Jacinda had no choice but to lockdown NZ – 4 new community cases

By
Martyn Bradbury
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70
1751

This is what leadership looks like.

0vernight 4 new community cases have now been confirmed and we now know it’s Delta.

Jacinda had no choice but to lock the country down, Delta is a variant that once started won’t stop, we have seen what weak leadership looks like in Australia and we don’t want that.

We’ve had 170 Covid free days, that in of itself is worthy of celebration.

We have been incredibly lucky to date and a large chunk of that is the leadership Jacinda has shown.

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I know it’s shit and I know there will be anger and grumbles, hell I was supposed to book my own vaccination today and I had the busiest week of my year lined up this week with a cavalcade of social events I had finally said yes to, but this is the world we live in now and sticking to the rules are the only way out of it.

We are fortunate to have Jacinda as our Prime Minister.

We’ve got this Kiwis.

Go hard or go to Australia.

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70 COMMENTS

  1. The Blairite had to lock down Auckland and by extension probably the Waikato, Corromandel and BOP. The balance? Complete overkill remembering you can move up the lockdown scale quicker than moving down. In particular the South Island at worst should be level 2.

    Why is it our cases are all mystery fucking cases? Something doesn’t add up either the individual is lying or the government knows how he got infected and are busy trying to develop some spin to deflect blame.

    Let’s just hope this doesn’t find a way into South Auckland can we. An Auckland epicentre of Devonport is a good outcome as a good portion of the population are likely vaccinated (LOL) and are likely to follow lockdown instructions.

    On a personal note this is the second birthday for my daughter stuffed, my first holiday over 2 days for 20 months rooted and my second jab probably delayed. First world problems yes – but funny how the little things matter.

    Stay safe all and let’s hope we again get lucky.

    • You are thinking in terms of “old” covid, Delta is so much more contagious half measures don’t cut it.
      Level 4 it is.
      It’s our only shot to fire.

    • …’Why is it our cases are all mystery fucking cases? Something doesn’t add up either the individual is lying or the government knows how he got infected and are busy trying to develop some spin to deflect blame’…

      ————–

      Indeed, I’ve often wondered that… my first guess was a businessman on a jaunt to Australia , coming back with the ‘Aussie’ delta strain, and because of the long incubation time of up to 14 days, not knowing he was now sick and a spreader, went about his daily life,…it was or must have been the airlines, on shipboard he would have known despite ships being way faster than they were years ago.

      These things just don’t magically appear out of thin air.

    • Frank – From time to time, Aucklanders climb into big shiny birds called aeroplanes and they fly to other places, esp travellers going to touristy places, the best of which are in the South Island, and this is how viruses can spread. There are paper things called books, which are crammed with ideas about how to give kids a happy birthday; I have one 40 years old, but if you’re bookless and clueless, have a look online – you can do it.

    • The South Island is just fine at level 4 thank you very much.
      Thanks to the appalingly glacial roll out of vaccinations by our so-called DHB, I’m a category 3 who is not due to receive his first shot until late September.
      As I said, the South Island is just fine at level 4 thank you very much.

      • I know the feeling. I was booked in for my first shot today but got a late night text informing me my date was now cancelled with us all being in Level 4. Not postponed or offering me a new slot but cancelled. They just suggested I make a new date.
        Apparently those doing it weren’t prepared or had plans on what to do if we did go to L4. They needed time to sort their act out.
        So I note with wry interest I can today bowl on up to the New World or Fresh Choice, buy Beers, wine, meat pies, ciggies, big pottels of ice cream or whatever but the Ministry of Health can’t give me a vaccine in the middle of a pandemic despite being booked in for it.

  2. Yep Jacinda’s Labour govt is for our time, much like Churchill was for England in their dark hour,… somewhat at least… I don’t think there would have been any others that could even compare, – despite their less than stirling attempts at a large number of issues that confront this country.

    In this though, they shine…. relatively so. I’m glad they are in power for the most part.

  3. Agree on the hard lockdown being necessary if we want to stay virus free, and out vax rate is so low we have to try.
    But worship of the leadership is premature – how did the virus get in and was it incompetence (plague ship debacle) or worse, nepotism (UN staffer special treatment) related?
    Hell to pay if it was.

    • Agreed.
      How, where and when did it arrive?
      Some would argue that crises (Chch massacre, White island) were timely events in Jacinda’s career.
      Now we have another crisis looming but it may be one too many.
      How, where and when did it arrive?

      • Queensland has pretty good testing and track and trace and they’ve yet to identify the source of its delta patient zero. It’s actually a common theme now that goes right back to the Wuhan wet market where there is one person who contracts corona completely independent of community outbreaks. That’s just evolution.

      • I’d put my money on Australia as from where it came from, as for how? Who knows? And When? Just before we cancelled flights to and from Australia.

        • Devonport is the home of the Brits in Auckland. So my guess is UK ex pat origin probably to do with another Brit or tradie who come into contact with this person via the open borders with Raratonga and OZ holidays. Devonport is very wealthy and probably full of people who are in contact with travellers.

