This is not the end

"Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen" (distraxi)
06/08/2020 at 02:05 • Filed to: covid-19

It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning ... as some old English crumbly put it.

It’s now been over 2 weeks since the last new Covid-19 case in NZ, over a month since the last community transmission, and our last active case was declared recovered yesterday. So we are officially Covid free. As a result, as of midnight tonight !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Gigs, clubs, sporting events, sex with total strangers: it’s all on.

Now that’s all shiny and chrome, you may say. And many of us would agree with you - there will certainly be a bottle of something expensive cracked in the Distraxi household tonight.

However now we start to pay the price - even over and above the massive hit the economy’s already taken due to a couple of months of various degrees of lockdown. We have closed borders, and if we’re going to have any chance of keeping the virus out they’re going to stay closed till we not only have a vaccine but it’s widely available, otherwise the whole exercise will have been a waste. You and your lovely tourist dollars are welcome to visit, but only if you stay in a hotel room for 2 weeks after arrival: good luck with that.

We’re also going to need to keep testing like a motherfucker and have a big fat expensive contact tracing apparatus sitting around waiting to go, just in case it slips back in with an aircrew or some sort of quarantine screwup (not that !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ).

So the next year or two in New Zealand is going to be a mammoth exercise in “ how tightly can you seal a border ” and “ how fucked is an economy which relies on trade and tourism going to get when not only are all our trade partners having their own issues, but nobody can even come or go? ”

Fun times indeed. Its great to live in a tiny island nation in the middle of nowhere when things turn to shit. But it sucks to live in a tiny island nation in the middle of nowhere when things turn to shit.

Humber Limousine with custom oversized ashtray for your time.

And as an aside, our PM apparently “danced a little jig around her lounge” when she heard the last case was recovered. While the idea of Ardern and her toddler boogying down to the good news is somewhat less revolting an image than some other world leaders i could name (or even some of our own in the past), I’m not sure if I approve of this trend for political leaders to be human beings. We hired you to be an archetype, dammit!

DISCUSSION (9)

kanadanmajava1 > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
06/08/2020 at 02:22

I took nearly identical picture ~14 months ago.

Kinja'd!!!

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > kanadanmajava1
06/08/2020 at 02:26

You must have been there damn near the same time as me then - that one’s from February last year.

The Louwman’s one of the best car collections I’ve visited.

kanadanmajava1 > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
06/08/2020 at 02:32

I was there on April 12th. The collection is indeed awesome but I did also visit even more awesome car collection in Mulhouse during the same trip .

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
06/08/2020 at 03:16

Amid the civil chaos the US dominated world news both the US and Canada are seeing continual drops in daily covid related deaths.

Here in Canada we’re about late March levels of daily cases ~650/d, with the 90% of it coming from Ont and Qc provinces. BC and Alta rounding out the last 10%. The rest are more or less in the clear. T he media is devoting considerably less reporting space to it.

I got a hair cut last week despite having to had to wear a surgical mask and the restaurants are opening up with the restrictions. The mall saw lots of people this weekend, it looked... Normal. Traffic is about 90% normal volume. For the first time in months I saw the Friday rush hour traffic stack up and crawl, albeit lighter and later than normal. Cops are out impounding vehicles for barely speeding as they do.

Much like your country [ which I visited on work in late 2011] we rely heavily on tourism, it’s going to hurt a lot economically this summer. Lot of casual summer jobs are just not going to be there.

My X-type is too a real Jaguar > Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com
06/08/2020 at 07:30

What I wonder about Canada is are we going to be able to day trip there if the borders reopen on June 22, or will Canadians be able to day trip to the US. That is such a huge economic driver so many border areas in both directions. Plus it knock s 800 miles off a drive from the UP of Michigan to Maine.

DipodomysDeserti > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
06/08/2020 at 08:37

Is there a timeline for when you’ll reopen yojr borders, or is it just until your population has a vaccine? Could take a lot longer than a year or two, and with completely closed borders I’d imagine NZ would be pretty far down on the list to receive vaccines if/when one is ready to go. Would your health department conduct it’s own testing on a foreign made vaccine, or do they trust foreign regulatory agencies to do it for them?

Taylor Martin > Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen
06/08/2020 at 12:21

In the ol’ U.S. of A. it doesn’t seem like folks are giving a second thought to Covid. I mean, you’ve probably seen all the BLM protests, marches, and vigils going on here, which I think are great, but at the end of the day this virus isn’t going anywhere. The way I see it, most Americans think this is a mentality thing. You have Covid if you think about it too much, just like you can trick your brain into feeling symptomatic or whatever. We may see a drop now, but we’ll see a spike again soon. Nothing but the best for you my friend in these trying times.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > DipodomysDeserti
06/08/2020 at 15:02

That, as they say, is the flaw in our cunning plan. As far as I can tell that one hasn’t been fully thought through by the government . There’s some talk o f reopening the border with Australia soon, as they’re also close to elimination, and we may be able to do likewise with a few of the Asian countries. But basically I can’t see any way we can open right up till either the population have been vaccinated, or at a minimum there’s a reliable rapid rest that can be applied to all inbound passengers. Otherwise we’ll just be off to the races again.

Our health department will trust FDA or some other major equivalents so we won’t have to wait on re-approval, but yes, we’ll be near the bottom of the queue. Which would be true even if borders weren’t closed - being tiny doesn’t help, but also we have socialized healthcare with a single-buyer pharmaceuticals arrangement which the drug companies hate, so I have no doubt they’ll take the opportunity to make us pay for that. Unless China gets there first - we get in pretty well with them, for a Western nation. Or it’s publicly developed and therefore “open source” - we have manufacturing capability here.

Exage03040 @ opposite-lock.com > My X-type is too a real Jaguar
06/08/2020 at 15:21

From what I’ve read, as of last week certain Provinces still want 2 week quarantine for international travellers and still want short trippers banned .

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/test-premier-higgs-covid-1.5589888

Small town BC was smashing up Alta cars and writing notes telling them to go home from what I read yesterday. While inter provincial travel isn’t actively banned and enforced , it’s still discouraged.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/pandemic-bc-alberta-tourism-tensions-1.5599998

Most of the tourist/small communities have had a hunker down and piss- off attitude , even towards vacation property owners within the same province .

I’m not sure if they’re going to re-open, re-open to long stays, or give it one more month. Because this is Federal they’re going to have to consult with all the Provinces, and some are still being rather inclusive.

BC in particular has had it’s Covid situation managed by a Dr who lead against the SARS outbreak in 2003. S he’s done a hell of a good job: Daily cases nearing 15/d, les s than 200 active cases, 21 ppl in h ospital ( 5 in ICU), this is a Province of 5M people . However restrictions are slow to be lifted and the whole province is very far on the cautionary side.