New Zealand Extends Lockdown in Futile Attempt to Eliminate Virus

New Zealand has extended its lockdown, introducing more restrictions as the Delta variant spreads beyond Auckland. MailOnline has more.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced 32 new coronavirus cases on Sunday in Auckland, the country’s largest city, which has been in lockdown since mid-August.

There were also two cases in the Waikato region, some 91 miles south of Auckland, prompting Ardern to bring parts of that region into a five-day lockdown.

She added that the government will decide on Monday whether Auckland’s 1.7 million residents will remain sealed off from the rest of New Zealand.

Ardern enforced what was meant to be a ‘short and sharp’ nationwide lockdown in mid-August in response to the Auckland outbreak, which now stands at 1,328 cases.

But while the rest of the country has largely returned to normal life, the North Island city has remained in lockdown.

“We are doing everything that we can to keep cases confined to Auckland, and managing them there,” Ardern said.

While New Zealand was among just a handful of countries to bring COVID-19 cases down to zero last year and largely stayed virus-free until the latest outbreak in August, difficulties in quashing the Delta variant have put Ardern’s elimination strategy in question.

Worth reading in full.

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ComeTheRevolution
ComeTheRevolution
4 years ago

In the UK are all the people who work at the nuclear power stations all jabbed? What happens if the ADE kicks in and they start getting ill?

Lockdown Sceptic
4 years ago

Adern is evil AND ugly

Fifteen Days To Flatten The Curve – Dr. Fauci hasn’t decided yet if he will allow Christmas this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFbPqMhMD7c
Tony Heller

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crisisgarden
4 years ago

I’m sorry I have to admit to finding her weirdly attractive, although of course she is repugnant as a public figure. I have exactly the same problem with Pritti Patel.

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

I recognise that my comment is not going to win me any upvotes.

BungleIsABogan
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Perhaps you just haven’t been for an eye test recently?

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  BungleIsABogan

I did say weirdly attracted!

BungleIsABogan
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

😀

Amari
Amari
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Power is attractive to some.

paul smith
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

No accounting for taste, chacons a son gout, and all that.
…when I was younger, I felt a strange attraction to Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, so who am I to judge?

Dame Lynet
Dame Lynet
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

If nothing else your comment will make a lot of people more confident about their own looks, lol.

Priti really does have a pretty face, though.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Have you got a bad dose of Covid fever? 🙂

I mean – that’s double damnation.

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Maybe I need to take a test of some kind.

Think Harder
Think Harder
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

You sick puppy! 😮
It’s because you believe they will change for you, thereby validating your loving powers.

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  Think Harder

Ha ha! I knew that comment would cause trouble.

TreeHugger
4 years ago

No, they aren’t. It’s something my sons employer (Magnox) have never ever even mentioned. I would imagine since their workforce is predominantly older men that a lot of them are jabbed, but it’s not in anyway mandated or pushed so numbers will be similar to population at large.

Nuclear power stations in use actually employ a lot less people than those being built and those being decommissioned. About 500 people per plant, compared to several thousand building a new one.

ComeTheRevolution
ComeTheRevolution
4 years ago
Reply to  TreeHugger

So the perfect storm then – most of the old codgers have been jabbed, ditto the younger workers, by choice/coercion/brainwashing/taking health advice from genociders.

Think Harder
Think Harder
4 years ago

Good job we didn’t build enough nuclear stations to keep the lights on.

Annie
4 years ago

If teeth could stop Civid it’d be dead in NZ.

isobar
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

Yes, it’s about time that the tooth fairy called it quits!

rockoman
rockoman
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

delete

itoldyouiwasill
itoldyouiwasill
4 years ago

If a NWO does come about, I could imagine this slapped-arse-faced bint would have a position somewhere high in the pecking order.

String
4 years ago

Perhaps.. though personally I doubt it. There’s hundreds of ‘Leaders’, Politicians, MP’s, who all probably think they will be among the chosen few, that they will have a Golden ticket on the train. In reality, the overwhelming majority of these are playing their part and thereafter become totally expendable. Think what happened in Cliffhanger when the plane was starting to wobble, & they realize there are a certain number of people on board vs a limited number of parachutes…

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  String

I agree. They’re necessary to carry out the transformation away from nation states to global technocracy but once that’s achieved will not only be expendable but I think made an example of, to get the public to support rule by ‘experts’ and algorithms, rather than fallible and corrupt regional politicians. They need to watch out.

