cirrus wrote:
This country needs to make some real decisions. Either stay locked down in fear forever,living half lives and become the hermit kingdom of the pacific. or open the borders and get on with trying to save our economy and the mental health of our people. The longer we stay isolated the less immunity we will have to covid and the new strains of flu that will develop. We didnt isolate during the spanish flu of 1918 ,nor the 1958 pandemic and we got over them.
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I would like to challenge some of these points: These are entirely my opinion and how it has affected me. I realise it has affected people differently.
1. "Living half lives" - I feel like we are living lives closer to normal than anyone else around the world right now - very few day to day restrictions except overseas travel. Does everyone feel they are living a "half life?"
2. "open the borders and get on with trying to save our economy and the mental health of our people" - I can't see allowing the virus to freely spread (if we want to fully remove restrictions, this is what happens) would improve the economy or the country's mental health. Look overseas. They are not really thriving either.
3. "We didnt isolate during the spanish flu of 1918 ,nor the 1958 pandemic and we got over them." - We did not exactly come out of either of them unscathed. Our economy or mental health was not great. The world was in considerable trouble financially and health wise.
For the last few months I (and many others) have been fortunate enough to live my life largely as if Covid didn't even exist. Going to the pub, restaurant, work, mates houses etc. My kids and family have been able to go to school and work safely and without me worrying. There are not many countries around the world where people can say that. I understand that there will be people up and down the country whose lives have been forever changed for the worse or even ruined by lockdown (tourism businesses etc), but that is not limited to NZ. Places that didn't even go into lockdown have still had job losses in tourism and the service industry.
I know anecdotal evidence and comparisons don't mean a lot, and people will complain about them, but I personally know of more people in the UK who have actually died from the virus than kiwis who have lost their jobs / livelihoods as a direct result of lockdown here. I feel like we did the right thing keeping it out and are continuing to try to do that. It could all fall flat on its face, of course.