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by atweiden
1645 days ago
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> Now that we’re years into COVID and vaccines are readily available, it’s extremely frustrating for New Zealanders with family or loved ones overseas. Public opinion is steadily shifting towards ‘open up the country’, and the government has announced some tentative dates for doing this (although they were recently shifted back due to omicron). As someone who was in a Covid-free region of Australia all throughout the pandemic, I’ve seen first-hand what happens when borders are reopened. Local businesses are far less harmed from closed borders than they are from people avoiding clustering in indoor areas — either out of an abundance of caution for their health, or to avoid becoming a “close contact” of a Covid-19 case and then being forced into quarantine. Once borders reopen, associated mask mandates give everyone needless anxiety, while the hospital system beginning to buckle becomes a constant source of fear. Closed borders allowed Australia and New Zealand to perform better economically than more permissive countries, and allowed their residents to live life like it was still 2019. Permissive countries like America merely pretended to allow life to go on like it was 2019, while their conservative media exported tone deaf rationalizations for permissiveness to AU & NZ residents who were on average far better off than they were. The American media’s attempts at guilting antipodeans for closing themselves off to the world were laughed off as completely bizarre — most people were all too happy to allow the rest of the world to think they were doing it tough living their happy, blissful, Covid-free lives behind impenetrable borders. AU & NZ would probably have at least another year of normal life left to live if their governments had directed international arrivals to quarantine in dedicated facilities in remote locations rather than in retrofitted hotels smack dab in the center of major urban areas. |
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The UK was doing well throughout all of Summer and we've only now had a bit of an Omicron scare due to people not wanting to self isolate over Christmas.
Most people aren't that bothered about corona, they respond to legal threats and marketing.