I’ve been thinking about New Zealand lately. Bob mentioned something in passing that is now stuck in my brain like a never ending podcast; do you know how many COVID deaths, how many TOTAL people have died from this virus on Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s watch? 26
TWENTY SIX
“Going hard and early has worked for us before,” Arden said as she announced another lockdown because ONE citizen in Auckland has tested positive and she is assuming it’s the new Delta variant.
We have seen what can happen elsewhere if we fail to get on top of it. We only get one chance.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58241619
New Zealand is an island of nearly 5 Million people and their public health response to Covid-19 was not only rapid, it was comprehensive including contact tracing and enforced quarantine. Now schools, offices and businesses will close for one week in any region the infected patient happened to visit.
There was no denial, no delusional thinking. There was no TRY for New Zealand, there is only DO. In a country with a mere 20% of its population vaccinated, it had been COVID free for nearly six months!
That’s one third of this pandemic time capsule, they actually had been going out, eating in and basically partying like it’s 1999, or at least 2019. It’s as if the rest of the world got sucked into a wormhole, and New Zealanders did the right and proper things to survive.
Are Kiwis just more altruistic than us? Do they not follow algorithms down meerkat holes of conspiracy nonsense? My theory is not that they are so much smarter, it s all about leadership. Particularly the orange clown show early on, the guy who wanted to end our never ending wars. Remember him? The media can focus on Biden’s handling of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, but I’m trying to muster up the courage to ‘change the things I can.’
Being married to an ER doc has its disadvantages. Bob likes to remind me that we’re all on a slow steady stream to the grave. I’m in a perpetual state of decline, my vision is getting worse and my hearing will most likely be next, either before or after some joint replacement. I have a wonderful physical therapist on speed dial, or should I say my list of favorites?
But for all his candid talk of death and dying, these COVID numbers are staggering. The USA has lost more than 622,000 souls to this disease. The US population is a little over 330 Million. We’ve lost 2 out of every thousand people.
New Zealand has lost 26 souls to this disease. The New Zealand population is about five million people. They’ve lost 5 out of every MILLION people. Relative to that island nation’s population, we have lost 400 times as many people!
So let’s not compare Afghanistan deaths to Vietnam deaths or Civil War deaths or any other totally useless wars because this COVID death count is going up again. And we squandered our chance to stop it. We were slow and stupid at first, and now we’re just, ummm, misinformed?
MountainMornings 