Vaccine passports for domestic purposes are being axed in New Zealand, with mandates being removed in almost all industries, though not health and social care. Sky News has more.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the changes on Wednesday as she unveiled the country’s post-Omicron peak plan.
Ms Ardern said cases had decreased significantly in Auckland, with a decline expected across the nation by early April.
She added there had been more than 500,000 reported cases of COVID-19 in the country of five million, although “expert modellers say there have probably been 1.7 million actual infections”.
“That figure, coupled with 95% of New Zealanders being fully vaccinated, means we now have a high level of collective immunity,” Ms Ardern said.
“New Zealanders have worked incredibly hard to get through this pandemic and as a result of those efforts we are now in a position to move forward and change the way we do things.
“First up we have simplified the COVID-19 Protection Framework to target restrictions at those activities that reduce transmission the most.”
As part of the sweeping changes, New Zealanders will no longer have to prove they are vaccinated to enter venues covered under My Vaccine Pass from early next month.
“From April 4th, My Vaccine Pass will no longer be required by the Government meaning Kiwis will no longer have to be vaccinated in order to enter those venues covered by the Pass,” Ms Ardern said.
“Scanning in requirements for the vaccinated will also end. We recognise that some businesses, events or venues may still choose to use vaccine passes, so we will maintain the infrastructure for them.”
Changes to the vaccine mandates – which had sparked protests outside parliament in Wellington – will come into effect from the same date, with only some workforces still required to be vaccinated.
“From April 4th, vaccine mandates will be removed, except for health and disability, aged care, corrections and border workforces,” Ms Ardern said.
“Like many other countries we are retaining a small number of mandates targeted at keeping our COVID-19 frontline staff safe and to ensure our most vulnerable, like those in aged care facilities or those with disabilities, are protected from the virus.
Baby steps from the Toothy Tyrant.
Worth reading in full.
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Less herd immunity, more a massive drop in the polls.
10% in two months.
Can she stop the rot?
Please! Can we have a trigger warning before seeing Ardern’s photograph like that! Not all of us are dental practioners.
This woman frightens me. How could she go from severe mandates to everything is just fine, do as you like. Sorry something is seriously wrong.
Of course it is – it’s meant to keep people off balance. You’re meant to be afraid.
Her words ”… have worked incredibly hard to get through…” actually mean ”have been stamped on incredibly hard..” I’d like to guess that many of those 90-odd per cent (if you believe the figure) were coerced into getting jabbed.
You are right to be frightened of her, she is truly evil. However she hasn’t gone from severe mandates to everything is just fine. Many mandates still in place. Businesses and organisations have the go ahead from government to mandate. The infrastructure is still in place. People who were mandated don’t get their jobs back. Still paying the media as her propaganda arm. Still coercing people into taking dangerous experimental drugs. (etc)
She has had a massive drop in polling, and the national party went from trailing her by about 15 points to leading by 1 point, all in a few weeks. People have had enough of the bullshit. Thousands of Kiwis have been unable to get home. She has caused massive hardship and suddenly people had had enough.
So why herd immunity in the general but not in care settings?
If herd immunity is now a good thing, why did they try to stop it happening in some areas?
Probably a better explanation from this New Zealand website: https://thebfd.co.nz/2022/03/23/they-are-really-sorry-about-the-poll/
The obvious reference to JA’s dental apparatus is: “The last time I saw a face like that, it was running in the… (a horse-race of your choice.)” Or, …”pulling a milk-float…”
“A horse is a horse of course of course
and no one can talk to a horse of course, that is of course unless the horse is the toothy Ms Ardern”. Or summat like that.
The great Aids scam – a dry run for Covid
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-great-aids-scam-a-dry-run-for-covid/
James Delingpole
Saturday 26th March 1pm to 3pm
Yellow Boards LONDON
Junction Victoria St/Bressenden Pl
London SW1E 5NA
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham Howard Palmer Gardens
(Cockpit Path car park free on Sunday)
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Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
She was dropping in the polls. The past two years has been nothing other than one gigantic election campaign disguised as pandemic “management”.
Bad News, everyone.
I remember watching this lawyer testify to Reiner Fuellmich’s Coronavirus Committee.
She has been arrested
One of the attorneys assisting Reiner Fuelmich in proving world leaders have committed crimes against humanity in the name of Covid-19, has been arrested in France on suspicion of terrorism and treason.
Virginie de Araujo Recchia, a French attorney living in France who is participating in the work of the Citizen Jury with Reiner Fuellmich, was arrested in her home at dawn on March 22nd in front of her children. The arrest comes three weeks before ahead of the French presidential elections.
Fuellmich’s team have allegedly been informed the charges involve counterterrorism and possibly treason
https://dailyexpose.uk/2022/03/24/fuelmich-lawyer-arrested-treason-for-exposing-covid-fraud/
https://www.conspiracywatch.info/virginie-de-araujo-recchia
https://archive.ph/Ed8es
Like Assange, this is how those trying to tell the truth are treated in our so-called liberal democracies.
She was clearly hovering very close over the target and they have taken her out. Absolutely chilling.
Post this elsewhere again on the site Kate because all of the trolling on her from tree and fingal with their spurious arguing has pushed your post way down to the bottom of a very long thread now and others might not come this far down and see it.
