
New Zealand eliminates Covid-19 - everybodyknows
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31097-7/fulltext
======
pippy
As a New Zealander my opinion on the government changed for the better after
the pandemic. They listened to health professionals and implemented their
advice. Far too many governments have industry in their ear overriding
anything else. In a twist of irony, our economy is going to pick up faster
than other countries as a result.

~~~
anitil
As your cousin across the ditch, I feel similarly about our government. People
prepared for the worst, and their preparation seems to have so far prevented
the worst.

I hope Australia can follow you eventually, or at least keep things at a low
level

~~~
teruakohatu
Australia did so well, a low level lockdown compared to us but acted earlier.
You should be proud. You will get down to our level soon enough.

------
609venezia
> We will still see cases…but only cases in people who have arrived from
> overseas.” Travellers from abroad will be quarantined as part of efforts to
> prevent transmission in New Zealand.

> As New Zealand now eases its restrictions and its economy slowly reopens,
> there are discussions about how it can open up its borders while ensuring
> that everyone is protected

What's the end-game here, assuming the disease goes endemic in the rest of the
world (as seems likely)

~~~
Barrin92
If they're truly serious about this long term I guess a drastic shift away
from the tourism industry which happens to be gigantic in New Zealand.

It's honestly difficult to see how this is sustainable.

~~~
solraph
It's 5.8% of GDP, 20.4% of exports. [0]

That's a large figure, but it's not as if New Zealand lacks any kind of other
industry. There's a massive primary industries (dairy, meat, logging, wine,
plus others) where the country hasn't yet fully exploited it's opportunities
yet for secondary value-add processing.

As a completely anecdotal observation, most tourists go to the South Island,
where roughly a fifth of the population lives. The North Island is four times
as densely populated. This disparity sometimes leads people to believe that
country is entirely dependant on tourism, with a few sheep thrown in.

[0] [https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-
figure...](https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-figures/)

~~~
Barrin92
>That's a large figure, but it's not as if New Zealand lacks any kind of other
industry

It's also 15% of employment though, which isn't surprising because there's a
lot of low wage service work done in that sector, it employs a huge chunk of
the population.

For reference, both in terms of GDP contribution and employment that is larger
than the contribution of the entire automotive industry to Germany.

And being German and seeing how people are starting to get worried about the
economy, I can't see this working long term politically.

If you tell people in the tourism industry they now need to become dairy
farmers at the other end of the country I think you'll be surprised how
quickly the country opens up again.

------
Widdershin
An unfortunate headline, considering that we have yet to eliminate Covid-19 in
New Zealand, as the article itself discusses.

~~~
red369
I didn't see the article as disagreeing with the headline. I thought the
headline was using "eliminated" in the epidemiological sense: "Elimination to
everyone means that it is gone. But in epidemiological terms, it means
bringing cases down to zero or near zero in a geographical location."

~~~
brigandish
I see what you're saying but HN is not a community of epidemiologists so I'd
also say the headline is misleading and hence, inappropriate.

~~~
cultus
Although it's generally considered bad form to alter headlines in HN, and the
Lancet is a medical journal.

~~~
brigandish
Again, I see what you're saying. However, isn't it bad form because it may
alter the meaning and hence, mislead? Then why would the converse - leaving it
alone and hence, mislead - also not be bad form?

The link and (HN) title are presented to the HN readership, if it is followed
then the article's own title will be presented in the correct context.

Regardless, this is a minor point and I'll quibble no further.

------
tomohawk
A few days ago Taiwan reached no new cases for 14 days. They're still banned
from the WHO, though.

One wonders what will happen next? Will people need to quarantine for 21 days
upon entry?

~~~
frankacter
Taiwan is actually at 26 days of no local cases as of today.

To your quarantine question, we currently only allow citizens to fly into
Taiwan and those visitors have a mandated and tracked quarantine for them and
anyone in the private home they are staying. If they have symptoms or do not
have a private home they can quarantine, there are quarantine hotels they can
wait out their 14 days. Anyone in quarantine is given a daily stipend.

