha 2mo ago
    Yeah, we had a very strict initial lockdown, and closed the border, once the number of cases went to 0 we opened up again, we then had regional lockdowns after cases broke the border quarantine.
  - mvdtnz 2mo ago
    Our level 4 lockdown was scored at 95/100 ("extreme") by the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker. Our border lockdowns and MIQ system were extreme and very prolonged stretching into 2022 and even impacted returning citizens.
    - javascriptfan69 2mo ago
      Our level 4 lockdown didn't last very long. The strictness index (which is what I'm assuming you're referring to) varied over time as the response changed.
      - mvdtnz 2mo ago
        The claim I was initially responding to was, "New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries". Not specifically length. NZ lockdown was especially strict in some regards (level 4, border lockdown) and especially prolonged in others (Auckland lockdown, border and MIQ).
        keithnz 2mo ago
        we just locked down quick and strict, we then were one of the only places you could go about life relatively normally without too much worry while the rest of the world went through comparatively ineffective lock downs and rrestrictions.
        inigyou 2mo ago
        The claim meant less time. The lockdown periods in NZ were very short. That's because they actually worked.
        fennecfoxy 2mo ago
        Yes, also because I imagine people generally followed the dog damned rules there.
        inigyou 2mo ago
  - lostlogin 2mo ago
    I’m guessing you weren’t in Auckland?
    - EdwardDiego 2mo ago
      You Aucklanders are still really hung up on that extra lockdown you got because Delta turned up. As in, the most lethal variant of Covid. But never mind that, it was bad for the local economy, right? You know what's worse? Excessive deaths due to Delta.
      - lostlogin 2mo ago
        I agreed with the lockdown and still do. I was pointing out that for a lot of us it was far from business-as-usual for a significant chunk of time.
- slyall 2mo ago
  NZ had very strong lockdown but once the country had zero covid there were months of no lockdowns at all. Other countries had longer lockdowns or even when they didn't people were not going to concerts etc.
  - fennecfoxy 2mo ago
    Yep, as a Kiwi living in UK I actually went back to NZ to redo my visa about December 2019, then that was all sorted and I returned about late Jan-early Feb 2020. I had a stopover in Bangkok and _everyone_ was wearing masks. Not just Asian people, _everyone_. And that's when I was like "oh...this covid thing in the news is gonna be a bit bigger than we thought". Then I land in the UK after that and all my friends & colleagues either haven't heard of covid or aren't really bothered by it ("it won't come here"). Was back at work for 2 weeks, then the first lockdown hit. And we had lockdown, after lockdown, after lockdown. I would walk to the supermarket (the one thing we were allowed to do as per the rules) and be walking past parks filled with moron families socialising in the middle of lockdown. The UK had so many long lockdowns because people here are quite selfish and cannot follow rules - and before people take offence - this is in contrast with NZ culture. There's much more "me me me" and "mine mine mine" culture here in the UK.
- lostlogin 2mo ago
  I hear people describe their lockdowns and how difficult shopping was, and work, and seeing friends. That ceased in Auckland, and was policed hard, it was very aggressive. And the worst part of our 7 day lockdown? The first 3 months.
  - dosisking 2mo ago
    2 weeks to flatten the curve

kurthr 2mo ago

In the US deaths peaked at >450k in 2021 and then fell <80k in 2023. They have roughly halved each year since (on track for ~10k this year. There are about 30-40k deaths each year due to influenza so this isn't really news any more. Most everyone is vaccinated except the young who seem to have relatively mild infections. Of course there are probably excess cardiac deaths due to immune response, but that's even smaller and much more difficult to measure or determine cause for.

BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
Did the US reach 450k deaths in a single year? Wow, and there are still those who call it a hoax? Nothing much to be done about those who refuse free education I guess. I also figure they just have less empathy for their families.
- dosisking 2mo ago
  > Did the US reach 450k deaths in a single year? Wow, and there are still those who call it a hoax? Miraculously, there were 0 flu deaths that year
  - abanana 2mo ago
    There's a wide spectrum from "outright hoax" to "very slightly exaggerated" (which is the point where I sit on this subject), but it all tends to get lumped together and criticised as one. I've always said I'm sure any politics university course must be based on the art of exaggeration. It's just what politicians do, so there's no way this one subject could be the sole one where they didn't. To make any point, they'll cherry-pick the least reliable studies, make examples of the outliers to imply they're the norm, use statistical obfuscation, etc. Graphs in the news were blatant - taking a line graph that was fluctuating up and down, and extrapolating by continuing the last tiny upward movement into a long straight line upwards, entirely ignoring the story the graph was really telling us. Misclassifying at least some flu deaths as Covid (due to the way symptoms were diagnosed at speed by a single doctor each time, all need for checking removed) appears to have been one way the figures were at least slightly inflated. It was clear throughout how politicians were determined to find the data to confirm the initial predictions. Slight exaggeration is far removed from "hoax", but is still a bad thing for anyone who's like to know the real figures.

inigyou 2mo ago

In New Zealand there were only a few weeks of lockdown followed by much time when people could go out without any fear. COVID never ended (we chose that). The pandemic turned to an endemic, which is a way of saying that the plan is now natural selection, as everyone will get infected (most people already have been). The death rates have somewhat reduced, but not to the extent that it's as harmless as the cold. Essentially it's now a particularly nastseasonal flu strain. If you're vaccinated, no you aren't, because COVID mutates as fast as any other flu and you last got vaccinated for it years ago.

phyalow 2mo ago
Auckland was locked down for months
- EdwardDiego 2mo ago
  Initially it was locked down the same as the rest of NZ. And then it got locked down again a few months after the initial lockdowns, due to a Delta outbreak, the most lethal variant of Covid. It wasn't locked down for months on end while the rest of NZ was having fun in the sun, it was locked down the same as the rest of us initially, then it wasn't, then it was locked down again because a strain with a high lethality was present in the city. That strain was first detected in a rest home where it killed multiple elderly people. The second lockdown wasn't for shits and giggles. I really struggle to understand why Aucklanders don't understand this, and fixate on "We were locked down for months, unlike the rest of New Zealand, and it was really bad for our local economy" when the second lockdown was to save lives in Auckland and the lives of other Kiwis, because if it had spread from Auckland, there would have been plenty more dead Grandmas around the motu.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    I don't understand this "we were locked down for months but being locked down for months doesn't count if there's a good reason." Were they locked down or weren't they?