Sceptical Steve
Sceptical Steve
4 years ago
Reply to  String

I think that Lenin would have classed all these as “useful idiots”, essential to the overthrow of the existing regime, but with no place in a his planned administration. Indeed, by identifying themselves so openly at this stage, they make themselves so much easier to be rounded up when the time comes for the bad guys to sieze control…

Rogerborg
4 years ago

She imagines so, but doesn’t realise that all tools are disposable.

NonCompliant
4 years ago

Gotta feel for the poor Kiwi’s, they didn’t all vote for zero Covid con merchant Mr Ed !!!

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  NonCompliant

In fairness, a staggering 50% of the electorate voted for the Labour Party in NZ, and they already knew they were voting for zero covid lunacy. No British party has achieved that share of the electorate since 1945 (Tories came closest in 1955 with 49.7%).

And another 7.86% voted for the Greens, who since they have been sharing power with the Labour loons presumably also supported the zero covid idiocy.

If the people of any democracy anywhere can be said to have collectively deserved exactly what they got as a result of their vote, it can certainly be said of the NZers.

Granted, you have to be sorry for the sane minority.

Sceptical Steve
Sceptical Steve
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Another way to view this is as a catastrophic indictment of the political alternatives available in NZ!

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

a staggering 50% of the electorate voted for the Labour Party in NZ

… and a working majority of the electorate in the UK did the same for the Tories. Stupidity crosses traditional political boundaries.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

The Tories were less bad than the alternatives available, both in general terms and, as it has turned out, in terms of their covid panic response, since they are at least not out and out zero covid nutters like the Corbynite Labour Party.

Socialist Campaign Group Calls for Urgent New Strategy to Save Lives . #ZeroCovid #Covid19UK
But you knew that.

(Actually, to correct my original post, the 50% was of the vote, not electorate (82% turnout). The comparable figure for the “Conservatives” in 2019 was 43.6% on a 67% turnout.)

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Interesting how you leap to what amounts to a ‘Whataboutery’ defense of the Tories, when I’d not mentioned the Labour Party (and have been equally scathing about its attitudes to Covid).

Interesting fixation to divert from the prime authors of the shit-show.

Never mind – you might catch up with up-to-date politics beyond the simplicities sometime.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

a ‘Whataboutery’ defense

Someone with your views on foreign policy should be very familiar with the abuse of accusations of “whataboutery”, and their general self-serving emptiness, since such accusations are often directed at critics of US sphere interventionism and opponents of Israel..

Regardless, in this case the reason the accusation has no relevance is that in elections we face a choice, and while it can be argued that abstaining or voting for a protest party might be appropriate, in practice we generally face a choice between two plausible alternatives for government.

I despise the current “Conservative” Party. But that doesn’t mean I am not forced to recognise that it is significantly less bad than the Labour alternative.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Someone with your views on foreign policy”

Well – you must have magic powers if you can divine my ‘views on foreign policy’ on the basis of the isolated remark about various countries’ particular actions.

So your response is yet another diversion from my point concerning your immediate resort to Whataboutery.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

I’ve picked up enough from your various comments here to get a reasonable basis for guessing your broad positions. But if you want to make an argument about a mere aside, go ahead. Until you give more specifics I’ll stick with my reasonably founded speculations, thanks.

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Put into other words: A large part of the so-called electorate is opposed to this policy. The original idea behind democracy was not if you can manage to convince half of the population to support you, you can do whatever you want with the other half.

Reportedly, Auckland has now been in a very strict lockdown for almost 7 weeks. It obviously didn’t work as it was intended to work. If it was intended to work, that is. Considering that the harpyie made a statement that she might consider ending mass imprisonment once 90% of the population have been voluntarily vaccinated, that’s not so easy to tell.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  RW

Doubtless there was opposition to those policies, though the standard dishonesty and manipulation on this topic makes it hard to be sure how much. But you can’t assume that those who didn’t vote for these parties opposed any particular policy. You would be on stronger ground arguing that people implicitly at least acquiesce to a specific manifesto promise of the party they voted for. If you are talking about democracy in general rather than NZ’s particular implementation, it has always been a standard criticism of democracy in general, as a political system, that it implicitly approves mob rule. That was the prime argument of US founders in favour of their preferred republican form of government. In the end, it all comes down to definitions of terms, but any argument that “democracy” does not include mob rule will usually be found to be implicitly assuming constitutional limits on that democracy that are not integral to the concept itself. A common assumption is that the advocate’s notions of rights will be required to be respected, but this is not a necessary component of democracy per se. Arguments that it is tend to be of the “no true Scotsman” kind. In reality, democracy… Read more »

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

The problem you mention is a real one; there is no simple, singular definition of ‘democracy’. Certainly – simple majoritarianism isn’t it – infinitely manipulable by those gaining control of communication.

