Its all luck, sweet. A fluke even. So no matter who governs, NZ's ability to fight a pandemic will be all luck.

Cool...

tdgeek:

 

Its all luck, sweet. A fluke even. So no matter who governs, NZ's ability to fight a pandemic will be all luck.

 

Cool...

 

Spare us your sarcasm and passive aggressiveness. There is no need for it.

I didn't say it was all luck. I said we got very very lucky a number of times. Can you not understand the difference? 

If any of those people who escaped MIQ had spread it? (Nightclub guy for example)  If the outbreaks we had didn't collapse on themselves... We were very late and slow to the start of our vaccinations, if we had had a decent outbreak from those circumstances, the picture would look very different right now. If you believe that was all good management, rather than a decent amount of luck, that's fine. I disagree, as do (almost without exception) all the medical professionals I know. 

Every time this government gets something wrong, it's incompetence. Every time they get something right, it's luck. 

Your argument is just whatif cotton candy. It has no substance because things did not go wrong in the ways you fantasize and we have (so far at least) come out of it fairly well. So what are you complaining about?

networkn:

 

Spare us your sarcasm and passive aggressiveness. There is no need for it.

 

I didn't say it was all luck. I said we got very very lucky a number of times. Can you not understand the difference? 

 

If any of those people who escaped MIQ had spread it? (Nightclub guy for example)  If the outbreaks we had didn't collapse on themselves... We were very late and slow to the start of our vaccinations, if we had had a decent outbreak from those circumstances, the picture would look very different right now. If you believe that was all good management, rather than a decent amount of luck, that's fine. I disagree, as do (almost without exception) all the medical professionals I know. 

 

 

 

 

 

Dont make up your own assumptions about my posts, thats a common thing you do here.

"and if you don't think we got unbelievably lucky on a number of occasions" means what it means, the bulk of our result was based largely on luck. Now its only a decent amount of luck?  Well, you have your opinion, based on whatever biases you may or may not have

I dont recall saying it was all good management. Just rechecked, nothing of the sort. Stick to the posts

As regards National doing a similar strategy, well we can agree to disagree on that. Unless the opposing is all fake and they would have, if in power, followed a similar strategy. Or their opposing is genuine and they wouldn't have followed a largely similar strategy

While I'm certainly not discounting luck as a factor, but I doubt the poor results overseas were too much bad luck, more bad management. Here, no doubt luck played  a part, but it goes both ways, got a bit lucky here a bit unlucky there. Its over two years now, its not a small sample

Rikkitic:

 

Every time this government gets something wrong, it's incompetence. Every time they get something right, it's luck. 

 

Your argument is just whatif cotton candy. It has no substance because things did not go wrong in the ways you fantasize and we have (so far at least) come out of it fairly well. So what are you complaining about?

 

 

 

I am sorry you are having trouble comprehending basic English, but that is neither what I wrote, nor what I believe. Perhaps try reading it again without the red mist. 

If you (or in fact anyone) believe things were done as well as they could have been, which is patently untrue, then how do you expect learn from those mistakes so you don't make them again?

This Government (and most of it's supporters it seems) are unprepared to admit when they make a mistake or could have done things better. 

Rikkitic:

 

Every time this government gets something wrong, it's incompetence. Every time they get something right, it's luck. 

 

Your argument is just whatif cotton candy. It has no substance because things did not go wrong in the ways you fantasize and we have (so far at least) come out of it fairly well. So what are you complaining about?

 

Because it's a response to the equally fantastical made up stuff assuming how National would respond based on the comments of leaders who would not have been leaders at the time. 

Inferring a hypothetical response based on Muller's comments is irrelevant to what National would have done had it been in power when Covid first arose, as it would have been English who was making the captain's calls on it. 

tdgeek

 

Its all luck, sweet. A fluke even. So no matter who governs, NZ's ability to fight a pandemic will be all luck.

 

tdgeek:

 

Dont make up your own assumptions about my posts, thats a common thing you do here.

 

"and if you don't think we got unbelievably lucky on a number of occasions" means what it means, the bulk of our result was based largely on luck. Now its only a decent amount of luck?  Well, you have your opinion, based on whatever biases you may or may not have

 

I dont recall saying it was all good management. Just rechecked, nothing of the sort. Stick to the posts

 

So, if you weren't being sarcastic, then you have indeed stated it's all luck, and if it wasn't then my assumption you were being (unnecessarily) sarcastic isn't an assumption at all. 

Which is it?

Saying "we were unbelievably lucky on a number of occasions" is factually accurate.. If the nightclub guy had infected a bunch of people, and they had infected a bunch of people, a scenario that has played out many times all over the world) whilst our vaccinations weren't completed, the results could have been awful. That wasn't good planning, it was luck. If the woman who had gone up North whilst actively infectious and knowingly lied to evade authorities had infected a bunch of people in Northland, who have(had) very low vaccination rates and groups among the most vulnerable, the results could have been awful. That wasn't good planning, it was luck. Those are just 2 examples. 

Those examples do not state that there was no good planning involved, simply that we were also incredibly lucky.  Multiple times. It has a bit to to do with our population density and a bunch of other factors, which aren't a factor of good planning either. 

networkn:

 

Saying "we were unbelievably lucky on a number of occasions" is factually accurate.. If the nightclub guy had infected a bunch of people, and they had infected a bunch of people, a scenario that has played out many times all over the world) whilst our vaccinations weren't completed, the results could have been awful. That wasn't good planning, it was luck. If the woman who had gone up North whilst actively infectious and knowingly lied to evade authorities had infected a bunch of people in Northland, who have(had) very low vaccination rates and groups among the most vulnerable, the results could have been awful. That wasn't good planning, it was luck. Those are just 2 examples. 

