This sentiment should terrify you. COVID is serious, but my god, there are so much more dangerous and lethal things out there. You’ve basically just given your government a virtual blank check to do as it pleases so long as the threat is sufficiently scary.
>”many many more living with chronic conditions and the economy and society crippled.”
You’re saying this would happen with widespread Covid, but this same outcome can happen with excessive containment. So many mom and pop small business have closed in my town since the pandemic began. And I live in America, where we aren’t nearly as restrictive.
This is not even slightly true, if you were familiar with the local legislation and political climate you would know that; but you're not.
Preventing new variants? Sure at the surface that might hold some credence, but that implies future responses will be to lock down again and impose massive economic costs and second/third order negative externalities on the population again... There will be more variants gauranteed, so what is being gauranteed here is perpetual restrictions, fragility and life in a hermit kingdom.
On your point around Xmas with three generations, congratulations, but without rapid lateral flow at home testing (which is still unavailable in New Zealand - wowee!), you might have unknowingly just had a super spreading event. The slowness of NZ policy to adapt to technological innovations is a real blight.
By the way New Zealands society decided no such thing; intellectual honesty goes a long way when presenting an arguement. Did we have a referendum to determine no one should die from covid? Its quite a perposterous thing to say.
Reality is MIQ was a knee jerk reaction by the MoH in March '20, faced with the stark realisation healthcare and its supporting beuracratic system was not up for the job. It still isnt and has no path to getting there. That is the real tragedy.
Big thinking and strategy is sorely needed in New Zealand. It's a shame all we get is confusion and people like yourself who think they know something trying to lead the narrative.
I was once a proud Kiwi, now I look on from afar and am saddened at the squandered potential of the place, underacheivment and lack of awareness are rife.
Not allowing your own citizen to return home is something that should be unthinkable really.
This is hilarious. Why hasn’t your society decided that nobody should die from obesity? Obesity kills far more people every year than COVID ever will, and would be a far easier problem to solve through legislation.
Why does NZ grant visas to obese people? Why are obese people allowed to go to restaurants or work? If the government made it difficult to be fat, far less people would die.
They don’t. You go thru serious health check when getting work visa and then another check when applying for residency. If you are fat with serious health issues you won’t pass.
Obese doesn't mean morbidly obese. The former can get a work visa (very common actually) when the latter might not.
Same with a friend who had some lung abnormalities since birth - very stringent checks.
FDA authorized covid pill two days ago:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...
why do things have to be never/forever? Why can't people think in terms of better/worse/later?
That’s not sensational though so it’s not reported on.
Also COVID case numbers have exploded since then so I can kind of understand NZ being hesitant to do the same.
> The MIQ system should be abolished
As it happens less than 50 have died, each one a tragedy, while I’ve just had a lovely Christmas with 3 generations, as many others are around the motu. Sure we had to video call relatives in other countries, but their lockdown conditions today were far far worse than what we have here.
Our society has decided that nobody should die from COVID. That’s still the right answer.
There were free MIQ slots 2 weeks ago.