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New Zealand records 1st local coronavirus case in 6 months

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RiskyMosaic

Well, lockdowns stop spreading while they are in place, but Covid is still around.

Well, if Covid is 'still around', I'd find it hard to believe that in the six months since New Zealand's last lockdown, not one person had developed bad enough symptoms of the disease to warrant a test, need hospitalisation or even die of Covid.

Correct. And with the delta variant it would spread very quickly. We now have five people known to be infected.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

carpslidy

And yet residents in Japan can't drink in bars after 8:00pm. You call that freedom?

If you lived here you would know there are many places you can.

Ill take having to work a little to find a bar over repeated lockdowns

Not really repeated. Last level 4 lockdown was over a year ago. I'd take that over repeated incursions over your freedom and wrongly increases infections and deaths in Japan.

Luddite

Why is their vaccination programme so rubbish?

I guess success breeds cautiousness with regard to vaccines. Still on target for full vaccination coverage by the end of the year. I daresay before Japan.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Why is their vaccination programme so rubbish?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

She has held Covid at bay but screwed the country in the meantime. As a NZ citizen I can not wait to see the back of her and hope the NZ public call for a snap election. She gave $2.5 million to the countries most notorious gang for so called "rehabilitation" & all its been used for so far is the gangs top leaders garden to be rebuilt. But refused to fund cancer treatment for children. Top lady

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

Fewer than 18% vaccinated against Covid-19, so they are definitely at risk of a rapid expansion in the number of the sick and dying. Best wishes to them, but they really do need to get the vaccines into arms. The Delta variant is up to 1000 times more transmissible than the alpha variant.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Everyone's an expert.

If everyone here knew everything about NZ's situation there would be substantially less drivel.

If you are in the comments to learn about the situation then you lack credibility and have very little else to do clearly.

If you are in the comments to discredit lock-downs then you know very little about NZ's history of dealing with the virus and thus lack credibility.

Look at the numbers and we learn NZ's way has given NZers and residents in NZ virtually total freedom to go about normal life knowing they don't risk getting infected or passing on infection every time they step out the door.

Very different to most of our lives for the past 18months.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

And yet residents in Japan can't drink in bars after 8:00pm. You call that freedom?

If you lived here you would know there are many places you can.

Ill take having to work a little to find a bar over repeated lockdowns

-7 ( +2 / -9 )

A population of 5m should have been fully vaccinated months ago. Are they doing one household a day?

Someone needs to do some covid checks on samples collected months and even years before the pandemic began, to make sure this isn't something that has been circulating undetected and is now being exploited. Also do some checks on pets and farm animals.

Too much surrounding covid is not being investigated.

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

michaelqtodd

Yesterday they cancelled the Sail GP set for February 2022 in Christchurch. An event watched by several hundred million rich people. Good prospective customers for New Zealand goods and services.

Didn't book spots early enough. Bad planning.

-3 ( +3 / -6 )

Covid is really starting to bite New Zealand.

Yesterday they cancelled the Sail GP set for February 2022 in Christchurch. An event watched by several hundred million rich people. Good prospective customers for New Zealand goods and services.

Why? New Zealand said that the 160 fully vaccinated sailors and support crews would not be able to book in to do 2 weeks quarantine each. Reservations for quarantine are stacked up way beyond that already.

Lala lala lala la

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

@xamurai

So the virus just magically appeared within NZ?

All mammals can catch COVID, so there must have been COVID circulating among the sheep and the cows, which eventually flew back to humans.

-9 ( +5 / -14 )

Thank you inspector gadget. I hadn’t seen all that extra info when I posted earlier.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

OK so here are the facts.

1) His wife was vaccinated, he wasn't. He had been booked to have his vaccine but hadn't received it yet.

2) He became symptomatic on Sunday, and immediately consulted with his local health clinic on Monday. Both took appropriate precautions and he isolated until the results came back. He did everything right.

3) He used NZ's tracing app, which has greatly assisted the authorities.

4) He and his wife traveled extensively between Auckland and the Coromandel Peninsula on holiday in the last weekend.

5) There are no known links with the border. He hasn't traveled overseas nor does he know anyone who has. Genomic testing is still underway to see if there is any link to NZ's quarantine facilities.

