New Zealand passes 100 days with no new local cases of COVID/coronavirus

There are currently just over 20 confirmed positive who are in quarantine upon arrival back in NZ, but ZERO community spread.

Some here have scoffed and said that would be easy for an island nation. Actually, check Japan.

New Zealand normally has a lot of travel to and from Australia which has seen increases in their cases recently.

Many arrivals come by plane from all over the world. They have a global economy which relies on imports/exports.

The point is--it literally is not their geography--it is their public policy which has accomplished this.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-zealand-coronavirus-100-days-no-new-cases/

New Zealand is allowing zero non-New Zealanders into the country; moreover

NZ Citizens and others with status to return (such as immediate family member) can come back to NZ but they have to stay in government operated quarantine centers (designated hotels) for 2 weeks and have to come back with negative coronavirus tests in first and second week.

just for perspective on exactly how wide open our stupid country is in the face of this deadly and growing pandemic.

the reason they are doing this is their draconian stay at home orders, massive testing and contact tracing/isolation have gotten them down to pretty much zero cases.

edited to add there are very rare exceptions to this such as people being allowed in for specific expertise they can provide relative to health and medicine.

Republicans are screwed with this virus

all of their familiar attack and defense angles fall flat

1. This is Obama's fault!/We're handling it better than Obama/Biden:

Answer: uh, no it is not. your team demonstrably blew off any serious attention to Obama transition team in the matter, discarded their pandemic playbook, got rid of key pandemic response teams in WH and in China. fuck you, you're wrong

Moreover, care to compare virus responses now? Total of 12k dead due to H1N1 swine flu in US PALES in comparison to the out of control death count for COVID and we don't know how many more there will be before this virus is behind us.

2. This is a China virus. It's China's fault!

Answer: Hey dipshits! who told you to trust the Chinese government. We had epidemiologists there in China specifically to be early warning on any novel virus outbreaks.

Secondly--ok, we concede China should have been more forthcoming, but look at what other advanced countries did to fight this virus vs. what this government did. it is ridiculous that we have 150,000 dead and probably more than that due to this virus which COULD have been stopped in its tracks in April.

So this is due to bad governance and politicizing things like mask wearing and lockdowns.


Any others you can mention?

Fuck Politico

I sometimes think sites like Daily Caller and Breitbart exist to make conservative sites like Politico seem middle of the road or unbiased.

They are clearlt amping the rhetoric afainst Biden and acting essentially as part of the GOP/Trump campaign.

EDITED to add short clip of article since I refuse to link it:

Elsewhere in Biden's interview with the journalism associations, Biden bristled at a reporter's question about whether he has taken a cognitive test akin to the one Trump has bragged about acing. Biden replied to the question from CBS News correspondent Errol Barnett, who is Black, by saying “That's like saying to you, before you got on this program if you had taken a test were you taking cocaine or not. What do you think, huh? Are you a junkie?"

Biden's campaign defended those comments by calling Barnett's question "preposterous" and "deserving of a response that showed the absurdity of it all."

Biden also drew criticism last May for saying that "you ain't Black" if "you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump." The Democratic candidate made the remarks during an interview with The Breakfast Club, a nationally syndicated radio show, and later apologized for the remark.

How stupid and inane are Americans?

i mean, I am an American too. But if you just step back and look at the headlines..I think our great grandchildren are going to read the history books and think "WTF!???"

We're so impatient and selfish as a country that despite coronavirus infection and death rates climbing in at least 30 states, MLB is trying to have games which are then cancelled/postponed due to player infections--people are going to Disney World, kids are becoming mass spreaders at summer camps.


and we have a president who along with his political henchmen are dismissing expert doctors like Fauci, Birx, and others in admin saying we need to ramp up our vigilance.

The president spouts hydroxyxhloraquine bullshit on a daily basis despite evidence disproving his claims.

it actually hurts my head to think about how stupid and ineffective our nation has become under Trump.

In Memoriam: Herman Cain

so let me get this straight about Trump in 2020

He has presided over the worst US response to a disease outbreak since 1918 Spanish Flu

Worst unemployment rate EVER--worse than any time in the Great Depression

Worst GDP drop EVER--worse than any time in the Great Depression

He has citizens marching in the streets in greater numbers because of his lack of seriousness about cops killing unarmed black people and his answer is to ship shady unidentified shock troops to escalate violence

this piece of shit has rightfully been impeached, named as an unindicted co conspirator in criminal trial of his long time personal lawyer

ENOUGH

Here's a link to a COVID post I made in March

I mentioned that if only 15% of US got the virus infection, the CPFR would translate to close to 2 million deaths ny end of pandemic

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213097067

Current CPFR per Johns Hopkins months later is about 3.4 percent and 4 million have tested positive this far. CDC studies indicate the actual infection count may be 10 times higher.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

Fortunately, the stay at home orders, mask mandates and other interventions have taken us away from the upper end projections of deaths, but the fact that we are already at 150,000 official deaths (with estimated deaths due to COVID likely quite a bit higher) is appalling especially considering how well other countries have brought this virus under control.

A clnician's guide to administering the "Is Trump Senile?" test

Hey, how is Trump and US Gov scoring on the fascist checklist these days?

they are already yanking dissidents off the streets without warrants and have set up internment camps