Worth noting, while Taiwan is an island, it has a population density as high
as 10,000 per square/KM in some areas. Taiwan had no business, school campus
or public transportation shut downs. Strictly masks, hand washing, temperature
checks, and social distancing.

------
dificilis
New Zealand didn't go into full lockdown until 26 March.

An estimated 80,000-100,000 people attended the Newtown street fair on 8 March
- [https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-
post/news/wellington/120103...](https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-
post/news/wellington/120103357/sunshine-music-and-food-gleams-on-newtown-
street-fair).

For other countries a date like 26 March was, or would have been, way too
late.

~~~
kiwidrew
For context, on 8th March (the date of the Newtown festival) there had been a
cumulative 224 tests undertaken and only 5 positive results, all of which were
linked to recent overseas travel. [1]

Through what seems to be sheer luck, NZ managed to avoid importing any cases
from China during the "first wave", and it wasn't until the outbreaks took
hold in Iran, Italy, and New York that we began to see our first imported
cases -- starting with our first case on February 28th, where the source of
infection was Iran. (It's important to note that by the time the first case
was detected, nearly 200 tests had already been performed -- all were
negative.)

However the number of cases arriving from overseas began to ramp up incredibly
fast in the following two weeks, during which time a series of increasingly
severe border restrictions were introduced starting on the 16th of March, and
finally culminating in the full Level 4 lockdown starting on the 26th. At the
announcement of the lockdown (on the 23th) New Zealand had a total of just 102
cases [2].

[1] [https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-
releases/covid-1...](https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-
releases/covid-19-novel-coronavirus-update-8-march) [2]
[https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-
releases/36-new-...](https://www.health.govt.nz/news-media/media-
releases/36-new-cases-covid-19-new-zealand)

------
amanzi
It's important to note that the term "eliminated" does not mean that we have
no cases of Covid-19. The govt uses terms like "eliminated" and "eradicated"
to mean different things with subtle differences, so they can be used to
measure progress. From the article (in case you didn't read) "Elimination to
everyone means that it is gone. But in epidemiological terms, it means
bringing cases down to zero or near zero in a geographical location"

~~~
bacon_waffle
The best analogy I've found is that "elimination" is like retirement. It is a
stage rather than a point in time.

------
Ono-Sendai
Detailed stats on coronavirus in NZ available here:
[https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-
conditions/...](https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-
conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-
situation/covid-19-current-cases)

------
shibeouya
People seem to forget that in this area of the world, the yearly season for
corona viruses starts in June... Same for Australia.

So unless they can maintain this type of lockdown for the next 6 months, they
will see a resurgence, just as they see every year corona viruses spread
starting in June.

A lot probably has to do with temperature and general climate.

I ironically think that Europe and US east coast may be in the best position,
they went through hell and some of their areas are probably very close to herd
immunity.

~~~
davesmylie
> So unless they can maintain this type of lockdown for the next 6 months,
> they will see a resurgence, just as they see every year corona viruses
> spread starting in June.

The difference is, is that most corona viruses are present all year round, and
in significant numbers.

Provided the border remains secure (easy enough on a remote island with only a
few international airports), and the existing cases are allowed to burn out,
with effectively zero cases remaining by the time we reach "normal", I don't
see a resurgence over winter as being that likely.

As a bonus, due to lock down, our influenza numbers are also hugely down as
compared to most years. Whilst this absolutely won't be eliminated, I do
expect numbers through out winter to remain lower than normal because of the
severe reduction in numbers at the start of winter.

------
_bxg1
It's so alien in these times to see a functioning government that's working to
better its society.

------
bb2018
I wonder if they (or similar places) will decide to open tourism if they can
test everyone coming in and out.

~~~
roca
Don't think so. Testing on entry doesn't really help because the tourist could
be incubating the virus. We have to quarantine and not many tourists want to
spend the first two weeks of their holiday locked in a hotel room.

In the medium term the main hope for tourism is a) domestic and b) Australia
also achieving elimination and opening our border to them.

