New Zealand Declares State of Emergency [video]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-03-25/new-zealand-declares-state-of-emergency-video

by partingshots • 6 years ago

65 72 6 years ago

boznz• 6 years ago

we also did this for the big earthquakes, just gives government power to shut down travel and requisition resources if required. NZ is at level 4 lock down for 4weeks minimum and from the reaction of most of my circle 100% of the people approve of the government action.

radiorental5• 6 years ago

the reaction of most of my circle 100% of the people approve of the government action.

It helps that you have a leader that articulates the scale of the problem and is clear about what measures are being put in place to deal with the situation both tactically and strategically.

I don't want to politicize the conversation, HN is not the place for that, but it's striking how the different management styles in say NZ & IRL differ from the UK & US and how that is helping people deal with the crisis.

In the US for example, individual Governors (aka Team Leads) are taking up the slack where the CEO is not equipped to deal with the scale of the problem. But fundamentally in a pandemic (aka extrinsic force) what counts is trust in leadership, what Ms Arden is demonstrating. Good luck, stay safe.

tonyedgecombe2• 6 years ago

I wouldn't group the UK and US on this, from what I've seen the response is quite different.

rukittenme• 6 years ago

It has less to do with management style and more to do with governmental construction. New Zealand is a unitary state. The US is a federal state. There are concrete divisions of power and certain expectations of national power from both the people and the states (which hold separate, independent political power).

clagio• 6 years ago

I think NZ did the mistake to not test enough people for too long and not doing enough controls at the borders (which is a relative easy task for a fairly isolated island, with only a bunch of international airports). I'm very happy they decided to move quickly in the last week, and the PM did a very good job giving clear information of what is going to happen and what is expected from everybody. Considering that only 4 months ago I was living in Italy, I feel so lucky I moved my family here before things start to collapse back home..

jandrewrogers• 6 years ago

In the US, the State Governors are explicitly in charge of this, not the Federal government which has minimal authority in such matters. It is misleading to describe this as "taking up the slack", given that the US government is specifically structured such that it is supposed to work this way.

timClicks2• 6 years ago

What's interesting for public policy wonks like myself is that New Zealand has increasingly adopted a presidential-style executive. The Prime Minister naturally pulls more face time than other Cabinet ministers and the position has attracted even more political gravity over time, esp. in the Key and Adern eras.

tathougies13• 6 years ago

The governors are explicitly in charge of this. The US federal government has no authority to order shelter-in-place. And this makes sense, since the states are as large as most countries.

Most states are not anywhere near the level of New York, and while they need a shelter-in-place order eventually, we need to recognize that practically, people can only stand them for X amount of weeks. If you do it too early you risk people flouting the order and continuing to do so once things get bad.

The US is more akin to the European Union than a single country, and it's high time people realized this and stopped looking to uncle sam for leadership. During the 1918 flu pandemic, there was no national response. Individual governors and mayors instituted lockdowns as they saw fit, with support from the feds in terms of money.

reaperducer• 6 years ago

In the US for example, individual Governors (aka Team Leads) are taking up the slack where the CEO is not equipped to deal with the scale of the problem.

This is by design. The United States is a union of individual states. It is not intended to be top-down. Most of that "federal government over all" was added in recent decades.

The system is designed so that states handle problems themselves (which, for example, is why each state has its own National Guard). If the problem gets too big for the states, then the federal government is supposed to step in to help, but only in a supporting role.

Whether the feds are fulfilling that supporting role in what is clearly a national crisis (though some of the states aren't ready to admit that yet), is, as you said, beyond the scope of HN.

rodgerd2• 6 years ago

Yeah there's a handful of Americanized comments on social media ("Muh freedoms!") but generally a lot of approval. I'm glad we seem to be taking our cues from South Korea, Taiwan, etc, about how to deal with this.

smoyer• 6 years ago

Haha ... then their gonna take muh gunz! As an American who was preparing for this in February, I'm not surprised that the number of cases here has grown given that attitude is represented by probably 25% of the people I know. I'm in a university town and expected more. I'm also pretty dismayed that we fell behind this when we knew it was coming. Officials who heard some of the early briefings knew enough to dump their stocks but didn't argue we should start producing test kits?

So for now, we're living the dream in our house ... stay safe everyone!

robocat3• 6 years ago

To the down voters:

NZ is strongly influenced by US media - news, entertainment, online.

