The game has always been to play it by ear. That's been a great call so far, we've lived normal lives for the last year while incredible scientific advances have delivered vaccines.
This is a long game, and we've done well in the first quarter. I hope the politicians continue making good calls as the game goes on.
Don't assume that because we locked down hard that that will always be the path forward. That's your straw man talking.
Delta is a different beast.
Here in Australia, Victoria managed to get the Reff rate down to ~0.75 during their OG outbreak last year with a strict lockdown. Delta has an R0 that is multiples higher than the OG strain so the same lockdown would not get it below 1. You can look at Victoria's current outbreak for evidence of this.
Now that doesn't mean NZ can't beat it. A part from Auckland, the population density is very low and as long as compliance is high you might be able to just about get it back down again; especially if you manage to keep it out of large households and essential workers.
I just wouldn't base my expectations on what worked last year as Delta is quite a different game.
Also worth noting that peoples' behaviour is very different this time round compared to a year ago. A lot more people are flouting the rules or at least coming up with creative ways to see their friends while technically not breaking the law. After 200+ days, everybody's just sick of it.
If you look at how far NZ has gotten in regards to overcoming the virus, it's clearly very far behind most of the world. It's done a good job so far of reducing the harm caused directly by infection, but in many ways it's just tried to lock itself into a time bubble in early 2020. The world is starting to move on, and NZ has put itself in a rather bad position of having to try and catch up. The longer it sticks with this approach, the harder it's going to be.
We've got a few "open 'er up and let it rip" friends and I just don't get it. There are so many potential game changers when you are an island. If a reliable saliva-based test appeared that produced results in say 2 hours we could reduce MIQ and use waiting booths at the airport. Even if it was only 99% accurate we could pool groups of 20 into rooms together while waiting for results. So many possibilities if we continue to think critically instead of politically.
Tests for disease rely on two numbers:
1. "sensitivity" - the proportion of people with COVID who get a positive test
2. "specificity" - the proportion of people without COVID who get a negative test.
COVID, despite the media attention, is a rare disease compared to the number of people tested. Say we have 10,000 people tested for COVID at the airport. We have 99% sensitivity and 99% specificity. And we know 100 people have COVID (1% prevalence) in this group. Our test would find 99/100 of the positive cases. But it would also find an additional 99 false positives! It also misses one true positive case. Which would be disasterous for the quarantine measures in place in Australia and NZ. In short, even a gold standard rapid test is not enough, although at 99% specificity and sensitivity it would be somewhat useful.
This is a lot less intuitive than it looks. The companies pushing rapid antigen tests at the start of the pandemic would have know better, but they chose to lie to the public about this.
What I feel is a real problem in the makes is that you eventually have to open up again but with not enough folks vaccinated.
And suddenly, you are in a situation many other countries have right now.
“Try to gather in groups of no more than six (at a time).” “When you need food, go to the grocery store (as often as you see fit).”
Is anyone surprised that a highly contagious virus was able to escape these “lockdown” measures?
Agreed, yet people still clamor for more of the same ineffective nonsense while dousing their hands in sanitizer and erecting plexiglass barriers in front of everything. We do everything except what would make a difference: fixing indoor ventilation.
It worked for China too, so don’t come with this “small countries” crap. The US is “small” relative to China. Okay… now we get the “easy in a dictatorship” response to which I offer Japan. A democracy, with relatively large and dense population, yet have had relative few cases… although I am sure an excuse can be invented for them too…
Not sure why you'd say nothing.
But we'll see how it goes. If New Zealand and Australia persist in this notion that they're going to stay locked down until the virus goes away, particularly with its endemicity now inevitable, I think you will soon find vast swaths of those countries in open, violent revolt.