Current Events > New Zealand's covid case numbers starting to rise again.

(+) Yeah! (+)

A few weeks back we were recording 60 - 90 per day, then it got down to 10 to 20. Now it's starting to rise again, even though no restrictions have been loosened anywhere that we know to have cases.

This is exactly how things went in NSW and Victoria too... I have a feeling the elimination strategy is over, unless they maybe intend to introduce an even stricter "level 5" lockdown (but I'm not really sure what they could practically do that's any tighter than level 4, other than maybe banning exercise outside the house...).

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vaccines wearing off

Kaiganeer posted...

vaccines wearing off

No, that literally cannot be it in New Zealand's case. Even the most paranoid estimates put it at at least three months for vaccine effectiveness to start wearing off. Three months ago, New Zealand's vaccine coverage was something like 5% of the population.

Until recently, New Zealand has generally had zero cases, because we quarantine all arrivals from overseas for 14 days (or if they test positive, until they recover). Delta managed to slip through the cracks and get into the community - and due to low vaccination rate, lockdown was the only option to try and get rid of it. It looked like it was working, until the last few days.

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It's crazy how potent delta is.
Also must suck to be New Zealand, because New Zealand did everything right from the jump and only still has problems because almost everyone else screwed up horribly.

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ElatedVenusaur posted...

New Zealand did everything right from the jump

I'd disagree on that. New Zealand certianly did better than most - don't get me wrong - but there's still a lot to fault in our response. The most obvious thing being how long it took to really get the vaccine rollout going. Despite booking my shot in the day I became eligible to do so, and taking the first available date in my area (oh no, I didn't quite take the first time slot on that date, so it's ALL my fault m i ryt?)... I got my first shot last fucking week.

In general - we picked the right strategy for the time, in early 2020. Our government then decided to be extremely averse to changing their strategy - they'd basically only change it if their hand was forced. What carried them, is that - until Delta threw a spanner in the works - it was a strategy that worked, even if the cost in other areas was pretty huge.

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