In distinguishing between cases and estimated infections, Jacinda Ardern seems to be assuming less cretinism on the part of her audience than British politicians do.
I’m hoping this outburst of intelligence jumps the Tasman ASAP. TPTB here are still pushing case numbers as if they are actually meaningful.
All you need to do is listening to her for 30 secs to understand she is actually way worse than British politicians. I know many of those are bad too, but ours is pure evil.
Over the course of the pandemic, New Zealand has racked up 192 deaths from covid.
That’s about a couple of hours worth compared to the UK at its height.
Why has it done so well?
There was no pandemic, other than a pandemic of lies, madness, profiteering, evil.
Locking up your whole nation for 2 years and bullying them into a useless, harmful vaccine is “doing well”?
Fingal doesn’t mind people being locked up for no reason.
Unless it happens in Russia, in which case it’s clearly a brutal dictatorship led by a mad despot.
Are you saying Russia isn’t a dictatorship?
Depends what your definition of dictatorship is.
lots of countries now are dictatorships hypocritically posing as democracies
If lockdown never works, why has NZ got such a low mortality rate?
Give me any country in the top tier of Covid mortality rates that didn’t lock down.
There are lots of questions that could be asked, but right now, it’s this: if lockdown never works, why has NZ got such a low mortality rate?
What you mean is that you want to avoid difficult questions.
Typical establishment troll.
Since you have refused to answer my question, which I asked first, this is not a great response.
Countries in the top tier of fatalities include both lockdown and non-lockdown examples.
Lockdowns varied enormously. Some weren’t really lockdowns at all, but they get included in the stats. One of the most severe was in China. Their total deaths are 4,638 on worldometer, which is incredibly low.
NZ is a remote island, with a small population and low density. They opted to cut themselves off completely and lock everyone up.
This was an unsustainable, inhumane policy which achieved absolutely nothing of value.
At best, they’ve kicked the can down the road whilst causing immense harm to their own people.
“include both lockdown and non-lockdown examples.”
I don’t necessarily agree with that, but i’m glad you’re admitting that lockdowns make no difference.
“[China’s]…total deaths are 4,638”
Amazing. You’ve spent weeks blasting Russia for being a brutal autocracy with no free media, but are apparently happy to accept data in relation to China at face value.
They opted to cut themselves off completely and lock everyone up.
Yes, and also clamped down very hard on the occasional case that got through (ie lockdown).
My point is simply the obvious: that a disease passed by social contact will be reduced if you reduce social contact enough.
Lockdown!
This was an unsustainable, inhumane policy which achieved absolutely nothing of value.
Different question. My question is, can lockdown work. Answer: yes.
i’m glad you’re admitting that lockdowns make no difference.
It would be odd for me to admit that in a post demonstrating the opposite. You tried to suggest that countries with high death rates were vaccinators. But in fact, there are low vaccinators/lockdown sceptics among the worst examples (eg Brazil).
What your question ought to be is: why do some lockdowns work better than others? Unfortunately, on this website no-one can address this, because no one can admit that lockdowns have an effect.
apparently happy to accept data in relation to China at face value.
I’m no fan of China and I assume significant under-reporting. However, even if the true figure were many times higher it would still be low by comparison. It’s plain that China was… Read more »
Why would China’s lockdown method’s not succeed against “more transmissible variants”? You’ve just said “My point is simply the obvious: that a disease passed by social contact will be reduced if you reduce social contact enough.” Are the “more transmissible variants” transmitted by other means then? If not then your statement makes no sense.
China’s lockdowns have been extreme compared to other countries, but even they haven’t reduced contact to nothing.
Earlier variants seemed to require a higher viral load before you got infected, involving longer/closer contact periods.
“Earlier variants seemed to require a higher viral load before you got infected, involving longer/closer contact periods.”
Err, evidence please?
Various explanations have been given for increased transmissibility. In the end it doesn’t really matter for my argument as to which is correct.
I don’t think anyone is disputing that recent variants are more transmissible than earlier variants.
If one infected person infects 3 others instead of 2 others, then at a stroke you have a disease multiplying at a much faster rate.
“My point is simply the obvious: that a disease passed by social contact will be reduced if you reduce social contact enough.”
“My question is, can lockdown work. Answer: yes.”
But at what cost? If I have a blister on my foot, I could chop off my leg to get rid of it. Would that be a good policy? Of course not, so we wouldn’t even consider it as a valid “point”.
The reality is, on a cost/benefit basis lockdowns are nothing short of catastrophic, hence why they’ve historically always been ruled out.
I agree that a cost benefit analysis has to be made but it’s a different question. I don’t object to that question. But I do object to the ridiculous claim that a socially transmitted disease will be entirely unaffected if you reduce social contact.
I’m sorry, I do think this is stupid.
The only social contact which may – and I emphasise may – have needed reducing, was that of the very elderly with comorbidities (ie. focused protection).
But even then, they should be entitled to choose how they wish to live out their final days.
You’re still on a cost benefit analysis. You’re arguing that lockdown should only apply to the vulnerable. Perfectly valid debate to be had.
What does not make sense, is to argue that lockdown doesn’t reduce case incidence, as is the ‘house’ view on this website.
