Thread by @ricarduscaseus

🧵What happened to #NewZealand's elimination strategy for #covid19? Why did it happen and why was it stopped?

When #covid19 first arrived in force in Aotearoa NZ in March 2020, China had already beaten the original Wuhan outbreak through the unprecedented Hubei lockdown and restrictions on the scale of the whole country. NZ epidemiologists were keen to follow that proven example.

NZ also had a lot to fear from an uncontrolled outbreak. Our run down neoliberal health system faced early collapse. With only 4 beds per 100k people, intensive care was especially vulnerable. The original strategy to “flatten the curve” of cases could not have avoided disaster.

So elimination was decided on. A nationwide lockdown far stricter than in most other states was declared and the border was closed and a quarantine system set up. Even if the elimination strategy failed, it would still flatten the curve of cases to the maximum degree.

But it didn't fail. Community transmission of #covid19 was completely halted. Free of the virus, NZ lived an eerily normal life, with concerts, sports events, business and trade. The economy recovered. Covid deaths in NZ were a fraction of 1% of US and UK rates.

Cases kept turning up in managed isolation at the border and sometimes got through causing smaller outbreaks, but softer regional lockdowns along with extensive testing and tracing wiped them out.

Australia had followed a similar policy with great success and a trans-Tasman bubble (unquarantined travel across the Tasman Sea) briefly reconnected Aotearoa and Australia, until the dangerous Delta #covid19 strain caused an outbreak in NSW.

Vaccination got off to a late start but once it was underway NZ began to plan to reopen to international travelers and thus to #covid19 infections. But it turned out that vaccination rates in the 95% range would be needed for herd immunity. With lower rates NZ faced mass deaths.

Then the Delta strain reached NZ from NSW. The whole country went into full lockdown, Level 4, as soon as the first community case was found. It took weeks before the outbreak peaked and began to recede rapidly. Lockdown was then eased, just as it had been the 2020 outbreak.

Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) went to Level 3 lockdown, roughly as strict as what passes for lockdown in the UK. The rest of the country went to Level 2, basically masks and social distancing. But then it all turned to custard.

∆ is more infectious than the 2020 strains and under Level 3 lockdown cases unexpectedly began to increase, particularly in the overcrowded, impoverished South Auckland slums that are neoliberalism's pride and joy. But the government was already working on further relaxations.

The government's strategy was to transition from elimination to a vaccination and toleration strategy, and in response to the ∆ outbreak it accelerated vaccination with popular support. Even once it realised that elimination wasn't happening at Level 3 it carried on regardless.

This was a compromise between realism and wishful thinking and between truth and lies. It left the government response in ruins. Officially they're still aiming for elimination but acknowledge they aren't achieving it and won't take the necessary steps to do so. It's a fiasco.

Now cases are rising quite quickly, on track to overwhelm the hospital system within weeks. Even rapid vaccination will not be in time to avert the disaster. The strong, well-earned public support for the government's strategy and for lockdown in particular has been trashed.

Today, NZ's #covid19 response strategy is incoherent, unsupported by the medical professionals, uncaring to the most vulnerable and downright delusional. It's on a collision course with a deeply unpleasant reality.

19 days later and the train crash is well underway.

Just a week later and there were >200 new cases reported today, 25% more than the previous record (set yesterday) and 25 times more than at the low point of the #covid19nz outbreak, when the government dumped the elimination strategy in favour of learning to die with the virus.