 

Those examples do not state that there was no good planning involved, simply that we were also incredibly lucky.  Multiple times. It has a bit to to do with our population density and a bunch of other factors, which aren't a factor of good planning either. 

 

You forgot "if the asteroid hadn't struck 66 million years ago we wouldn't be here". How unbelievably lucky is that?

Rikkitic:

 

You forgot "if the asteroid hadn't struck 66 million years ago we wouldn't be here". How unbelievably lucky is that?

 

Well, I didn't forget as much as didn't consider it relevant since we are discussing the pandemic, for which my examples are actual things that happened that affected our outcome and the asteroid wasn't. 

I like to use argumentum ad absurdum to make points but I’m also being serious. I think your method of argument is flawed. If you turn it around you can say what if the health authorities hadn’t got this or that right? Just think how many would have died! Well, they didn’t die. That argument doesn’t make any sense and neither does yours.
  

Rikkitic:

 

I like to use argumentum ad absurdum to make points but I’m also being serious. I think your method of argument is flawed. If you turn it around you can say what if the health authorities hadn’t got this or that right? Just think how many would have died! Well, they didn’t die. That argument doesn’t make any sense and neither does yours.
  

 

Sure it does. If you stop being so defensive toward the Government and simply realize that a comment that there was a lot of luck in the result of our response, doesn't exclude it being both luck and planning, and that where you have benefited from luck, you should look to see if you can learn something from that, so that next time you don't need as much luck to get a good outcome (Because luck can work in both directions). 

Rikkitic:

 

I like to use argumentum ad absurdum to make points but I’m also being serious. I think your method of argument is flawed. If you turn it around you can say what if the health authorities hadn’t got this or that right? Just think how many would have died! Well, they didn’t die. That argument doesn’t make any sense and neither does yours.
  

 

How can you critically evaluate any response and how sufficient any aspect of it then? I mean, if you're response to "we got a bunch of stuff wrong" is "yea well we didn't get this other stuff wrong so therefore it doesn't matter" then there's literally zero point in ever changing anything.

GV27:

 

How can you critically evaluate any response and how sufficient any aspect of it then? I mean, if you're response to "we got a bunch of stuff wrong" is "yea well we didn't get this other stuff wrong so therefore it doesn't matter" then there's literally zero point in ever changing anything.

 

That is not what I am saying. I am saying that whatif arguments are speculative and cannot be proven because they didn't actually happen. What if a man gets past the safety barriers on Sky Tower and jumps off? He will probably die, almost certainly, but it is not entirely impossible that an eagle could escape from the zoo at just that moment and fly under him, breaking his fall. Extremely improbable but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or chance and you can't rule it out entirely.

I am not reflexively defending this government, which has been a big disappointment to me. But attributing our good fortune to luck, even partially, is the same as saying you won’t die because the eagle will be there. The health authorities did a lot of things right. They also made mistakes, including dumb ones. But it wasn’t luck that got us to where we are now. It was a hell of a lot of hard work and all the things they did get right. 

If the nightclub guy, or the woman who went North, or any number of other incidents had gone horribly wrong, they would have been addressed and dealt with and no-one can say how that would have turned out. Saying we were just incredibly lucky is not factually accurate. It is biased speculation. The reality is that we are here today, not that we might have been some place else.     

Rikkitic:

 

That is not what I am saying. I am saying that whatif arguments are speculative and cannot be proven because they didn't actually happen. What if a man gets past the safety barriers on Sky Tower and jumps off? He will probably die, almost certainly, but it is not entirely impossible that an eagle could escape from the zoo at just that moment and fly under him, breaking his fall. Extremely improbable but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or chance and you can't rule it out entirely.

 

There is a big difference between your scenario, and the one where a guy, infectious went into a crowded nightclub with dozens of other people. There was a far better than average chance based on how quickly and easily the virus got loose once it did that it would have caused an outbreak, same with the Northland person. We got lucky, many times, that mistakes that were made didn't have more severe consequences. If you want to deny that, all power to you, but it won't change the facts.

 

I am not reflexively defending this government, which has been a big disappointment to me. But attributing our good fortune to luck, even partially, is the same as saying you won’t die because the eagle will be there. The health authorities did a lot of things right. They also made mistakes, including dumb ones. But it wasn’t luck that got us to where we are now. It was a hell of a lot of hard work and all the things they did get right. 

 

You are reflexively defending the Government, as you have done so all along.

If you believe that the Government would have dealt with the situations above, then why are we in the middle of a countrywide outbreak now? Why didn't they 'deal' with (Contain) it? The bottom line is, no-one could have, no one should expect them to be able to, it was always going to get loose eventually. We held it off far longer than we probably had any right to, and that was at least partially due to a number of instances of dumb luck.

You talk about all the hard work, and I am sure there were lots of people working hard, but why were we not building more hospital capacity, training more nurses, not letting the doctors and nurses who were already here, leave due to the immigration process delays, etc? Working hard isn't magically the solution, you need to work hard in the right areas. I don't believe health care workers believe the hard work was focused on the right areas.

As long as people keep patting the Government on the back and they vigorously do so themselves instead of looking at the situation critically, we will not improve and do even better. You can criticize someone and still support them.

Happy Easter! I hope your children enjoy the eggs.