New Zealand's Ardern Extends Lockdown to Stamp Out Coronavirus Outbreak (all this over 32 new cases - equivalent of about 2,100 cases in the US)

Reuters via US News & World Report ^ | August 13, 2020 | Praveen Menon

[DoodleBob]

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended a lockdown in the country's biggest city on Friday in response to the first national coronavirus outbreak in months, sticking with a "go early, go hard" approach she said has proven effective.

Ardern said genomic testing has shown the latest outbreak is a different strain to the original outbreak in New Zealand earlier in the year, suggesting it was new to the country.

The New Zealand leader said lockdown measures in Auckland, home to about 1.7 million people, and social distancing measures across the country that were imposed on Wednesday would remain in place for another 12 days.

Her swift action followed the discovery on Tuesday of the country's first COVID-19 infections in 102 days, in a family in Auckland. Since then, officials have identified a total of 29 cases, all linked to the same cluster.

"As we have said from the start, our overall Covid-19 strategy remains elimination," Ardern said in a televised media conference. "Together, we have got rid of Covid before. We have kept it out for 102 days, longer than any other country. We can do all of that again."

Ardern is under pressure ahead of a upcoming general election, with the main opposition National Party accusing the government of failing to secure quarantine facilities and withholding information.

Ardern said contact tracing and genomic testing had found no links with the current outbreak to the country's border entry points or managed quarantine facilities. She said genome sequencing disproved the theory from some health experts that the virus could have been quietly moving through community since the original outbreak.

"This suggests this is not a case of the virus being dormant or of a burning ember in our community," she said. "It appears to be new to New Zealand."

[DoodleBob]

This is just nuts. New Zealand is a nation of about 5MM people while the US has about 329MM people. If you gross up the 32 new cases in New Zealand to make it equal to the US' population, you get roughly 2,100 new cases. Even if you isolate the size-adjustment for Auckland and her 1.7MM people, you still get about 5,000 new cases. In contrast, the average of daily new cases in the US has hovered around 53,000.

The "Phase 3" Restrictions in Auckland are:

Under Level 3, which is now in place in Auckland, all public places – such as libraries, museums, cinemas, food courts, and playgrounds – must be closed. People must work from home where possible, and children are encouraged to "learn from home". Residents have been told to stay in their “household bubbles” when not at work or school if they have to attend. Supermarkets and petrol stations can open, but other “close contact” businesses must shut. People can still go to workplaces and schools, but they must keep their distance and wear a mask if possible. Gatherings of more than 100 are banned.

This is the key phrase in this article:

"As we have said from the start, our overall Covid-19 strategy remains elimination"

THIS is the DNC's dream world.

[BenLurkin]

Heard that New Zealand has been kind of hard left for a long while now. Don’t know if that’s true.

[Bonemaker]

New Zealand’s Gretchen Whitmer. Semi-autos now corona virus.

[tinyowl]

If it hasn’t ripped through your area once, it’s going to. Just a matter of when. Rip the damn bandaid off and get it on and get it over with.

[DoodleBob]

I don’t know if that’s true (I’m not a NZ expert) but the opposition party, National, isn’t against the lock down and they seem in agreement with this ridiculously cautious policy.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Isn’t New Zealand where Bill Gates and George Soros have their guarded SHTF escape compounds?

[Irenic]

That’s what I’ve read—New Zealand is the place where the rich have hidden bunkers.

[Petrosius]

You cannot stamp out the virus; you have to let it run its course.

[SecondAmendment]

> Heard that New Zealand has been kind of hard left for a long while now. Don’t know if that’s true.

Before P.M. Jacinda Ardern was P.M., she was the President of the International Union of Socialist Youth, does that answer your question?

[Bogey78O]

New Zealand has a negligible amount of international travel and most of it is buffered through Australia. If they can’t keep it out their country, no country on Earth can.

[DoodleBob]

I wrote this on a separate post about NZ and their quest to not just "flatten the curve" but eliminate it...Within the context of a portfolio of assets, the risk of loss in those assets is decomposed between the Systematic and Non-Systematic (or Idiosyncratic) Risk. As a general rule, you can diversify away the Non-Systematic Risk. But the Systematic Risk is non-diversifiable. Even if you avoid the stock market, your assets are likely correlated with them so you can never avoid that Systematic Risk.

In an identical and very real manner, the same risk elements exist in society. Consider crime: you can diversify away some element of crime (e.g., greater concealed-carry, vigilance in the citizenry) but at some point, crime is gonna happen and you really can't eliminate crime. Indeed, just like with the stock market risk is unavoidable, you can never truly avoid crime. In many cases, society will try to eliminate this Systematic Risk and not only fail, but incur astronomical costs.

This is precisely what is happening in NZ: they are trying to eliminate the systematic risk of COVID19. In the process of failing to achieve that unattainable goal, they will incur astronomical costs (i.e., destroy the economy, increase personal stress and depression and suicide rates etc.). This is a sort of War on Drugs mentality but applied to COVID19. As noted above, this is what the Prime Minister said:

"As we have said from the start, our overall Covid-19 strategy remains elimination"

Make no doubt about it...Arden's "let's eliminate systematic risk" policy (and for what it's worth, National - the opposition party - agrees with this policy) is the DNC's dream policy.

[lightman]

Let’s keep it simple.

Life has risk.

Life is fatal.

Nobody other than Enoch and Elijah got out of here alive.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

Arden is a leftist fool. The KGB made mincemeat of NZ liberals back in the 80’s. Fortunately Trevor Loudon, then of Christchurch, exposed KGB operations that got NZ to ban US naval ship visits unless they told them that they did not carry nuclear weapons.

She’s stupider than a NZ sheep, and much less useful.

[mrsmith]

Notice that no media reports on the economic cost of NZ’s extreme response.

[Rastus]

Angry Ram died shortly before COVID. Coincidence? Or was Angry Ram’s ramming the only thing keeping COVID at bay?

[Flick Lives]

Interesting analysis. It is the Leftist belief that that it can control everything. It can’t. Too many variables. Too many unknowns.

[Tennessee Nana]

No

For years NZ was in the Guinness Book of Records for being the country with the highest % of population traveling overseas...

They travel internationally all the time..

Forget Australia its usually the Pacific Islands and elsewhere...

[kearnyirish2]

Like the earlier SARS, it has run its course when there are no new infections - and I’m sure New Zealand is looking at the economic chaos this has caused in the US and wants to head it off.

Americans don’t seem to understand how long-term the economic consequences of this will impact us going forward; the death toll is only one part of the story. Many small businesses are finished, and many large ones (retailers) are as well. Consumer confidence is in the toilet for most people worried about their jobs (as they watch their employers suffer).

[Bogey78O]

Percentile isn’t the metric to go off of. It’s volume. I remember reading a stat that Oregon alone has more trade and transit than NZ.

If a house has ten people and nine enter and exit it, that’s nine chances of contamination. A house with 500 having 30 enter and exit it has 30 chances of infection.

[marktwain]

Those are good points.

Systemic risk can, over the long term, be changed by changing the system or culture.

It can be changed up or down.