Surely you can see that NZ’s ongoing draconian, harmful lockdowns have not reduced case incidence? Shifted it, sure. But not reduced it.
I think our experience here in NZ shows that lockdowns don’t work or we would not now have one of the worst Covid outbreaks in the world. Did lockdowns appear to work for a period of time? Maybe, but we don’t actually know because for eg NZ was not undertaking sero surveys to understand if the virus was circulating – my theory is it was as detected cases would spring up from time to time with no apparent source. But ultimately lockdowns have not worked and the costs to this country (financial, economic, societal, individual (esp kids)) are devastating. I don’t see how we ever come back from what the government’s Covid response has done, and continues to do, to this country.
Your claims fail on multiple fronts. You fail to recognise the binary nature of infection risk. If you are at risk of infection and you avoid some of your usual “social contact” that barely reduces your overall risk of infection at all. Viruses don’t care whether you become infected at the supermarket or the pub.
Its clear that lockdown has not “worked” in NZ, or we wouldn’t have Covid let alone one of the worst outbreaks of Covid that has been experienced in the world since the beginning of 2020. Our lockdown has been an expensive, traumatic and QALY-costly exercise in delaying the inevitable. We are still in a form of lockdown with various non sensical and unscientific restrictions and “infrastructure” in place and will be forever as far as I can tell.
Consider a spectrum from normal social contact to zero. If you achieved zero you’re not going to get transmission. Surely even the biggest lockdown sceptic zealot must admit that.
Risk of transmission increases as social contact increases.
As I have repeatedly said, I’m looking for an explanation of why NZ has achieved such amazingly low mortality until recently. I contend that this was done by border control, lockdown and track & trace. Others have suggested it was because of inaccurate testing (!!!) or have answered entirely different questions about whether it was worth it. An important question, but not the one I’m asking here.
I’m seeking to demonstrate a specific point, which is that lockdown can and does reduce transmission, if carried out effectively. People here continually lump too many questions together.
But to stray onto cost benefit briefly (which I will regret because it’s not the question here): no one can tell where we’re going with possible future variants. But as it stands, it’s very possible that NZ will have significantly reduced its long term fatality rate, because it successfully protected the population during the period when the virus was a) more fatal and b) without any vaccine protection.
… Read more »
Incredibly implausible, but I guess you’ll believe any old thing originating from the communist People’s Republic of China.
To repeat what I said to Draper:
I’m no fan of China and I assume significant under-reporting. However, even if the true figure were many times higher it would still be low by comparison. It’s plain that China was able to control things for a long time because its economy was still functioning. This was the result of one of the most extreme lockdowns of all – ours barely figures in comparison.
However, China’s methods may not succeed against more transmissible variants.
Our economy would have functioned perfectly well were it not for the measures taken.
If it wasn’t for the 24/7 Covid propaganda, I doubt anybody would have even noticed the so-called pandemic.
The cost benefit analysis is a different question. I’m starting modestly, with the seemingly uncontroversial argument, that a socially transmitted disease will be reduced by reducing social contact.
If the Chinese are lying and their actual figures are very much higher you have no way of knowing what those figures are and so you can not conclude they “would still be low by comparison”. At least be honest.
China adopts a severe lockdown strategy for outbreaks. Whole cities are shut down for 100 cases.
We can see that for long stretches, cities weren’t being shut down.
Clearly, case incidence could not have been in the 100s of thousands.
Maybe they were running low on midazolam and morphine stocks?
If you believe lockdown doesn’t work, you really ought to be able to answer this.
Get lost troll
Sign of no argument to give.
Sign of a deranged troll backing itself up with its sock puppet. Once it is clear that you are a brainless troll, there really is no point trying to argue with you. It is best to give you the derision you deserve.
If you can’t answer, that’s ok.
Is Troll the first word you are thought?
You abuse people who point out that NZ has done well. How do you explain it?
You know, one day I am going to set up a little machine learning troll honey trap in one of these forums. It’ll keep you lot going forever. In fact I would have assumed that your worthless drivel was likely to be that of a bot, if it wasn’t for the sloppy grammar in your frantic keyboard spasms.
Because if it really worked, it would have been part of our pandemic preparedness plans for an airborne virus, along with masks and the rest of the b*ll*cks.
Tell me, did all that Saharan sand arrive by social contact last week?
The tests are nonsense, the jabs are killing people, and if your money’s on lockdowns, lock yourself in your mess and do one.
You sound like MTF going ATM with his CO.
Manuka honey?
What a dumb question, Fingal, assuming as it does no other explanation than lockdown. What is the NZ obesity rate? Vitamin D status? Did NZ make use of midazolam? Or ventilators? JA claims a 95% vaccination rate, so I guess you’ve ruled that out too? If lockdowns work why have the countries with the most severe NPIs (which include lockdowns) faired the worst?
You’re missing the point that NZ had a zero case rate as well as zero death rate for long stretches. Their treatment regime is irrelevant. There was no one to treat.
Much of this was also prior to vaccination.
As I said, I’m not making a point about vaccination. What NZ demonstrates is that lockdown worked on early variants, if done well enough.
And that is exactly what you would expect.
If lockdowns work as you suggest, none of the Belgian scientists in the Antarctic would have been infected. They were more isolated than even the most remote sheep farmer in NZ.
