Then why do the numbers keep going up despite locking down everyone? Why didn't governments institute a policy that keeps people away from those in vulnerable groups with a £1000 fine for breaches? Mandated masks etc. That would have been just as manageable. Lockdowns do not work, the figures clearly show that yet people still mandate for more lockdowns? I don't get it.
> and despite the huge effort, covid still escapes into the community every so often.
yes, but who is dying from it? It's the old and vulnerable, not the young and non-vulnerable: the vast majority of people will not die from this!
The cure is worse than the disease.
What figures show that lockdown doesn’t work? I’m in New Zealand. We had community covid multiple times and have eradicated it (with lockdowns initially).
Keep in mind that our initial lockdown was very strict, particularly compared to UK style lockdowns.
In the UK the cases are falling fast, why do you say otherwise? There are less new cases each day.
No one is dying from covid here and hasn’t for a long time, touch wood, hopefully that continues.
Hi, Victoria, Australia here. Today, our state is at 24 days of zero community transmission of covid, managed largely via a small lockdown after a small outbreak from interstate.
Before that small outbreak, we were up to 80-ish days of zero community transmission of covid, after a much much larger outbreak which was brought under control by a robust lockdown which began in March and continued into December.
Lockdowns work, if people obey them. And we’re proof of that.
So let's re-phrase: you had one of the longest lockdowns in the world (110 days), spanning the fall, winter and spring...and then it came back in the summer, and you had to do it again. And you're in an isolated island nation with almost no international travel.
Your story does not encourage me about the feasibility of the strategy you advocate -- it underscores how tenuous the situation actually is.
If everyone did it, we would have a solution.
What Victoria achieved looked an impossible task for a while there, and shows that a severe outbreak can be corrected. That’s an achievement that can’t be underestimated.
Why anyone in Australia or NZ would want to travel internationally for anything other than absolutely essential travel is baffling to me - outside of travel, we have achieved normality. Rampant covid and freedom of movement is not the freedom I want.
> Why anyone in Australia or NZ would want to travel internationally for anything other than absolutely essential travel is baffling to me
"If it wasn't for other people, my plan would be perfect!"
I laughed.
The plan is good, it belongs to Dr Ashley Bloomfield and The Ministry of Health here in NZ. I was using ‘we’ in a global sense, but unfortunately Bloomfield has no jurisdiction out there.
If you want to be precise, there was one lockdown in April->May, and then the major one in July->November that we’ve been talking about. It was 112 days for that second lockdown, the severe one. (note that the exact restrictions changed over that period, but 112 days was the period for which there were any restrictions around when you were allowed to leave your home)
> spanning the fall, winter and spring
No, that would require around 270 days. The 112-day lockdown included the second half of winter and most of spring, but didn’t include any of Fall (which is March->May here in Australia, and also we call it Autumn).
The first (much less severe) lockdown did take place in part of Fall, though. But that wasn’t part of the 112 day period that you were talking about.
> and then it came back in the summer, and you had to do it again
It was a small handful of cases in a corner of the state and we just backed up one step in the scheduled reduction of restrictions to make sure things didn’t get out of control; it lasted about three weeks before the government was satisfied that it was contained and restrictions resumed easing.
It absolutely wasn’t a case of “do it all again”.
> And you're in an isolated island nation with almost no international travel.
Note that “almost no international travel” is because it was shut down by the government, to protect against the spread of Covid. That’s another option that’s available to other countries.
It might also interest you to know that we’re holding the Australian Open here in about a week, with folks arriving from all over the world. They’re apparently expecting to have 30,000 spectators attending per day, in person.
> Your story does not encourage me about the feasibility of the strategy you advocate -- it underscores how tenuous the situation actually is.
Oh, it’s absolutely tenuous. Absolutely. Everyone has to be working together for it to effectively bring cases down to zero, as has happened here in Australia and in New Zealand. One bad apple or one selfish person in the wrong place can undo the sacrifices of thousands of people who are doing the right thing.
But what’s the alternative? Just stand around and watch the corpses pile up? (3500 covid deaths yesterday in the USA, for example)
I would take the lockdown over that, personally. In fact, I did. And today, after the lockdown has ended, I went to work in an office. And I took public transport to get there.
0 locally acquired cases, for the 24th day in a row.
Here in New Zealand we isolate new arrivals in hotels and they are strictly monitored. There are only a few thousand people there at any given time, and despite the huge effort, covid still escapes into the community every so often.