          They can’t trace him to the border so it will be someone who he came into contact with who did come through the border, or maybe one of these ‘essential tradie workers’ who often have few skills but are cheaper, who seem to be prioritised stupidly.

          Scary stuff that the vaccinated nurse in hospital has Delta.

          Cross fingers everyone.

          Government did the right thing by acting quickly. But should not have been pressured to relax borders anytime soon!

          It is more detrimental to business to have to lockdown and Covid outbreak in NZ. Should be obvious!

          • What the fuck. First of all corona came from bats and then mutated to suit it’s new environment. And stay away from conspiracy theories, all of you.

    • To just provide context as to why the South Island is also impacted. If anyone from the South Island visiting any of the community contact points the affected visited and did not use the Covid tracer app, then attitudes like theirs and Sandra Goudie should be put up in lights as to the reason for the whole country going into lockdown.

    • She never got to be a minister. Chair of a committee was as far as she got and had to be relieved of that because of poor performance. She was not required for the next election which says something about her capabilities especially given the Nats propensity to hang on to dismal performers.

      • Fair comment, I meant elected member to parliament for the Coromandel, my apologies. As the mayor of Thames-Coromandel it does not reflect well.

    • Not very well liked in the area, but impossible to get rid of. Massive lack of leadership. Even if you are too dumb to scan, shut up and tell everyone to get behind it.

  6. However it got in, stopping it is a no-brainer. If it spreads as quickly as the usual money -grubbing low-lifes use it to berate the PM in the UK tabloids, then the hospital system couldn’t cope – it’s already at capacity with babies struggling to breathe with the RSV virus. A weeks’ old infant with a collapsed lung, is very sobering, and we’ll do our bit again – and keep our thoughts secret about who we wouldn’t mind seeing smote.

    • Low-lifes use it to berate the PM in the UK tabloids? UK?

      As soon as the story broke yesterday the machine went crazy here. Apparently covid was introduced as a ‘coincidence’ of the Afghanistan situation and poll results. The massive issue was the number of words Ardern used.
      It was about anything that anyone could possibly think of to be negative about.

      I won’t downplay the difficulty some will feel being in lockdown. The manifest mental health issues in the community are evident in the childish, petulant, ignorant, vicious response to there being covid here and the PM’s response.

      • Peter, The UK tabloid’s comments sections in the early evening were quite sickening, personal and inappropriate comments about the PM. It looked as if lockdown4 provided the excuse for deranged persons to vent their spleens.

        I found the first complete lockdown quite hard, but I knew that another was likely, and expected it sooner; others found it harder, and some were totally heroic, but blaming it on the PM is irrational and bizarre – and I’m not one of her fan club – and the anger of the nutters is downright dumbo ugly. (They sounded like screwball males – sorry about that !)

      • Peter, yes totally sickening and proof again that MSM are only interested in ratings and not facts. A sad indictment on the human condition that such rubbish drives ratings up.
        That the response to the virus has, from the very start, been treated as a game of political one-ups-manship and not a medical crisis sums up why we have not been able to suppress it. I’m so grateful to our PM, Goverment, and countless medical professionals for seeing it for what it is and not being distracted by the continual sniping from the sidelines.

  8. It turns out it’s not climate change that’s Jacinda’s nuclear free moment, but Covid 19 and Delta.
    I’ve never really been into hero worship that much, but if I had to pick a hero and an idol, it’d be JA and Covid.
    Short sharp and IMMEDIATE lockdown – the truly kind, transformational and compassionate thing to have done.
    Meanwhile her enterage of Munsters and Officials should ekshully have figured out by now what various levers do and which need pulling in their various spaces going forward.

  12. To Ross Meurant
    ”Some would argue that crises (Chch massacre, White island) were timely events in Jacinda’s career.’
    Perhaps so but..
    What about John Key?
    Remember the Christchurch earthquake arriving at the same time as National launching a new wave of benefit bashing and punishing the poor ? ( No, don’t look here’. Look over there).
    Remember how smirker and the Nats for years afterwards claimed they never had money for social welfare because they ‘needed to rebuild Christchurch’? ( and give money to Rich people for their game of ”I’ve got a better yacht than you” and try to change the flag and give tax breaks to people who did not need them’).
    Faulty as Jacinda is the aternative is much, much worse.

  13. It’s odd to lionise this Govt for a swift lockdown and pillory them for a poor vaccine rollout without acknowledging the two are linked.

    Jacinda has to lockdown NZ because we’re a sitting duck for Delta due to our low vaccination rates.

    It’s the flaw in the impossible ‘elimination’ strategy. NZ will never get over the hurdle of Covid without accepting that the future is 80%+ vaccination and instances of Covid in the community.

    But that’s not politically expedient for a government staking their whole approach on zero cases.

    Until then, we’ll be forever Fortress New Zealand, swinging between relief and fear of the great Covid bogeyman.

