We actually could force people to be vaccinated but the political decision has been made not to.
Got it in one.
…Hawaii have a population of 1.416 million, they have had 70,000 cases and 657 deaths.
New Zealand have a population of 5 million, have had a total of just under 4000 cases and 27 deaths.
That doesn’t look consistently low to me. Not in comparison to another “sparsely populated country”. Can you explain the difference? Why are Hawaii’s numbers so bad compared to ours?
You do realize that New Zealand is a major vacation spot? And that it sees a lot of people from all over the world?
You just described both islands. One gets more tourists, the other gets fewer tourists for longer so they end up with tourist spends pretty closely aligned with one another.
Again, one has had a couple of dozen COVID deaths over the past 18 months. The other had that many last week, and has had almost 100 times the number of deaths per capita that NZ has seen.
New Zealand doesn’t have any Americans.
Not here they’re not. Here’s a screenshot (two stitched together, actually) of the New York Times covid sheet for Connecticut:
Tell me again how my new reality is as bad as December was. Checking around other states like Alabama and Texas, well, sure, they do appear to be having a surge similar to December. They should probably get vaccinated and start wearing masks. It’s far more likely they’d listen to you than me, so what are you doing about it?
…we’ve got plenty of Americans here.
Well it really depends on whether or not you consider yourself part of the United States of America or not I suppose. The numbers speak for themselves. I’ve made it clear in my other posts that the problem is political, that some states are deliberately sabotaging the pandemic response, and that the surge in deaths is happening in some places and not others. You aren’t showing me anything new.
As I keep saying: you’ve made your choice. You don’t have to keep defending yourself to me.
I really don’t understand what your problem is. But I’ve made it clear that I don’t have the answers you are looking for. America is your country, and millions of Americans think the same way as you do. And if you don’t want to do anything about it then I don’t know what you are expecting of me.
All I can do from here is to point out that the pandemic isn’t over. That thousands of Americans are going to die from covid next tomorrow, and tens of thousands will die next week. And if you keep doing the same thing as you are doing now then that number is going to grow exponentially.
Patently untrue. Please read more thoroughly next time before trying to take a shot.
If you will read up, what I said it that if you look at the state by state data, there is no discernable change from the new cases before/after restrictions were added or removed. That means lockdowns, mask mandates, group size gatherings, closing churches, etc. I made no statement at all, and have no data, regarding whether the masks did anything on that trend line. I invited anyone to point one out, but instead people just want to fire back to defend their political agenda. I have no doubt that wearing masks prevent the spread of any disease. That wasn’t my point.
I also pointed out that it is very apparent from that data that vaccines are the huge driver of containing this illness.
I’m sorry if I come across as snippy, but there is too much of this going on right now. I said something that didn’t parrot what our dear leaders are telling us to say and instead of looking and considering what I said, you immediately reach for the keyboard.
…just out of interest (and I am not intending to be snippy either, so please don’t take it the wrong way 
) but has your opinion changed when you read what I wrote about how NZ has handled the latest outbreak? Do you think it was our interventions which has seen the decline in daily cases, or do you think something else is at play here?
I’m not enough of a medical expert to know. But I do believe that a small island nation can handle things in a far different way because it can restrict travel. And if you can get a very high vaccination rate, then perhaps it might work. I’m skeptical for the reasons the doctor said, but that is not my area of expertise.
…you don’t think its been working for the last year and a half?
That’s not really the key issue once the disease has attained community transmission, though, which did happen in NZ (a couple of times IIRC).
Our real problem in the US has been not so much people bringing COVID into a locality that was previously free of it, as the unchecked spread of the disease once it gets into that locality. That’s where NZ protocols have been really effective in things like contact tracing, strict isolation, domestic travel restrictions, etc.
Not coincidentally, those are all things that American covidiots have been vehemently repudiating, along with vaccination and mask mandates.
It’s not really the geographical differences between the US and NZ that have made the biggest difference in our effectiveness in responding to COVID: rather, it’s the sustained and militant ignorance, paranoia and selfishness of a large minority of Americans.
And honestly, from what I’ve heard, probably one of the best responses that NZ deployed has been the Toby Morris and Siouxsie Wiles COVID infographics.
Please specify. That description applies to both.
Did he really? Google says Hawaii received 750,000 visitors (mostly from mainland US) in the month of June this year. If we’re saying both islands are the same, were there also 750,000 Australians who visited New Zealand this past June?
Because if not, if instead New Zealand has closed its borders and is not accepting tourists, I call bullshit on New Zealand being just as much of a travel destination as Hawaii in the context of why the virus is spreading in one place but not the other.
Back to OP, ISTM that part of what we are seeing is the aspiration of “brief set of emergency measures, then totally back to the old normality” has evolved to there being a major clash being over that if there must be a longer-term “new normal” then how/what will (or should) it be/look like.
Eradication as such was never a realistic metric for the short/middle term response: rather the goal is having it well contained and controlled, like we have with many other diseases, to the point it stops being a general threat.
…yes, he really did. Becuase this:
Is about as general a statement as you can get.
You do realize that we were talking pre-pandemic right? Before the pandemic both countries were major vacation spot and see’s a lot of people from all over the world.
June 2021?
In June 2021 the travel bubble with Australia was fully open then. There were 189,500 border crossings in May. 170,000 border crossings in June. We closed the bubble a month later when a couple of states in Australia started to lose control of an outbreak. But in June? We didn’t match the Hawaii numbers. But the borders were open then for unrestricted travel with Australia.
But we were open in June to Australia. So even though we were talking about pre-pandemic, if we use the date that you specified then New Zealand had an even more open border with Australia than Hawaii did with the homeland. Vaccination wasn’t required to visitors from Australia in June, nor was quarantine.
But the tourism numbers are a distraction. We are talking about whether “being a tiny island” is the reason why so few people have died in NZ. Being a tiny island has not protected Hawaii or Fiji from hundreds of deaths and thousands of cases. What actually made the difference was the elimination strategy.
I would certainly hope not, as the entire premise of the conversation (hijack actually, and it should probably stop) has been that New Zealand has done a much better job of preventing cases and deaths. 2019 might be a better place to look. Continuing down the hi-jack of American exceptionalism is just stupid at this point. No one believes it and pretending otherwise doesn’t work on anyone with a handful of brain cells. America screwed the pooch, and not only due to geographic realities. New Zealand did a pretty damn good job all around and should be seen as something to emulate wherever possible, like Hawaii, for example.
…the work of Dr Wiles and Morris was brilliant, and along with the clear messaging from the government, they were probably the most important things that helped most of us accept the elimination strategy last year.
(You probably be disappointed to here that Dr Wiles has been the target of a sustained hate/misinformation campaign for a long time now. With the hair colour and being a scientist, she fits the “social justice” label that the goobers love to hate. Its terrible. Most New Zealanders love her though, and she won “New Zealander of the Year” this year, which shows how much support she actually has)
You’re the one who dragged Hawaii into this. I and others just pointed out the flow of tourists going through there. You should be able to understand the significance of travel and the spread of covid.
…what is the significance?