There might also be some creative options to explore. E.g. let people pay big
$$$ to be whisked away to an isolated luxury lodge (government approved!) for
the first two weeks of their holiday.

~~~
netsharc
Huh, with enough testing kits (and 2 day turnaround time on them?), why not
test every arriving tourist, and quarantine them for 2 days until their test
returns negative. Of course there's a danger that they get infected between
the test and the quarantine (e.g. they share a bus to the quarantine location
with an infected), so if someone you may have come into contact with is
infected, then your 2 day quarantine becomes a 14 day one (or can they retest
you on e.g. day 4 and let you go on day 6?)

~~~
jddj
It might be the case that a seven day quarantine with a test on the fifth day
(for example) would be enough, but I imagine their government would want to
see data confirming that.

It's probably not the case that someone can be tested on arrival and assumed
not to be incubating the virus at as-of-yet undetectable levels.

------
throwaway713
Didn't a bunch of billionaires recently hunker down in their private bunkers
in New Zealand? Does this mean they are trapped there now?

~~~
redis_mlc
I followed this in the press.

Mostly, wealthy Americans just applied for (and received) NZ passports and
maybe bought a house "just in case."

You can look at aerial photos of the few airports in NZ to see if their
private jets are still parked there.

Because until fairly recently small houses sold for $50,000 in NZ, and
obviously foreign money would jack those prices up, the NZ govt. started
talking about making their passports harder to obtain.

They also currently require a "travel document" from Americans, to reciprocate
for US entry policy:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/americans-
wi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/americans-will-need-a-
travel-document-to-enter-new-zealand-starting-
oct-1/2019/06/26/a4f23482-977a-11e9-8d0a-5edd7e2025b1_story.html)

------
blaser-waffle
For context: New Zealand only has around ~5 million people and is pretty
remote, relative to the rest of the world.

By comparison Ohio has ~11 million people, Canada has ~38 million people, and
California has ~40 million people.

This is awesome for the Kiwis, but they are small and isolated.

------
blakesterz
> Siouxsie Wiles, associate professor and head of the Bioluminescent Superbugs
> Lab at the University of Auckland...

So this is totally off topic, but is the spelling of her name Siouxsie common
in NZ or maybe Australia or elsewhere? I've only seen Siouxsie spelled that
way once, so I'm just curious if she was maybe named after Siouxsie Sioux or
this is a common spelling that I've just never seen.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Australian here, never met or heard of anyone in Australia with 'Suzy' spelled
like that.

Looks like she changed her name to that: _Siouxsie Wiles MNZM (born Susanna
Wiles)_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siouxsie_Wiles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siouxsie_Wiles)

------
raymondgh
Today is May 7, why does it say Published May 9?

~~~
paranoidrobot
For what it's worth, In New Zealand, they're over half-way through May 8th.
(12:39PM)

And it looks like that the Publish date is the Issue Date of their magazine,
which appears to be every Saturday:
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issues](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issues)

------
xienze
> Testing has been focused on people with symptoms, with tracing of both close
> contacts and casual contacts. However, more widespread testing is now being
> introduced.

Might be a bit early to proclaim it’s been “eliminated” based on a single day
of no new reported cases considering the asymptomatic aren’t widely being
tested.

~~~
red369
Someone with a better clinical understanding than I do can probably shed more
light on this, but the NZ Director General of Health briefly touched on this,
saying there is a difference between elimination and eradication in medical
lingo. That may also apply to the Lancet article. I’ll try to find more later
if no-one else answers this better.

~~~
lemming
That's right, and there was a brief controversy here when the Director General
and the Prime Minister said that NZ had eliminated COVID and that was taken by
most people to mean that it no longer existed here. They later had to
backtrack somewhat and explain the difference.

Basically elimination means that the disease is totally under control, and any
new cases can be dealt with via testing and tracing. Eradication means that
the disease is completely wiped out and no longer exists here.

~~~
scruffups
Elimination means removal of something. Eradication means it will never come
back. So maybe they meant (or should have meant) that the risk of exponential
spread has been eliminated.