As you say, without sitting around debating the finer points, constitutional restraints and defined individual rights are essential ingredients of a working democracy that aims to prevent the system turning into some form of totalitarianism.

… as we’ve seen in their absence.

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

there is no simple, singular definition of ‘democracy’. Certainly – simple majoritarianism isn’t it “

That’s the point, though, simple majoritarianism is a perfectly good – probably the simplest and most honest – definition of democracy. It’s the one used more or less by many of the Greek thinkers (allowing for culturally different views of appropriate suffrage bounds), and as I noted by many of the US founders.

The reason it’s not acceptable for you is that you want a definition of democracy that you can regard as desirable. This is primarily a semantic issue, here.

rockoman
rockoman
4 years ago

So, how do they know they they have a problem virus?

Ah – PCR test

Right – ok.

Gregoryno6
4 years ago

I pity Victorians under Dan Andrews. He’ll use Chompers’ extension on the other side of the Tasman to prolong his own lockdown.

Mark
4 years ago

Is it a bad thing for us that the zero covid loons got into power in Aus and NZ, because it makes our totalitarian idiots look relatively moderate by comparison?

Or is it a good thing because it shows just how bad covid hysteria can get, and just how evil covid obsessives are prepared to be, if you let it run unchecked?

My feeling has always been that the only way we come out of this without disastrous precedents set and evil structures in place (on top of immense damage done), is if the panickers visibly and indisputably go too far, and are overthrown, not necessarily by force, but by public outrage and mass noncompliance.

Arum
Arum
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Unfortunately, I think it’s a bad thing because many unthinking people in this country will look on approvingly, saying “this is exactly what the UK government should be doing”

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  Arum

That was a problem, for sure, but it’s become ever less of one the worse the outcomes for NZ and Aus have visibly become.

But granted, if they can engineer another huge panic this winter, then that might be an issue here again.

Arum
Arum
4 years ago
Reply to  Mark

I suspect that, until the mass media are more critical, rather than panic-driven, or until the tax bill lands on the doormat, most people will comply.

Arum
Arum
4 years ago
Reply to  Arum

Opinions will change, but slowly…it’s hard to imagine what the goverment would have to do to cause outrage. Cancel Strictly?

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  Arum

“If only we’d strangled our economy sooner and ruined our lives for longer”

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Arum

My bet is that your take is correct – I reckon that a poll would show considerable support here for Australian fascism.

crisisgarden
4 years ago

I think the issue for Australia and New Zealand is their inability to even pretend they’ve got a problem. Their respective leaders have clearly been given the same playbook by the financial corporate puppet masters and the order to forcibly vaccinate everything that moves as the pretend ‘solution.’ But they don’t have enough of the damn coronavirus in their countries to make it all appear even vaguely proportional. I’d put my money on Aus/NZ descending into civil unrest first.

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Followed by France, then probably parts of the US.

ronb
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

And the US has those big shiny guns. Surprised new york is so calm …..

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  ronb

Yep that’s gonna be a real sight to behold. 😱

crisisgarden
4 years ago

I’m gonna get woke on your asses now. Why so many comments about what she looks like? Let’s focus on the evil shit she does with her power, shall we?

Arum
Arum
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Good point

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

That downtick is so, like, a microaggression or something.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

No. Downticks, by and large, are mostly morons displaying incomprehension or pre-determined malice.

There is strong evidence here of another kind – a mechanical bot.

pan0
pan0
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Totally agree. It is bewildering to me, and a rather depressing aspect of social media, particular the aggressiveness of it sometimes if it is a woman one doesn’t agree with.

iane
iane
4 years ago
Reply to  pan0

Ye gods, not the feminist argument again!

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  iane

Nothing ‘feminist’ about it – just a revulsion at pathetic playground fixation on appearance rather than substance.

iane
iane
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Her face, as so often, reveals much about her personality and ‘governing’ style.

Sandra Barwick
Sandra Barwick
4 years ago
Reply to  iane

Her PR team need to stop her wearing black. She’s really signalling “witch” bigtime.

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  iane

Yeah I don’t find her governing style weirdly attractive.

Moist Von Lipwig
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Because, if she looked like Sharon Stone, everything she does would be brilliant, apparently.

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Because she looks exactly like the kind of person who’d do what she’s doing. That she also happens to be female is an accidental fact.