Lockdowns control cases in the countries where they’re enforced, not the rest of the world.
So long as any travel is allowed then there is risk.
That explanation sounds like the sort of explanation you get from every apologist for the failure of communism who explains, hand on heart, that communism has never really been tried. Give me a break. Lockdowns don’t work.
Well, you still haven’t given an explanation for NZ’s low case/mortality rate. Although you have insisted I have to answer multiple separate questions on the grounds that otherwise I’d be ‘evading’ answers.
Covid is transmitted by social contact. Fact. Reduce the contact far enough, and it’s beyond all possible dispute that you’re going to reduce the disease.
There you go again….what “risk”?
There is almost zero to the vast majority of people.
But if I was an 85-year-old with three comorbidities I might opt to be a bit more careful.
Why are you so against people making their own risk assessments?
Risk of an infected person entering the country and breaking the zero covid strategy.
You won’t convince the sceptics using reasoning. They are impervious to such methods.
Nevertheless, I’m going to try!
(Until I get bored.)
Let’s suggest that gravity exists.
That’s an easy one for them too grasp.
So tree, what is this gravity of which you speak?
Sounds fair – you’re boring us. (Just couldn’t resist in this instance, BP).
One of the pleasanter insults I’ve received. Things are looking up!
I do hope that doesn’t mean you are going to stay, or even worse, be back on here.
It depends whether one considers low mortality from Covid an appropriate measure of overall well-being. NZ has spent some 64 billion dollars to prevent covid mortality. Economic analyses on a well-being basis indicate that this has resulted in an overall loss of well-being. https://www.waikato.ac.nz/news-opinion/media/2021/opinion-safety-at-all-costs-costs-lives?fbclid=IwAR3TJ7YFgC33IX9PIWsb6oJeFLPdsTVUh0JEwllYAMbShQoplAngMS4wE40
Yes, any government must make a cost/benefit analysis. But that’s a different question.
My simple point is that lockdowns can and do work, if executed thoroughly enough. It’s the ‘house’ view of this website that lockdowns have no affect.
To repeat: to me, it’s highly improbable that reducing social contact would not reduce a disease passed by social contact.
We don’t have a low mortality rate.
Only the loopiest of sceptics believe there was not pandemic.
It’s not a question of blind faith, Mr tree, but of evidence. So let’s first agree our terms 1. What is a pandemic? 2. Is your definition of a pandemic a definition unchanged by time?
I expect the answer to your question is horse de-wormer. Jacinda must have had supplies of the stuff in abundance in her stable.
The same happened right across Asia regardless of government policy. A severe flu season the previous year to clear out the vulnerable, and perhaps cross-immunity from previous coronaviruses circulating in the region. Asia only had issues after the vax campaigns started.
Indonesia, SE Asia, 154k deaths.
You’ve just compared a country of 270 million people with one that has less than five.
Yes, but it’s still a lot, and it’s undoubtedly a severe under-estimate (figures from the worldometer site).
192 deaths is extraordinary compared with absolutely anyone. There were long stretches with no deaths at all.
Nope, a severe overestimate like all other countries.
NZ had 75 of their “Covid deaths” in the last week, so let’s see what happens.
As I said from the start, it’s all very well cutting yourself off from the world and locking up your own citizens. But what’s the end game?
Vaccination to build immunity the safest way. Obviously the anti-vaxxers don’t want to hear this, but it is a fact nevertheless.
It’s also a fact that infection rates are higher in the spiked than the unspiked.
That “immunity” is clearly very effective…
Really? I would say with an IFR of 0.15% for under 70s, we were all pretty safe anyway.
Vaccination, from a vaccine that isn’t a vaccine, and is still in it’s ‘trial’ period?
Millions of adverse reactions, and tens of thousands of deaths globally?
‘Vaccinations’ which people need to be coerced, bribed, and mandated to accept?
Restricting everyone to a 15 minute radius from their homes; digital IDs ; universal basic incomes; CBDCs; depopulation of ‘useless eaters’; destruction of small and medium enterprises; patented synthetic food; monitarisation of nature and humans; transhuman conforming society; TOTAL CONTROL of the unelected few over the majority..
You’ve come to a sceptics website quoting ‘official’ numbers.. Interesting strategy 🤔
Best you take a seat, this may come as a bit of a shock…
the death numbers are fudged, the tests aren’t reliable, the models were beyond wrong, 2020 was hardly a pandemic when you account for age adjusted mortality and birth rates, the so called isolated virus was never proven to induce the same symptoms in a healthy person, viruses may not be contagious, the jabs don’t work, the rna / dna for the mrna jabs didn’t come from a sample taken from an infected person, a dingy load of people profited from the last two years, the media scared people witless leading to mass formation hypnosis, thus causing people to panic when they faced their own mortality, leading to a swathe of stupid rules that made no sense in the first place and the introductions of facemasks backed up with the threat of fines et al…
In an extreme case like NZ, none of this applies. They had zero cases for long periods.
Also, official figures are being used by many people on this site for their own conclusions, albeit opposite to mine.
I’m really trying to make one very simple point, and it’s about lockdown not vaccines. If you reduce social contact enough, then you can reduce incidence of a socially transmitted disease.
I’ve got to say, I’ve never understood why anyone would dispute this.