6) As there are no known links to the border, the assumption is this is the Delta strain, and there may well be other cases.

7) Sewerage testing on Aucklands North Shore only returned traces of Covid last Thurs, roughly when he would have started being infectious. This leads authorities to believe that other case numbers on the North Shore are low.

8) NZ has learned from New South Wales's blundering response to Delta and has chosen to go into an immediate lock down. 7 days for Auckland and 3 for the rest of the country, until further results are known.

9) A NZ Level 4 lock down means only essential services operate. No takeaways, playgrounds are closed, schools are closed, no daycare, etc etc. Only supermarkets and pertol stations are open. No gatherings. Excersise in your immediate area only. No visitors, and families stay in their bubbles. Only essential workers can go to work.

Much harder than Australia.

8 ( +16 / -8 )

WilliB

So they lock down the country again because one person has a sniffle?

No. Because they got Covid. And it is likely the delta virus. Pretty logical to lockdown and prevent it spreading.

Akula

An absolute disgrace to lock a country down over 1 case.

Why? Lockdowns prevent the spread of the virus. Lockdown hard over one case and we get our freedom back.

fxgai

She can still be infected and pass it on to all her unvaccinated friends even if she is vaccinated herself though. Vaccines don’t prevent infection entirely but they typically downgrade the symptoms one experiences as far as I know of vaccines.

True, but a lot less likely to be infected. They are both in isolation now, so no need to worry.

-1 ( +11 / -12 )

WHOLE country in lockdown for 3 days for 1 case. Upping the soft Australians and their weak lockdown strategies, That is how a lockdown is done!

Auckland for 7. Although of course if you take the example of Australian cities 7 days can be weeks or months.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Crikey - I thought we in Australia were the worst in the developed world for vaccinations...then I read we have a contender :

But its vaccine rollout has been less stellar, with only around 20 percent of the population fully inoculated.

Get that vax rate ramped up. Fast!

5 ( +11 / -6 )

@Akula

yes, we have seen how horribly NZ has done handling covid under Ardern\s

-8 ( +8 / -16 )

she has absolutely nothing to worry about.

She can still be infected and pass it on to all her unvaccinated friends even if she is vaccinated herself though. Vaccines don’t prevent infection entirely but they typically downgrade the symptoms one experiences as far as I know of vaccines.

7 ( +12 / -5 )

An absolute disgrace to lock a country down over 1 case. Ardern has proven to be the worst Prime Minister in New Zealand history. It is a cynical political move as her brand is COVID. Everything else her government has done has been a failure (rising crime rates, health system in disarray, house prices through the roof, failed light rail project, Kiwibuild). The sooner she moves on the better.

2 ( +18 / -16 )

Oh shoot, damn autocorrect. Anyway... "What were you implying?"

Nothing. just trying to give as much info as possible that isn’t in the article.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Oh shoot, damn autocorrect. Anyway... "What were you implying?"

2 ( +4 / -2 )

@Haaa Nemui

58 year old unvaccinated man.

what was you implying? He was actively trying to get vaccinated but wasn't able to.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

58 year old unvaccinated man. Auckland and Coromandel in lockdown for 7 days from tonight. Rest of the country for 3 days.

...and his wife who is vaccinated has tested negative.

2 ( +9 / -7 )

LOCK IT ALL DOWN!!! ZERO COVID!!!!

1 ( +13 / -12 )

58 year old unvaccinated man. Auckland and Coromandel in lockdown for 7 days from tonight. Rest of the country for 3 days.

6 ( +10 / -4 )

How do you now they had a sniffle? Links please.

5 ( +18 / -13 )

So they lock down the country again because one person has a sniffle?

-4 ( +24 / -28 )

lol, down voted for stating facts.

-11 ( +12 / -23 )

Fair play to the Kiwis.

5 ( +13 / -8 )

No surprise, you can’t keep delta out forever, its too contagious, but with no community transmission in the last 6 months, NZ has done far done better than any other country. Will be interesting to see if they can contact trace where this case originated - every other outbreak they have managed to contain within a couple of weeks, but with delta, it will be much more difficult.

I think they will go immediately into a hard lockdown for Auckland - they wont delay like Sydney did, which turned out to be a massive own goal with delta now out of of control in NSW and many cases in VIC as well.

-6 ( +21 / -27 )

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