However just as there is strong partisanship between your political parties, many kiwis have a love/hate relationship with the US, or some of it’s policies.

So you often see kiwis take the piss (mickey) out of those we perceive as gung-ho supporters of the US, and vice versa. And that support can vary depending on topic.

The usual things we laugh at are: your bi-partisan politics (we have MMP), your gun ownership (any gun deaths are front page news here), your lack of support for your poor (healthcare, unemployed, elderly), your media (you all appear like Texans), and your ego (lack of insight about your weaknesses compared with other countries).

I love travelling to the US (although I stopped travelling there about 15 years ago when your government started treating arriving tourists like criminals), I like the majority of Americans I met there, and I love much of your individuality that enables your entrepreneurship, amongst other things.

Cheers

PopeDotNinja• 6 years ago

Good luck in NZ. I'm on Day 12 in Spain. I'm passing the time by learning to cook.

nobbis2• 6 years ago

As a Kiwi living in NYC, I'm impressed by the "go hard, go early" approach the NZ government has taken, compared with the delayed response here.

NZ also has easily enforceable border control (surrounded by the Pacific ocean) which is already strict (their economy is so reliant on agriculture exports.)

They should come out of this better than most.

worik2• 6 years ago

Tourism.

iso1210• 6 years ago

Tourism stopped weeks ago

_the_inflator• 6 years ago

My kiwi friend, a doc, thinks that this is a late approach. While Germany etc. was already in lockdown, NZ still was hesitant. So, he calls this a delayed approach as well.

timClicks2• 6 years ago

As some further context, New Zealand announced its lock down when it had 2 cases that weren't linked to international travel.

nobbis2• 6 years ago

NZ was a few days after Germany, yes, but it's a very isolated country.

Germany locked down after almost 100 deaths (and 20,000 cases.)

NZ locked down as soon as community transmission was detected (2 cases out of 50 total were untraceable.) No deaths yet.

kylemuir• 6 years ago

Also a kiwi. Everyone is hesitant and it's natural to be. By locking down we are guaranteeing that people's businesses will fold and a large number of people will lose their jobs / livelihoods. No leader wants to do that unless absolutely necessary.

We've had self isolation for people coming in from overseas in place for a few weeks and as soon as that progressed to community transmission we've locked down. We had 50 cases where 2 could not be traced back to international travel. We're now at 200 cases (as of yesterday) and still no deaths.

I think hindsight is always 20/20 and I think NZ has done the right thing in appropriate timelines given what we knew at the time.

We are fortunate that we are a remote island in the south pacific that makes it easier for us to close borders and contain this much easier than other countries can.

negative_zero2• 6 years ago

I agree this is a delayed approach. We squandered our greatest resource to fight this: our border.

We could not have rolled better starting stats to have:

1) A giant moat around us.

2) Only really four international airports (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown).

3) All these are destination airports (as opposed to transit hubs where Singapore or Heathrow are classic examples).

I flew through Asia when SARS was in full swing and just now in February-March (just my luck) and have gone through borders where this was taken seriously earlier. NZs earlier "additional border controls" were pathetic. When I returned in mid March there was:

1) No thermal screening of passengers.

2) No health form to fill in.

3) Australian, Singapore and US!? passports were allowed to use the e-gates.

4) No additional cleaning of high risk surfaces.

5) No protective measures for the customs and border staff.

6) The only extra measure was a tiny pamphlet being handed out which essentially said: "If you feel sick, please ring healthline or a GP and tell them you have travelled."

Instead when I landed on 13th March:

1) I got a pamphlet handed to me which most passengers ignored and threw away

2) Had to touch the e-gates (which had no evidence of cleaning) that were touched by hundreds of other travellers

3) Could not wash my hands properly because soap ran out in a couple of the bathrooms

4) For extra points I could have jumped on a airport to city centre bus full of tourists from Europe (I got picked up instead).

and then they announced with a 48 hour warning that the border was shutting and then planes were packed coming in as people tried to "beat the compulsary quarantine".

The border should have been shut before the first case was detected here.

edit - additional new lines and a sentence

redisman• 6 years ago

I'm honestly surprised by any country that hasn't done this yet. Looking at NZ they have 200 cases today which means the real number of undetected cases there is already some thousands. Everyone seems to be dragging their feet even though its crystal clear how this will play out in the short term.

Lerc• 6 years ago

The majority of those 200 cases are from international travelers who were already in self isolation after arrival in the country.