As I have said on a number of occasions, strategies which worked for early variants may not work with more transmissible omicron and whatever follows.
This is irrelevant to the question of why NZ had such low totals in the first 2 years, including long stretches of zero.
Beyond all reasonable doubt it was the consequence of a border control & lockdown strategy.
So let’s assume you’re right.
Your argument is that it’s worth destroying the economy, health, education, democracy, social interactions and liberty of a country for two years, with all the knock on effects that will continue for many years to come, on the basis that some very old folk with comorbidities may have had their lives extended by a few months? (and even this is in doubt as we see Covid mortality rates increase for AU & NZ )
Once again, that’s a cost benefit analysis, which is a reasonable question that must be answered when policy making. But my point is simpler, and narrower: that lockdown can and does work, if applied thoroughly enough.
It’s the ‘house’ view of this website that a socially transmitted disease can’t be inhibited by reducing social contact, And that is blatant nonsense.
“I’ve got to say, I’ve never understood why anyone would dispute this.”
A Belgian scientific research station in Antarctica has been hit with an outbreak of Covid-19, despite workers being fully vaccinated and based in one of the world’s remotest regions. Since 14 December, 11 workers at the Princess Elisabeth Polar Station have caught the virus.
Is that a good enough reason/evidence?
Once again, I’m making a point about lockdown, not vaccination.
Are you suggesting the Belgian scientists were not in reality locked down?
I don’t know what you mean.
As I said, in a micro community, if an infected person was allowed through the border control, there was no chance for lockdown/track & trace because the entire population was already exposed.
None of the scientists reported any infection before arrival in Antarctica and all had negative PCR results on leaving SA. So we can either dismiss the PCR test in which case NZ’s claim of zero infections can be ignored or we can conclude that lockdowns don’t work.
Or both.
This isn’t plausible. Even allowing for a certain amount of inaccurate testing, you couldn’t possibly fail to pick up cases across an entire country.
If NZ were infected, they would have known it.
The thing is, Fingal, the rtPCR tests don’t actually test for SARS CoV2.
What is your criteria for defining a case please? I’d like to know if you’re basing your definition of a case as a positive PCR test and that’s it?
I doubt many people on here look at official numbers and believe in them, I think I’ve read enough of these threads to appreciate this by now..
It was always about the jabs, lock down or no lock down. If you look at the ONS data for 2020, before, during and post.. Show me exactly were the pandemic is, how long it lasted and what constitutes a pandemic in your definition?
P. S mass testing was not prevalent in the early days, mass testing, looking for positive PCR with high cycle thresholds came later on in 2020 and kept increasing
While testing methods certainly have a margin for error, it’s not remotely that big! If NZ had really experienced caseloads in the hundreds of thousands like other countries, it couldn’t possibly have been missed.
Nor would it make sense that these cases are being picked up now, when lo and behold border controls have been relaxed.
Yea you haven’t really answered my questions though have you…
Sounds like the narrative is falling apart
You’ve asked lots of questions which have nothing to do with the NZ example. There was no pandemic in NZ because they successfully prevented it.
Cases and deaths were zero for long periods. If this is down to testing error (an extraordinary claim) why did it only happen in NZ?
Given that false positives are claimed to be a major problem, why were they zero in NZ?
Margins for error over testing are simply irrelevant when you’re looking at such a very large scale discrepancy.
Even if you have a 50% margin for error (a massive over-estimate) you’re still going to see 1,000s of cases.
Okay let’s start by defining a case?
Cases defined the same as in other countries.
This is such unnecessary digression.
The scale of the difference is massively too big, it can’t be due to any difference in testing, definition, or other factor.
Not really, you’re talking about cases in NZ..
I’m asking you to define a ‘case’ in your own words?
From your reply, you don’t actually know do you, you’re taking a positive PCR as a case without asking
👆 that’s what I’d ask, as a starter for 10
Zero, zero, zero, by any method, any test.
Please stop wasting time!
You want to find an excuse to discount the NZ figures because you know it could only have happened because of a successful lockdown.
You can’t admit that.under any circumstances because you’ve dug yourself into too deep.
Yet when it comes to other stats from other countries, you want to accept them, even though the same issues would be at stake if you wanted to question them. You’ve killed the possibility of analysing the pandemic at all, anywhere.
NZ had zero cases and a stunningly low mortality rate – answer why!
You want me to test for a cold virus in the winter time.. Genius
👏👏👏
NZ has 500+ flu deaths in a normal year and we (I live in NZ) never locked down for them. Life went on as usual.
This is a different point (ie it’s a cost benefit argument). I totally agree that needs to be considered when it comes to policy making.
However, my argument is more specific. I simply want to establish that lockdowns can and do work, if executed thoroughly.
The nonsense ‘house’ view on this website is that a socially transmitted disease won’t be limited by limiting social contact.
As in the rest of Asia, COVID took off like a rocket in Indonesia after the vax campaign started. Before the vax they had 25K deaths, which would be equivalent to around 450 in a population the size of New Zealand.
A theory has been proposed that NZ’s very low figure is simply because it’s in SE Asia. But some other SE Asia countries do have high caseloads. Further, NZ’s zero caseload for long stretches was manifestly not because of an alleged regional immunity. It was because of strict border control combined with heavy lockdown for anyone that slipped through.