  14. I wonder how the cost/benefit ratio is going to stack up. Do open borders offset the cost of the lockdowns we are having?

    • I wonder what the cost benefit of the death of a loved one is?

      I wonder what the cost benefit of destroying our hospitals and having our doctors and health professionals dying while trying to treat patients and in some cases the looting of hospitals and people dying on beds outside them, in vain as there are no beds and oxygen?

      Also while high vaccination helps Covid, risk control is the best prevention.

  15. By locking down the fully vaccinated Ardern is admitting the vaccination program has been a failure. She will say it is to minimise transmission but that still doesn’t explain why a fifth of the population has been injected with a substance which does not protect. Lockdown can’t be to protect yourself because your civil liberties wouldn’t need to be taken away. It can’t be to protect others because there would only be a need to restrict the unvaccinated. Shutting down a whole country on a single suspected case is as ridiculous as saying Covid-19 lurks in dark hallways ready to jump through doorways in an instant. We’re back to square one, we’ve achieved nothing, like America’s failed occupation of the Middle East or Australia’s current police state. In the words of Ardern during a conference (paraphrasing), “Don’t panic and don’t panic buy groceries at the supermarket. I am locking up the country on a whim, but if you get desperate, there is always the cornerstore dairy”.

    • You’re sounding desperate to find some way of proving a flimsy conspiracy theory to me.. That’s a fail…

      • Ardern also conveyed this important medical information to the nation yesterday: “Be kind to one another”. I couldn’t care less about about her pushing kindness, elected officials are their to inform the public of their decisions made with the best advice and for the good of the people. She is our servant not our self-care guru.

    • It’s impossible to believe that you don’t understand how a virus spreads Ethan. If everyone that the one case has been in contact with was known immediately; and where he caught it, then only they would need to be isolated. But until that is known there is no way of knowing who needs to be isolated and who doesn’t. It’s perfectly evident that left to nature the virus will be throughout the population in a few days or weeks at the most. They go “viral” ..
      As to the relevance of the vaccinations that’s another matter. But Jacinda isn’t a medical doctor and has to accept what the WHO is recommending. Fortunately we don’t have to. But the lockdown works either with or without the vax; the vax only seems to work if the lockdown works..ie. it doesn’t work so lets have a lockdown and do it right . Opening the boarders isn’t going to happen without we accept we are going to live with it .
      D J S

    • Vaccination reduces the average chance of an individual getting Covid by 66%. It reduces the symptoms of Covid by about the same amount depending on the individual and thus the chance of passing it on when infected. You may still aquire it when vaccinated and pass it on to others. The one we are using here is more effective than some of those used in other countries. The manufacturer is manufacturing our order as fast as it can without breaking their contract with other nations to supply at the same time. We may need regular boosters until an elimination vaccine can be developed. Until we have our population vaccinated we need to keep it out to reduce deaths. We will then need to decide if we can live with it. These facts have been known for several months now. It is tiresome that there are still people who feel the need to create conspiracy theories or claim some ulterior motive. Our leader is not some buffoon with a funny haircut with an underlying narrative that benefits their well connected friends. For that we can be thankful.

  16. We are fortunate to have Jacinda as our Prime Minister.
    Yep. Saved a fortune by not buying the promised vacines
    We were head of the Q she said.

    Then we would all be vaxed by July she said.
    Meanwhile her Cabinet squandered 5 billion of the 10 billion Covid respond fund on silly projects.
    But I guess pushing thru dumbasrse laws and funding safe space for artists was way more important.

    Ho hum
    We are fortunate to have Jacinda as our Prime Minister.
    I beg to differ.

    • That’s a pretty ropey set of assumptions, and assertions there… Almost Trumpian in scope.. and as bereft of useful information..

  17. Jacinda turns to the old again and tells them they will all be ok because she is prepared to ruin more young lives. Jacinda is the leader from hell.

    • Tallydan. Not true. At no stage has the PM told the old that they will all be ok. I know this because I am old.
      How about some evidence ?

      At no stage has the PM indicated that she is prepared to ruin young lives. How about some evidence ?

      I don’t know why the vaccination roll-out has been tardy, and I haven’t been done, which doesn’t worry me too much personally, and I am inclined to blame inept health dept pen-pushers, but that’s just the way it is.

      The young can pitch in here and help themselves by sticking to the obvious rules to help stop the covid spread, which is a bigger self service and social service than partying, ignoring social distancing, trying to jump queues, and abusing the security guards and police putting themselves and their families at risk in the line of duty.

      I have huge respect for the ill-paid supermarket workers who’ve kept essential food supplies going throughout all this; where I am, they’re all young and they’re pretty good, and the hospital workers at high risk, are a hotchpotch of age-groups, and it isn’t really a young v old issue. The only advantage that the old may have is being a bit more phlegmatic about life, being prepared to meet our dooms, and less inclined to take things personally. Chin up.

  18. All that money I should be spending on lavish overseas holidays: What should I be doing with it?

    Oh I know – I’ll buy another property!

    😉

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