I have just come back from the supermarket. It was a depressing experience. On my way out, a young man walked in through the entrance, followed by an old hag, screaming, “He didn’t scan in! He didn’t scan in!” I find this kind of behaviour so terribly depressing. Is this really what we have come to? Is this what we have been driven to by a snitch mentality, positively encouraged by our own “Dear Leader”? At least we now know how the Nazis became so powerful, and it was not entirely because they ruled by fear.
The trouble is, there is no end in sight. Having abandoned the elimination strategy (without actually admitting this to her adoring public), none of us really knows what comes next. Ambitions of achieving a 90% vaccination rate cannot be described as anything other than pie in the sky. The countries with the highest rates of compliance have only managed to reach about 70% vaccinated, and countries such as the UK (65%) and the USA (56%) are nowhere near it. We are probably at the point where we start ‘flattening the curve’ – not of COVID, but of vaccination rates, and there is not much we can do about it.
The Daily Telegraph UK ran a very interesting article after Jacinda announced her ‘roadmap’ towards freedom, and the conclusions are not encouraging. Remember, the British have much more experience of dealing with COVID, as they didn’t turn their country into a smug hermit kingdom, and they are now reaping the rewards. Our rewards may be, sadly, further away than ever.
But the war against coronavirus is far from over, and there are growing signs that the 41-year-old Labour Party leader’s strategy of closing her country’s borders is unravelling.
The wildly infectious delta variant of Covid has found its way into Auckland, and is spreading faster than the government can track it, despite a fresh lockdown. Fifty new cases were reported over the weekend and another 31 on Monday October 4, according to New Zealand’s Ministry of Health, bringing the total number to 287 – including a newborn baby. The lockdown restrictions were expanded to the area south of New Zealand’s largest city after the emergence of unlinked cases in the Waikato region.
Ardern’s failure to vaccinate the Kiwi population, of whom 80 per cent remain unprotected, has made the country the perfect host for delta, with no background immunity through exposure to Covid. She threw a belt around her country, but did not bother with the braces.
I would just like to say that their information isn’t entirely accurate, as our vaccination rates are higher than they claim, but nowhere near the levels of Britain and most European countries.
There is speculation in scientific circles that New Zealand could experience similar levels of deaths to other countries as it goes through a delayed health disaster.
Ouch. Opening up means more cases, more sickness and most likely more deaths, but we cannot stay locked down forever… can we?
“At the moment, it’s not totally beyond hope that New Zealand could control its new cluster, but the odds are against it,” says Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia. “In a very short space of time, they could be trying to slow the spread and flatten the curve, just as Britain was more than a year ago.
“All power to New Zealand for keeping deaths so low, but the issue is that if your policy fails and you haven’t got anything else in place, it will be as bad as if you had let it rip right from the start. New Zealand could find all the sacrifices of the past year wasted if it doesn’t get its population immunised quickly enough.”
Which is where we are now. Even as the vaccine programme continues, we are still most likely to end up with 20% to 30% of people unvaccinated, as most other countries do. But greater exposure to COVID by those countries not being closed off from the rest of the world has given most of them a extra advantage – that of an element of herd immunity, particularly among young people. We don’t have that… and we need it.
The current numbers are still tiny compared with the UK – which recorded 35,077 cases on Monday October 4 and 33 deaths – but are a sign nevertheless that things might be out of control.
Health chiefs have now identified 480 “locations of interest” in the country. Ardern has faced a welter of criticism for failing to capitalise on the Covid-free months to get her population vaccinated; current estimates suggest it will take until at least Christmas to catch up with the UK, with border controls expected to be in place until next year.
What part of next year? For that matter – which Christmas?
“Early on in the outbreak, New Zealand was a great example of how you could deal with the virus through lockdowns and social distancing,” says Professor Jonathan Ball, an expert on emerging viruses at the University of Nottingham. “We have to accept that now we’ve moved on from that. It’s incredibly difficult to secure your borders forever, and the only thing New Zealand is left with is vaccination, otherwise they are pretty much fighting a losing battle because you are always going to have the virus knocking on your door.”
Ball explains that New Zealand’s problem is that its population, and particularly young people, has built up no natural immunity through exposure to the virus, meaning it will spread quickly in nightclubs, pubs and other crowded places where young people gather.
So limiting gatherings to 10 people al fresco is actually doing us no favours, as it stops natural immunity from developing. Well done, Jacinda.
Nevertheless, New Zealand’s tiny death toll could yet end up in the thousands because of its over-reliance on isolation and slow take-up of vaccines. Its citizens are also becoming weary of lockdowns and travel bans, with undeniable consequences for their mental health.
Telegraph UK
You can say that again. Even Level 2 is tedious because of all the restrictions, the mask-wearing and the fear of a disease that 98% of people will survive. It is madness, but here we are.
I hate to think that, after all this, there is more to endure, as most countries now seem to be well on the way to opening up and enjoying life again. But, according to the British, who are now getting on with life but have endured a lot more than us, the worst may be yet to come.
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