201–210 of 216 posts
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The same rule for everyone regardless of wealth or political connection.
Does NZ not benefit from this system? I mean, it seems like a good deal to me - attracting large amounts of local investment in return for something fairly small.
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If we abolished MIQ then Aotearoa NZ would be riddled with COVID, many thousands or tens of thousands would have died, many many more living with chronic conditions and the economy and society crippled. As it happens less than 50 have died, each one a tragedy, while I’ve just had a lovely Christmas with 3 generations, as many others are around the motu. Sure we had to video call relatives in other countries, but thei…
> Our society has decided that nobody should die from COVID. That’s still the right answer. This is hilarious. Why hasn’t your society decided that nobody should die from obesity? Obesity kills far more people every year than COVID ever will, and would be a far easier problem to solve through legislation. Why does NZ grant visas to obese people? Why are obese people allowed to go to restaurants or work? If the govern…
They don’t. You go thru serious health check when getting work visa and then another check when applying for residency. If you are fat with serious health issues you won’t pass.
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The right to return to NZ does not automatically trump all other considerations. Without MIQ we couldn't have executed our elimination strategy. Probably thousands of people would have died of COVID, or we would have had stronger and longer lockdowns --- probably both --- all highly detrimental to the well-being of people living in NZ. So why should the right of return take priority over all that?
NZ could have added more capacity to MIQ. It could have started working on adding more healthcare resources (it’s been 2 years already, how many new intubators have we added? How many nurses and doctors have we recruited overseas? Or have we just locked the gate and put our hands in our ears?) NZ has had more than enough time to prepare for COVID in a post elimination world. Why does MIQ still exist? Why did NZ provi…
> How many nurses and doctors have we recruited overseas?
I don't have the exact numbers, but many hundreds at least.
> Why does MIQ still exist?
Right now it exists to keep Omicron out while we get through Christmas, see how well we can cope with Delta using the traffic light system, get boosters into the arms of people who were vaccinated more than 4 months ago, and learn how bad Omicron is.
If the news about Omicron stays good and there are no other surprises I don't expect MIQ for NZers to exist past the end of Feb, or at all past the end of April.
> Do you think any Olympian or All Black could look the son or daughter of a dead parent in the eye and say that it was right for their space in MIQ to take precedence over the chance for a loved one to say goodbye for one last time?
There is an exemption system that gives priority for such emergency cases so it's not obvious to me how many such injudicious situations have occurred. When they have occurred, I'm more bothered by the MIQ-users who were just entering NZ for a nice holiday, or returning from a holiday. I consider it a major defect of our MIQ system that we never tried to block those low-priority users ... but I understand it would have been hard, since a lot of people have been claiming such trips are essential for their mental health.
Also I have a lack of empathy for people rushing back to NZ for forseeable end-of-life visits. In my view, if you care about your parents a lot, you live where they are so you can be with them for more than just the last minute.
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> Our society has decided that nobody should die from COVID. That’s still the right answer. This is hilarious. Why hasn’t your society decided that nobody should die from obesity? Obesity kills far more people every year than COVID ever will, and would be a far easier problem to solve through legislation. Why does NZ grant visas to obese people? Why are obese people allowed to go to restaurants or work? If the govern…
> Why does NZ grant visas to obese people? They don’t. You go thru serious health check when getting work visa and then another check when applying for residency. If you are fat with serious health issues you won’t pass.
Obese doesn't mean morbidly obese. The former can get a work visa (very common actually) when the latter might not.
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In practice MIQ capacity has been limited by the number of suitable hotels available, and the difficulty of staffing them. These resources are not very elastic.
Taiwan operates an effective home quarantine system (and 850 deaths for a 23m population). Why couldn’t NZ? There would be a lot more capacity that way.
The solution is simple... Shut down the unnecessary MIQ system. Everyone has had the opportunity to get vaccinated and risks for those is now back to as low as it was prior to the pandemic.
What about people who can’t take the vaccine for medical reasons, or are too young? Fuck ‘em right?
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What about people who can’t take the vaccine for medical reasons, or are too young? Fuck ‘em right?
There’s like 100 people in whole of NZ who can’t take the vaccine due to medical reasons.
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How will it help New Zealanders if they just invest in real estate? Seems like a good speculative bet for them, but mostly it just makes it more difficult for young people to get afoot in the property market....
Higher asset prices makes building property more profitable. It incentivizes more construction. This is how the free market works, in general. When prices go up, it incentivizes asset creators create more. This is one of the down-sides of zoning limitations - they do not let the market provide more for the additional demand. ...and a simple Google search confirms that NZ has been experiencing a construction boom.
The kind of houses which locals are priced out of due to low wage economy. Certainly good for wealthy immigrants and cashed up Kiwis returning from overseas though.
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> Why does NZ grant visas to obese people? They don’t. You go thru serious health check when getting work visa and then another check when applying for residency. If you are fat with serious health issues you won’t pass.
> If you are fat with serious health issues you won’t pass. Obese doesn't mean morbidly obese. The former can get a work visa (very common actually) when the latter might not.
Same with a friend who had some lung abnormalities since birth - very stringent checks.
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There’s like 100 people in whole of NZ who can’t take the vaccine due to medical reasons.
And there are hundreds of thousands of children under 12 who aren’t vaccinated.
Kids are back at schools and daycares with no air filtration mandates, no parent bubble separation, no parent vaccine segregation…
Ultimate metric for abolishing MIQ is ICU pressure. And that was about to happen anyway just few days away, until Omicron (rightfully so, although given slip up with delta I’d say close the border completely).