Prove it.
I’ve given you my explanation for why NZ had minimal cases. It fits the facts and the timeline.
I have invited anyone who doesn’t accept lockdown can work to come up with another explanation.
You have to explain what happened in Antarctica if you are going to claim that lockdowns work. Or do you just ignore data that disproves your hypothesis?
I don’t understand why you think Antartica is interesting.
I assume that they tried to screen incomers for covid. This is like NZ but in microcosm. However, clearly someone got through their precautions.
If this were NZ, they would have locked down that social group and anyone they came into contact with. But as this is a small research station, it probably exposed the entire population before anyone knew it was there.
So, they could operate NZ’s border control, but not lockdown or track & trace.
I think the Antarctica is very interesting, because it demonstrates that an isolated community (and you can’t get more isolated that Antarctica) in which 100% of that community has tested negative for a virus, can, with no further contact with the outside world, (i.e. were in absolute lockdown) contracted an infection. Your complete lack of interest betrays a bias that is political in nature.
What are you suggesting? That the disease spontaneously generated among the staff?
I’m suggesting that a lockdown executed perfectly failed to prevent 11 out of 17 previously uninfected people testing positive for SARS CoV2. Actually I’m not suggesting it, I’m stating it as a fact. If you believe that spontaneous generation is an explanation then I guess you’ll need to explain how that works. My comments are a modest statement of the facts.
Manifestly, they didn’t execute lockdown perfectly. (In fact the Belgian example is better described as border control only, it’s too small for lockdown).
My house is smaller than Ice Station Zebra so I guess I was never locked down either. Are you just typing for the sake of it?
Lockdown extended to households, not individuals. You were locked down to your house, not within it.
The base was locked down to the station, not within the station.
You have still offered no explanation for NZ’s success in controlling infection in the first phase, while asking a tonne of other not especially relevant questions.
Do you actually read what you post?
Lockdown, and track and trace a small, isolated research station?
😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
That’s my point. Beowulf seems to think that this Antarctic station proves lockdown doesn’t work. I don’t know why.
It’s not that difficult, Fingal.
This was a failure in the first instance of border control (ie an infected person was allowed to come to the station).
Because the station is tiny, all staff were exposed to infection before any other lockdown measure could take place.
Similar border failures in NZ were successfully controlled by follow-up lockdown/track & trace.
NZ was so good at this that they kept infection down to zero for long periods, and currently have a very low total for fatalities.
This shows lockdown can work if applied thoroughly. The Belgian station is not a very good example because the size of the community is just too small. There’s no opportunity for containing an infection.
“an infected person was allowed to come to the station”
I see, so the fact that they all tested negative means nothing?
“Because the station is tiny, all staff were exposed to infection before any other lockdown measure could take place.”
I see, ‘any other lockdown measure’? That’s apart from lockdown is it? A sort of lockdown within a lockdown, like a set of Russian dolls?
“This shows lockdown can work if applied thoroughly.”
JA said that an estimated 1.75 million (35%) New Zealanders had caught SARS CoV2, and you reckon that proves lockdowns work?
You’re getting desperate.
Nobody ever claimed the test was full proof.
You could have full lockdown procedures within a country but keep completely open borders, if that’s what you wanted.
You could have brilliant track & trace but no social distancing.
Lockdown is a repertoire of possible measures and no two countries did it exactly the same way.
Lockdown is just another term for house arrest. It was advised against by the WHO and by every nation that had a pandemic preparedness plan prior to 2020 and for a good reason – it doesn’t work, but it causes irreparable damage to the economy and to both the physical and mental health of a country.
Once again, you haven’t attempted any explanation of why NZ had such a remarkably low fatality rate.
I’ve waded through so many off-topic questions from you and I really do think it’s your turn now.
Go on – have a go!
I’m reminded of a classic Aerosmith song…
https://youtu.be/89dGC8de0CA
They measured/recorded it differently to, say, the UK?
There are some variations between every country. But NZ’s low death rate went hand in glove with a low case rate.
So, measuring/recording cases differently then, maybe?
But perhaps the fat lady has not even cleared her throat in NZ? It ain’t over there; it’s just starting, perhaps? Bit like South Korea?
Have you looked at the death rate per million population in SOuth Korea?
Pretty low.
The discussion is about infection rates as mitigated by lockdowns not death rates. Don’t conflate the two.
There were zero covid cases in NZ for very long stretches, so variations medical services which occur everywhere are not relevant.
NZ may be vulnerable to future waves – who knows? – but that doesn’t answer the question of why lockdown appeared to work in the first 2 years.
And don’t forget zero-Covid, lockdown-loving Australia, whose Covid mortality rate has already surpassed Japan – a country that barely imposed any lockdowns, has one of the oldest populations in the world, high population density and high use of public transport.
Indeed. NZ has used it’s isolation well to wait for excellent vaccination coverage. Good outcome.
Sceptics will hate to read this.
Sceptics will laugh at your naivety.
😅😂🤣🤣🤣
Good coverage of a vaccine that isn’t a vaccine, and doesn’t work.
Tree, you’re a plank.
And look where it got us. One of the worst outbreaks in the world. Covid by far prefers the “vaccinated” as its host.
