Originally Posted by
Ollie Onion
So what do you see as the exit strategy from this then? At the end of the day COVID is now with humanity forever and ALL a of us at some point will have COVID. We can now pretty much ensure that we don’t get seriously sick or die by having a vaccine, how long do we keep the borders shut after reaching 80% plus vaccination rate to protect those who don’t have the jab. You say are you ‘willing’ to accept 80 deaths a week, is this based on Boris saying 1,000 per week is acceptable in the UK, they currently and running at around 400 per week from COVID with a population of 60 million and his no doubt will drop as more get the jab. If we were to have a similar rate that would be about 30 per week. NZ currently has a death rate of just under 40,000 per year or 770 per week, in the UK COVID is killing about 1/5 of the number who die each week from cancer and about 1/5 the amount who die from Heart Disease, should we ban meat, nitrates, cigarettes and alcohol to try and reduce these down as well? So what is your plan, given Covid is going to be with us forever, how many more businesses do we sacrifice, how many peoples lives do we ruin, how many more suicides are acceptable in our quest to eliminate.
You really don't get it do you? They are at 70% Vaccination and they are having over 400 deaths per week, Most of the other causes you mention are PREVENTABLE; yes we have policy to reduce tobacco, alcohol and drug use = why is booze and tobacco taxed? We encourage exercise and we have public health measures to improve outcomes in relation to poverty.
Regarding suicides - you do know the rate went down during lockdown one? Also, debt. We have debt that is 24% of GDP; most of Europe, the US and Canada have borrowing well over 100% of GDP. Our economy is stronger than post. There were FEWER business closures during Covid than the GFC. Remember the UK had over 135K dead, and this is a guess, not a realistic calculation as the numbers have been fudged.
The way out is to keep up what we are doing until we get as close to 100% vaccination as we can. In Aussie everyone, except NSW, are continuing to do the same.