They called the lockdown as soon as the first community transmission case was detected.

robocat3• 6 years ago

real number of undetected cases there is already some thousands

Reference please (did you just make this number up?)

For there to be 1024 cases in the community, 20 days ago there were 128 cases. Of those, between 5 and 20 would be hospitalised by now.

I personally trust NZ has (a) tested hospitalised cases, (b) been honest in reporting cases, and (c) has been testing their contacts.

One million kiwis live overseas (population left 5 million). So we have a huge number of returning kiwis that have the virus (that’s where the 200 comes from).

Of course, NZ believes there is community transmission, that is why they have acted immediately on detection.

They have closed down flights and roads, so if one town gets infected, people can’t leave and spread infection (a la Italy). Edit: They are actively teaching the concept of your social “bubble” which is a brilliant word and a critical thing everyone needs to know. We are still missing bandannas (it’s a respiratory disease - reduction in R0 helps massively), and we are still overplaying washing hands (this isn’t measles).

refurb2• 6 years ago

Take a look at Singapore and Vietnam. They both had cases relatively under control. Then other countries started shutting down, so plenty of citizens returned.

At least for Vietnam, every single one of their new cases for the past week or so have been international travelers arriving back home.

I'd expect NZ to see a big jump in cases as well.

yodsanklai• 6 years ago

I'm honestly surprised by any country that hasn't done this yet

Not saying it's a wrong choice, but it's not so obvious to me that it's the right thing to do at this stage. They still have time to try less drastic measures. Especially given their enforceable borders, low density, and the experience available from other countries.

Also I'd like to hear about the post-lockdown strategy. For instance, my country is planning to be in lockdown for 6 weeks. But what will be different in 6 weeks? we'll probably still have some cases here and there. Following the same logic as NZ, we should go in lockdown again (or never leave it, and close our borders until there are no more cases in the world, or a cure)

It seems a better strategy would be to have a moderate lockdown which helps regulating the flow of infection so that the healthcare system is not overflowed, and so that we can gradually reach herd immunity.

2019-nCoV2• 6 years ago

If this lockdown works in stifling the current trajectory the looming concern then becomes, what's next? NZ can't open borders as it'll lead them right back to community spread. Remain closed to the outside world until they achieve plentiful vaccination?

_bxg12• 6 years ago

Needs a [video] tag

dang• 6 years ago

Added. Thanks!

nzgrover• 6 years ago

What's happening in NZ explained here: https://covid19.govt.nz/

And what the "State of National Emergency" means: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/412583/covid-19-state-of...

mdrachuk• 6 years ago

Where will the billionaires flight to next?

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22088278)

lynnetye• 6 years ago

I live in SF but was in New Zealand just 9 days ago. At the time, there were 6 confirmed cases and NZ had already put in place a 14-day self-isolation policy for travelers. Seeing how things _could_ be handled (and watching the U.S. from afar) made it extremely difficult to "go back home." I felt so much safer there. W/ all of that said, I'm actually surprised Arden didn't lock things down sooner.

robocat3• 6 years ago

I think the government has failed to prepare everyone, almost misleading us with lack of worry or urgency over the last many weeks. We obviously could have begun some actions months ago (I started acting on the 10th February, Taiwan started acting strongly on 31st Dec). Many people and businesses have been caught out badly in NZ.

However, I have some trust that our government has been actively measuring the signals needed to know when to shutdown, and I am now really happy to see action.

I have seen many people I would expect to be smarter downplay this (Ioannidis, Musk, etc), and the failure of most western countries to act, so I don’t have too many hard feelings about what we could have done better...

NZ has a lot to learn from Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, and other countries that prepared properly and haven’t had to shut down their economies.

slowhand09• 6 years ago

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-the-hammer-and-th...

NathanTinker• 6 years ago

As a Chinese living in Auckland, I thought I would be safe here. After the first case detected in the North Shore City about one month ago, people here divided over the virus a lot. Some people were taking it seriously, the other people were not. When I read news and posts from Chinese media, I was so terrified. However when I read news from NZ media like stuff, I felt its not a big deal. I was quite split also. The eventually lockdown is a relief to me. I saw a video, police man already check if people are going out for essential services on street. Also it's grateful we have lots of natural place to go in neighborhood. I do think quarantine here will be much easier than in China.

New Zealand Declares State of Emergency [video]

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