I am in NZ and I can assure you NZ has not “done well”. We now have higher case rates than the UK ever had at its peak, death rates are rising. We actually have no idea what the case rates would have looked like throughout our Covid Zero idiocy, because there were no sero-surveys taken. The country is completely dysfunctional, the population is traumatised, our democracy has failed. The healthcare system has failed according to media reports from those who work in it. We have excess death in the thousands from lockdowns and “vaccinations” (probably but we have no data transparency). We are in debt to our eyeballs. We have a cost of living crisis (borne largely from Covid policies).
Nevertheless the amazingly low death rate needs accounting for. It is abundantly clear that it was the result of lockdown, not some bizarre quality of New Zealanders as yet unknown to man.
All this is no more than the principle of quarantine, as applied to diseases for many centuries.
“That figure, coupled with 95% of New Zealanders being fully vaccinated, means we now have a high level of collective immunity,” Ms Ardern said.
So it is estimated that 35% of the population have been infected despite 95% of the population being ‘fully vaccinated’. I’m not seeing any vaccine induced immunity – what have I missed?
If the “vaccines ” don’t prevent infection and onward transmission just what is the “immunity” she is referring to?
There you go again, Beowulf and hp – just being technical. La JA has spoken. This is all about her being in charge.
Nailed it AE
When are you people going to accept that vaccines prevent severe disease and death to a great extent.
Denying facts just makes you look stupid.
Don’t let the fact that you get lots of support on this site fool you. These people are just like you.
They “prevent” severe disease and death in those who wouldn’t have got severely ill or died anyway…
There was never any severe disease and death in those without comorbidities
And have you read the 9 pages of harmful side effects – 9 sheets of closely typed A4 – that Pfizer KNEW the jabs would cause before they submitted it for FDA approval and wanted kept sealed for 75 years until forced to release them by court order?
You seem keen to deny those facts because they don’t suit whatever your narrative might be.
I can link you to them if you are interested in some objective facts – proven in a court of law.
it’s a bit like the emperor’s new clothes
it doesn’t exist unless you pretend it does
What you re seeing is vaccine induced protection against bad outcomes.
You mean like in Israel? Or Gibraltar? Lol! You’re not even trying now. Look if you are a member of the 77th Brigade you’re on a fizzer.
I rarely respond to trolls but this is seriously funny:
“What you re seeing is vaccine induced protection against bad outcomes.”
😀 😀 😀
Ill bet that’s measurable.
Ardern says NZ has high levels of immunity (incl “vaccine” immunity). She did not say NZ has high levels of “ vaccine induced protection against bad outcomes”. Regardless, NZ’s data, similar to UK’s data shows that death rates are much higher in the fully vaccinated population. In fact, here the deaths in the pureblooded are so low the government refuses to disclose them. Also, here in NZ the infections rates are lowest than any other cohort in the purebloods. And this is before we start factoring in what the data signals are thousands of “vaccine” deaths and hundreds of thousands of “vaccine” injuries. We do not know what those are because that data is not being collected. But we have data that can be extrapolated from the inadequate “vaccine” injury reporting system, and the increases in death rates, the increases in ambo call outs all which signal a medical disaster here in NZ.
There isn’t any. It is ripping through the jabbed like nobody’s business. And I would imagine that any drop in “cases” would likely be as a result of people using RAT tests at home, rather than going for PCR swabs at a testing station, and simply not dobbing themselves in.
Is it me but does Ardern’s teeth remind you of the alien in the film Alien?
Is that the extent of your insight?
http://www.bbc.co.uk. Have Your Say is waiting to hear your views!
So any unvaxxed Kiwis will be dangerous in confined spaces until April 3rd, but not thereafter…
“…expert modellers…” is an oxymoron.
I don’t know, I’ve seen some very neatly constructed Airfix kits.
I haven’t. If the glue fingerprints don’t detract, then the poor paint schemes and wonky decals will.
Mine, when I made them, were, of course, perfect.
No, there are actually some good modellers, believe it or not. Coincidentally (of course) they all model relatively simple(ish) systems like financial markets or insurance risk – the kind of thing that you can feed real life parameters into and test and refine against actual data. Then there are the Ferguson’s of the world, who cobble together horrific antiquated code-bodges, arrogantly modelling systems of unimaginable complexity, and feeding them ludicrously abstract parameters that allow them to create any outcome that their billionaire paymasters demand.
Or so you have been told by this site.
Please don’t engage with tree or Fingal. You may as well spend your time debating with the cat on the immorality of killing small animals.
Very sound advice which will help me to resist the temptation to – you know – reason with them …
Did you know that Ross Atkins now explains things on bbc.co.uk? You’d be amazed what he’s able to explain, check it out!
Is it really 95% fully vaxxed in NZ? That must surely be a world record…Well, outside of Gibraltar anyway. So are we really expected to believe that Omicron evades vax-induced immunity everywhere else but not in NZ then? What utter bollocks. Virus gonna virus biatch! As an aside, I can just imagine her and Turdeau on First Dates. They’d so have a shit-load in common and be a match made in hell.
JT: Oh darling, your teeth look so radiant tonight.
JA: (subdued) Thanks.
JT: What’s up darling? Have I not lived up to your expectations?
JA: Well…it’s just…you look so much different in your pics and on TV…
JT: In what way?
