No shit.
A few things because those tweets are highly misleading.
New Zealand never had a herd immunity strategy. Mitigation does not equal herd immunity. New Zealand went from minimise any virus coming into the country (let say similar to Germany) to total elimination.
On the 14th of March anyone entering New Zealand was required to have 2 weeks in isolation. Boarders were closed 19th of March to non nationals (Nearly 2 weeks before that document). The country went into full lockdown in the 23rd of March. There was no way it could be described as herd immunity strategy.
New Zealand’s lockdown was not the half arsed lockdown the UK had. This was so not leave your house, except to go to supermarket or pharmacist level lockdown.
New Zealand is a tourist destination for many Chinese. The virus was seeded in all our major cities and tourist destinations. By 1st of April we had 708 cases, a week or so later that number had doubled.
Obviously we had some innate advantages, especially given it is almost self sufficient for food. But if the UK had followed New Zealand’s approach on the dates New Zealand did, it would be in an immensely better position.
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For some reason the thumbnail images on those tweets have become massive in your reply and it’s a bit weird 
Thanks for the clarification. I continue to think a comparison with NZ is unhelpful and misleading notwithstanding your corrections. By that measure every other country has massively fucked up.
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Twitter is inaccurate? Wonders.
2 stand outs for me. The speed at which New Zealand moved and the ruthlessness of it. For want of a better word. I did not know that NZ is a major tourist destination for the Chinese. So in fact it can be argued that NZ were at a similar risk level with potentially people moving into the country direct from the source.
Contrast with the UK. Zero border control. Ignore all reports from Italy, ignore the science, go on holiday using up the contingency period that being an island state gives us.
Night and day responses in my book which are ultimately reflected in the numbers.
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Why? China, specifically Wuhan, almost immediately went into lockdown.
At the same time this is what happened to total visitor numbers to New Zealand
Number of visitors to New Zealand in 2019, 11.32 million. 407,000 from China.
Number of visitors to the UK in 2019, 40.9 million. 883,000 from China.
the tweet you posted declared in a manner that shouted I’m smarter than everyone reading this tweet that the geography i.e. New Zealand’s location offered it a greater protection and yet here we have evidence that people from China travel to New Zealand quite regularly.
Therefore, by my logic it makes that tweet at serious risk of being a load of bollocks, like the one that declared that New Zealand moved away from a herd immunity strategy.
I’d rather not get into another argument on demographics etc. but my whole point is that if the UK had decided to follow similar policies as new Zealand when they had the opportunity to see what was on the horizon our death figures and quite likely economy would be so much better. A similar argument could be made of South Korea or Japan. Again proactive policies rather than reactive ones.
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I think it was encapsulating the frustration of people seeking to compare the UK with NZ seemingly on the sole basis that they are both islands when in nearly every other respect they are vastly different.
The post above sets out that the UK has more than twice the traffic from China (as well as specifically from Wuhan) that NZ has (and more than every other European country), which would further act to disadvantage the UK using your logic. However, most pertinently, Wuhan shut down all external travel almost immediately removing this as a factor in any event.
It would, I agree but I do think its false to claim that New Zealand is some isolated haven where its been so easy to manage the pandemic. They made big and bold decisions. UK dithered, flip flopped and so on and I believe that is the main reason for the stark differences in numbers. Other demographics are certainly important but in my mind they dont make up the gap. Not by a long way.
Perhaps (I’m not aware of the data) a comparison of economic performance over the last 12-14 months in percentage terms is a good indicator? Mission for you there. 
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Wouldn’t part of the problem come from the UK being so densely populated?
I think if you were to compare the UK to Ireland where i think,till now, we have done better at manageing this than the UK particularly when it comes to deaths but then the UK has roughly 14 times our population in an area only 3.5 times the size.This must make it more difficult to control,at least in some built up areas.
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Yes, exactly one of the issues I raised before with Arminius when the UK v NZ comparison previously came up.
UK vastly more densely populated than NZ.
Actually, haven’t seen Arminius around for a while, hope he’s good.
Probably roughing it in the cabin 
UK as a whole is not very dense but London is very very dense, though not as dense as Singapore per sqkm but still very dense and I think we did alot better than London. I think a mixture of culture, politics, indecisive politicians, people distrust of politicians and a large enough group of idiots who do not believe in being socially responsible contribute to the mix of the disastrous pandemic. I mean density plays a very important part but we have seen very dense cities doing well in the pandemic too. For me, NZ took fast decisive painful actions, the government explained with empathy but hard truth about the situation. And importantly, most of the people, while I am sure hated it, followed.
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As I mentioned back in February…
So much of England (not just London) is so much more densely populated than the most densely populated part of New Zealand (Auckland) but as also mentioned back then it is just one of a myriad of factors.
And the answer is not, people under 60 will get something else.
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But Taiwan also is high density population, is right next door to China and is heavily linked having hundreds of flights per week travelling between them and China, yet had a similar response to NZ and the numbers speak quiet clearly in my view.
What was it that Taiwan did differently? They implimented strick border controls and a tough lockdown early on, listened to the science and did what they could to prevent covid developing a foothold early on.
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So compare the UK with somewhere that has a high density number, like Taiwan, or Singapore.
They both took similar measures to NZ, and they are largely back to normal life - except for foreign travellers.
Sure. Do you know how Singapore handled their migrant communities? Not sure the UK would be able to get away with similar measures.
I confess that I know nothing about how Taiwan handled it.
Quite sure though that at these levels, just looking at the base numbers without further enquiry, even the very best European numbers are going to look shit though, right?
Not surely how Singapore handled their migrant communities. I have a couple of residents at work from Singapore, so will chat to them if I see them today. Hopefully will learn something
Taiwan took similar decicive steps early on, hard lockdown and very strict border controls banning all foreign travel coming in. Population of 22M and they recored just 1050 cases and 10 deaths, despite being right next door to China.
Similarly, Hong Kong, linked by several bridges to mainland China, with a population of 7.5M yet they have recorded only 11,500 cases with 200 deaths. Once again, their leaders took strong action early on rather than sit around like a dithering idiot
I was right then? By comparison to these authoritarian governments even the very best European countries look shit. I guess they’re all run by dithering idiots.
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