New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

This afternoon.

Via Mail Online:

For three months, New Zealanders enjoyed the return of usual freedoms after an autumn lockdown proved effective in eliminating the deadly virus.

But Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern scheduled an unexpected press conference for 9.15pm on Tuesday night and announced those freedoms would be put on hold.

Stay-at-home orders will be implemented throughout Auckland for 72 hours from midday on Wednesday after the four new cases were identified in the city.

More than 1.6million people won’t be allowed to leave their homes except for essential reasons.

The rest of the nation will enter a level two lockdown – mandating social distancing and placing caps on gathering sizes.

More sheep than people, they say.

FIGHT!

Jacinda Ardern plunges New Zealand BACK into lockdown amid COVID-19 outbreak with 1.6million Kiwis told they can’t leave home after nation recorded just FOUR new cases

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58 thoughts on “All Back

  1. rominick

    More sheep is totally correct.

    But hey, we would never be accused of being sheep here by following the governments every crazy rule irregardless of the figures or economic consequences.

    Just look at Sweden and what they achieved.

    Rolling lockdowns and mandatory face masks in all public settings coming to a county near you.

    Never mind, just do what you’re told folks and don’t ask questions.

        1. george

          Sweden doesn’t have the same mortality rate as us.

          Sweden’s population is about double ours and they’ve had more than 3 times the number of deaths.

          Sweden has a population of 10.23m and 5,770 deaths. Their neighbour Finland, which is a more similar country to them than Ireland, has a population of 5.5m and just 333 deaths.

          Sweden has had over 83,000 confirmed cases many of whom will have long term damage compared to just 7,601 in Finland.

          Sweden is not a Covid 19 success story.

          1. SOQ

            Sweden’s over 65 population is 3 times that of ours- the per million metric is very misleading. In that demographic they actually have % less deaths than Ireland.

          2. sidhe

            so in one area, they have had a greater success, that’s true, and among arguably the most vulnerable demographic too. our own government’s response to the way covid was handled in nursing homes (as you have rightly pointed out before) was a disgrace and is undoubtedly a factor in our higher number of over-65s deaths, and that shouldn’t be discounted.

          3. Cian

            More Lies from SOQ.

            As of last weekend when he first claimed this:

            In terms of deaths:
            Sweden 8,750 deaths from 10.3 million = 550 per 100,000
            Ireland 1,770 deaths from 4.9 million = 360 per 100,000

            For the under 65s:
            Sweden 342 deaths from 8.2 million = 41 per 100,000
            Ireland 119 deaths from 4.2 million = 28 per 100,000

            For the over 65:
            Sweden 5,358 deaths from 2 million = 2,595 per 100,000
            Ireland 1,653 deaths from 0.7million = 2,374 per 100,000

          4. SOQ

            @ sidhe – I know you understand but perhaps I should explain the ‘per million’ thing anyways.

            Lets say 1% of women get breast cancer but per million, only 0.5% get breast cancer because 500 000 are men.

            So, when it comes to Covid-19 figures, unless you compare like with like- those over 65- the fatality figures are meaningless.

            Bottom line is- for those over 65- Sweden done better than Ireland and even then they admit to making mistakes.

          5. SOQ

            @ Cian “As of last weekend when he first claimed this”:

            Link? It’s not hard to link within this site- just add the comment number to the original post.

            @Sirtuffyknight- I see people muzzling children in even public open air spaces- do you honestly think that is healthy?

            And what about those trying to get from second to third level who have worked their asses off but because a teacher bias are sitting somewhere they should not be?

          6. SOQ

            @ Cian- unless you are recording off site what I type which is quite flattering but it is an interesting question as to why you would bother?

          7. Cian

            This is your post on Sunday https://www.broadsheet.ie/2020/08/08/sundays-papers-45/#comment-2226095
            And I looked at the numbers for either Saturday or Sunday

            I understand number per million. I provided the number of people under 65 and over 65 for the two countries and the number of deaths in each category. Divide one into the other and bingo. Ok I showed the numbers per 100,000 but if you add a 0 to the end of the number per 100,000 you get number per million.

          8. f_lawless

            Cian “Sweden 8,750 deaths from 10.3 million” (?)
            Isn’t that ‘fake news’? You added about 3 million onto Sweden’s death toll from Covid-19 as far as I can see

          9. SOQ

            As of last weekend when he first claimed this:

            In terms of deaths:
            Sweden 8,750 deaths from 10.3 million = 550 per 100,000
            Ireland 1,770 deaths from 4.9 million = 360 per 100,000

            For the under 65s:
            Sweden 342 deaths from 8.2 million = 41 per 100,000
            Ireland 119 deaths from 4.2 million = 28 per 100,000

            For the over 65:
            Sweden 5,358 deaths from 2 million = 2,595 per 100,000
            Ireland 1,653 deaths from 0.7million = 2,374 per 100,000

            I never claimed THAT Cian- that is your interpretation of what I said. Everything I type starts with the handle SOQ.

          10. Cian

            “Sweden 5,750 deaths from a population of 10.3 million”
            Sorry. That was a typo. The other numbers add up correctly.

          11. Cian

            What exactly are you claiming then?
            When you said “Sweden’s over 65 population is 3 times that of ours- the per million metric is very misleading. In that demographic they actually have % less deaths than Ireland.”