JA: Well, I kinda thought you were white…
The recent pictures of him shaking hands with HMQ would also suggest he is a bit of a gnome – she is absolutely tiny and he wasn’t much taller.
Wonder if his shoes have cuban heels – my money is on yes.
Not that there is anything wrong with being vertically challenged (I’m not being heightist or anything) but you get the impression that someone with his levels of vanity would have an issue about it.
No explanation. No democratically arrived-at reason. Just as the draconian measures were imposed. so they are lifted. Just like that. Dictatorship.
turned off like a tap – the same as in all the other democratic countries that did likewise (when probably ordered to do so by a higher authority)
Ever heard of elections?
Elections where you can choose between two parties who will, if they win, enact pretty much the same policies as the other one…
tree you’ve done it again. The website you’re looking for is http://www.bbc.co.uk. Try bookmarking it, it’s beginning to look like you’re trying to access Daily Sceptic! 😬
Obviously ‘The Science’ has changed.
Either that or there is a national election due in October and campaigning will start in just a few months and Gnasher Ardern’s Labor Party is tanking in the polls becaue of her draconian policies.
The following chart is all you need to know about the timing of tyrant lifting one of her boots of the Kiwis’ necks
Plenty of conditionality there, and no doubt plenty of regs. on hand for instant ferrets.
It’s just more synchonised frog-boiling.
A thoroughly ugly and repugnant woman, both inside and out. See also the man/woman/transvestite in charge of Scotland.
There’s one in Wales too.
I’ve never been a fan of people with no lips, personally. Sorry Robbie Williams, that goes for you too. No lips is not a good look.
How do they manage to stop their mouths fraying at the edges?
More of a music-hall turn, I’ve always thought.
You wouldn’t want that gob anywhere near your todger, that’s for sure.
You’d probably have to give yourself another name, Mike Oxlong 😉
😀 😀
Their case rate over the past month looks more like a country that ran out of testing capacity than one that had some control over cases.
Cases probably are falling in Auckland region — I’d agree with their analysis that there really had been about 1.7 million cases — and a very high proportion of them will have been in greater Auckland (population, 1.5 million).
Covid now appears to be spreading more slowly across the rest of the country.
Dr David Martin on the Stew Peters show.
“When you hear BA2 variant, which is now the latest campaign of terror, recognise something very clearly, this new variant is not an alteration of a natural mutation of any viral model, this is what’s happening when we have human beings turning into perpetual spike protein manufacturing facilities. We will have variant upon variant upon variant and these are going to be coming from injected people who are allegedly coming down with covid, these are not diseases born of a natural virus, these are premeditated acts of engineered pathogenicity, where we are now allowing the human organism to become a bio-weapon’s factory itself.”
Who needs a virus when the spike protein does all the work?
he puts it brilliantly
He’s my #1 zeitgeist celebrity.
The rhetoric has never been like this for say, pneumonia, which is an actual end of life condition
Ah, yes, pneumonia. Keep up, fella, it’s history. Change of name. Called COVID now.
tomahto/tomayto
O/T: Anybody seen this update on the Gov’s Dashboard (Yes, I know!)
Can someone else tell me what they think this means? It looks well dodgy to me.
It looks like they’re now reporting number of vaccinated in the country, rather than number of vaccinations given.
This does make sense, except that the normal way to present this sort of thing is to offer both sets of data, rather than replacement.
What about us pureblood, are we still not plague carriers?
Warriors
We carry the most infectious plague of them all – freedom.
“Baby steps from the Toothy Tyrant.”
Not really. I mean it’s nice for the folks in NZ to have a bit more freedom, but she is still lying through her teeth.
Doesn’t look much like herd immunity to me.
Still, what do I know. I’m not a biologist.
Quite. It looks more like herd potentiation.
With all due respect and love to our friends in New Zealand, the way they butcher vowels has always annoyed me somewhat, but when this horrible, belligerent shrew talks I want to take the telly off the wall and stamp on it until it bleeds, which is to say I never want to stop stamping on it.
For a chuckle, here’s McIntyre on the Kiwis’ strange relationship with vowels:
https://youtu.be/5JrUlE8U3eg
Thanks MR I badly needed that laugh!
I could listen to Dr. Sam Bailey all day.
Speaking as an Orstralian – that was superb. We think Kiwi vowels are hilarious and atrocious (what the feck are they talking about!); and we do indeed make a meal of ours …
Love it, my Aussie friend!
Indeed, our Kiwi friends just decided to go their own way with vowels. It’s bizarre, and bloody offensive to the ears at times.
I suppose the DS boys think thats it then. They are beaten. Dont worry, keep us ticking over with war and climate for a bit. 3 steps forward……
The ‘DS’ boys don’t think, they tow the line, under the cloak of ‘free speech’.
Safe in their wealth, (solar panels, foreign travel, and heat pumps), connections, and all of the other crap.
I’m convinced that they are part of a controlled opposition.
I hope that I am wrong, I really do, but I have become extremely pessimistic.
Dr. Sam Bailey should’ve been given the right to reply directly on this forum.
I also question why there are never any links to the Corbett report, or th
e last American vagabond, leaders of the alt media revolution.
Links to MSN UK media are complete chuffing bollox.