There’s a German proverb Das Gesicht ist der Spiegel der Seele, roughly what’s in the soul will be mirrored on the face. In this case, that would be badly faked compassion above a core of cowardice and merciless dedication to some ideology. Smart but not intelligent. Presumably also poor grasp of reality.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  RW

You almost persuade me – that applied in spades to Thatcher!

CynicalRealist
4 years ago

She looks absolutely knackered in that photo – is the pressure of persisting with a policy which surely even she must know is futile really getting to her now?

chunky lafunga
chunky lafunga
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

Sword of Damocles anyone? I’ve noticed a few leaders looking progressively haggered, I mean look at the fat man these days, he’s looking more decrepit every time I see him. That Aussie cow looked like she’d gone rounds with Tyson giving her resignation speech the other day. I suppose enacting the evil wills of your puppet masters must take a toll. If you’ve read the banality of evil by Arendt you might be tempted to believe a lot of these people are just banal folk doing evil shit. Dan Andrews on the other hand, just comes across as a sadistic bastard, revelling in the misery and abuse, that man just sends a chill down my spine.

lorrinet
lorrinet
4 years ago
Reply to  chunky lafunga

Yes, he does a fine line in sarcasm and contempt when informing the masses which normal everyday social activities are now forbidden to them. A repugnant creature, he reminds me a little of Drakeford in Wales and Sturgeon in Scotland.

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

It can’t be easy trying to maintain a sense of emergency when there so definitively isn’t one!

amanuensis
4 years ago

It won’t make any difference.

jingleballix
4 years ago

27 NZ-ers have died of C-19 in TWO winters……..obviously, NZ is immune to coronaviruses.

A Heretic
A Heretic
4 years ago
Reply to  jingleballix

or they’re fudging their death figures in the opposite direction to the rest of the world so their glorious leader doesn’t look totally incompetent.

RTSC
RTSC
4 years ago

And to think I once wanted an extended holiday in NZ. Oh well, cross that one off the bucket list.

She does look distinctly lizard-like. I thought they were meant to be in disguise 🙂

lorrinet
lorrinet
4 years ago
Reply to  RTSC

At one time we were going to join the branch of my family who emigrated there some 40 years ago. I’m glad we stayed home – the attraction faded some while ago in the face of their increasingly unadulterated socialism and proximity to China. Especially since Jacinda (with such a pretentious, affluent-middle-class name she couldn’t be anything but a lefty) Ardern appears to be offering NZ to them on a plate.

jimfahy
jimfahy
4 years ago

New Zealanders’ submission to their authoritarian state shows that the haka is just theatre.

Sandra Barwick
Sandra Barwick
4 years ago

I’m going to have to stop buying NZ wine. She needs to feel more economic pain. Pity. The problem is – where to buy, these days?

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  Sandra Barwick

I think economic pain is the overriding objective isn’t it?

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

They’re collapsing western economies I think.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Yes especially the US which they believe is holding the others up..

marebobowl
marebobowl
4 years ago

This poor woman. She doesn’t know if she is coming or going. She can see the things she has been forced to do, lockdowns, masks, vaxx ain’t working, but she doesn’t have a choice. Threatened, bought, both? Meanwhile New Zealand is not a place anyone wants to go to any time soon.

RickH
4 years ago

I think Omar Khan’s recent blog (see Roundup) covers all the idiocy entailed in NZ’s actions :

https://www.uncommonwisdom.online/post/it-was-always-a-con-the-covid-debacle

Banjones
Banjones
4 years ago

What an arrogant dope this person is. I’m only amazed that any New Zealander still believes she’s anything but a posturing communist loon.

DanClarke
DanClarke
4 years ago

I sometimes think that its one of the most exciting times NZ has had and that’s why she’s had an easy run. My cousin told me that a man in the quarantine centre had ‘escaped’ and the ‘guards’ had ‘hunted’ him down and ‘captured’ him and they all cheered.

Rogerborg
4 years ago

Socialists always believe in just one more purge to reach Utopia.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  Rogerborg

… as do Tories (see the censorship here)

Mark
4 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Have you encountered censorship here? The only censorship I’ve noted recently is the near universally required removal of ideologically unacceptable terms of abuse (which used to be “the c word” and nowadays is “the n word” and its ilk), and presumably of the usual housekeeping varieties (porn, threats of violence, spammed advertising etc) which would all be here if it weren’t policed.

But I haven’t seem any overtly political censorship. Which is not to say it doesn’t occur, of course..

Amari
Amari
4 years ago

The jabs cause covid. The more they jab, the more covid.
I think it is going to be a very long lockdown…

Think Harder
Think Harder
4 years ago

I try to stay polite but Jacinda Ardern makes it difficult. She is rabid.