            In the over 65 demographic :
            Sweden 5,358 deaths from 2 million = 25,950 per 1,000,000 ( 2.6%)
            Ireland 1,653 deaths from 0.7million = 23,740 per 1,000,000 (2.4%)

            2.6 Is BIGGER than 2.4. So Sweden have had more deaths % than Ireland in that demographic.

          12. Oro

            These numbers don’t add up. You’ve discounted some of the numbers from Sweden’s total therefore artificially lowering their rate. You’re also off by a factor of 10.

            Sweden total 8,750 – (342 (under 65) + 5,358 (over 65)) leaves 3,050 uncounted deaths.

            Whereas Irish total 1,770 – (119 (under 65) + 1653 (over 65)) leaves -2 uncounted deaths.

            So you’ve also slightly inflated Ireland’s rate per population. Let’s presume the under 65 numbers are the same, then the balance of Sweden’s figures get added to the over 65s number and you’d have a total of 420 per 100,000 Swedes over 65 versus Ireland’s 237 per 100,000.

          13. Oro

            And for anyone that needs help with it that leaves Sweden with a rate of fatalities per population (in the over 65 age range) that is 1.75 times that of the rate for Ireland. This is just using the numbers as provided upthread.

          14. Cian

            Thabks Oro. I had a typo in the original post and put the Sweden otal deaths~ 3000 too high. But the rate (550 per 100,000) was correct.

            The numbers for over and under 65 are correct. I’m not sure of the Swedish And Irish represent the exact same day so it is possible that the numbers may be off by +- 10. But that doesn’t change the fact that Sweden is worse than Ireland in the over 65 age group.

    1. f_lawless

      “Just look at Sweden and what they achieved.”

      Sweden has become almost like an abomination that should be erased from our collective memories and never spoken of again – that is, unless some angle can be found to show us how their non-lockdown policy has been a complete disaster. I remember a month or so ago there was a flurry of media articles warning us how the virus seemed to be raging out of control over there…strangely enough, I haven’t seen any of those type of articles recently, .

      I read this article the other day by a Swedish-British national and thought it’s worth sharing. It gives a good insight into the distinctive psychological mindset of the Swedish nation and their experience in dealing with the pandemic.
      https://unherd.com/2020/08/why-sweden-is-different-when-it-comes-to-covid/

  2. Basque Frog

    ‘FIGHT’ what?
    The state?
    Or cordinated, decisive action?
    They are not quite the same.

  3. Janet, dreams of big guns

    it’s a beautiful country with sound people, I’m glad someone is getting their lives back, just in time for summer too

  4. Nicorigo

    This world is going crazy. There’s (much) more casualties on the road. Why not banning the cars?
    The deadly virus mentionned in the article has a mortality rate comprised between 0,5 to 1% .
    Yet it seems deadly enough to lockdown 1.5 million of people…

    1. Oh...

      What car fatality figures have you magically conjured up? Though I don’t actually have a problem with the banning of cars either.

    2. Junkface

      Car accidents are not contagious. Again with this logic. Do you want a whole generation of elderly people who worked their whole lives and built communities to drop dead just when they get to retire?

      1. Nicorigo

        Protect the more vulnerables. Do not disable an entire population. And nobody is dropping dead.

    3. george

      148 people were killed by motor vehicles on Irish roads in 2019. 1772 people have been killed by the Coronavirus since March.

      737K deaths globally due to covid19 so far and it began to spread in most countries in march/april so even globally covid19 deaths are higher and that includes many countries where testing is poor and covid19 deaths will not be properly recorded.

      But you accidentally made a good point. Deaths caused by cars are unacceptable and we have to do more to reduce their use and be stricter in punishing those who break the law while driving.

      1. george

        Additionally a large number of road traffic deaths internationally occur in countries with poor infrastructure and bad driving behaviour which would not be legal in this country and indeed should be banned in those other countries.

      2. SOQ

        Where did you get the 1772 figure from? My understanding was that figure was revised downwards to around 1100.

        1. Micko

          Yeah. I asked a mate who works pretty high up in the HSE about that about three weeks ago and he couldn’t give me an answer why it wasn’t rounded back down to about 1100.

          He felt it should have been, since we were in “wartime counting” of the figures. His words not mine.

          1. SOQ

            Ah here- how hard is it to count dead bodies?

            It’s not like they went missing because they popped out to the shops now is it?

      3. Micko

        Cool George

        Did you bring enough bubble wrap for everyone so we can all stay away from everything dangerous or sharp?

    4. Cian

      Car have some good points – they provide transportation for millions of people. In 2016 for example we travelled an estimated 48.5 billion kilometres. It also killed a few hundred.

      COVID has no good points but killed* a few thousand.people.
      * technically died with COVID.

  5. Hector Rameriz

    I wonder will the government set up an unemployment fund when the pandemic passes, for all of the out of work armchair epidemiologists?

    1. SOQ

      People out of work because of a virus start reading and discussing the very same virus- imagine that?

      They’ll be questioning the need for muzzles after it has gone next I expect.

  6. Jonboy

    The first line of that quote is the most relevant:

    ‘For three months, New Zealanders enjoyed the return of usual freedoms after an autumn lockdown proved effective in eliminating the deadly virus.’

    It’s almost as if their draconian measures actually work.

  7. wearnicehats

    There are 4 cases, yes. But they are all in the same family. Massive overreaction but I guess draconian measures are necessary to protect her reputation

    1. SOQ

      Even if they get through this corona season it will be interesting to see what happens in the next.

      Still, they are not behaving like the Australian police- thug life doesn’t even begin to describe it.

      I have never been and certainly have no wish to do so after watching those knuckle draggers in action.

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