No idea how it looked in New Zealand, but after covid "ended"* there were a lot of people who simply wanted to go out - after spending so much time indoors.
I suspect that people went out more in 2023-2025, but then they reversed to the mean + economic impacts (of money printing everywhere) hit.
* by the way, did covid officially ever end? the new variants seem to be still there, but it just stopped being covered by media after Russia invaded Ukraine)
In the US deaths peaked at >450k in 2021 and then fell <80k in 2023. They have roughly halved each year since (on track for ~10k this year. There are about 30-40k deaths each year due to influenza so this isn't really news any more.
Most everyone is vaccinated except the young who seem to have relatively mild infections. Of course there are probably excess cardiac deaths due to immune response, but that's even smaller and much more difficult to measure or determine cause for.
Did the US reach 450k deaths in a single year? Wow, and there are still those who call it a hoax?
Nothing much to be done about those who refuse free education I guess. I also figure they just have less empathy for their families.
New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries, but other than people with health problems I see no signs that people aren't going out any more due to Covid.
However due to other reasons people definitely have less money for discretionary activities, especially the youth.
And no, Covid never ended. It's still here, it's still killing and disabling people, but due to vaccines and antivirals it's less prevalent than it was.
What? NZ had one of the strictest, most prolonged and most extreme lockdown regimes in the world. Especially Auckland.
NZ had very strong lockdown but once the country had zero covid there were months of no lockdowns at all.
Other countries had longer lockdowns or even when they didn't people were not going to concerts etc.
Not really.
The international border quarantine was quite extreme, but the rest of the country was (mostly) business as normal.
Yeah, we had a very strict initial lockdown, and closed the border, once the number of cases went to 0 we opened up again, we then had regional lockdowns after cases broke the border quarantine.
I’m guessing you weren’t in Auckland?
You Aucklanders are still really hung up on that extra lockdown you got because Delta turned up.
As in, the most lethal variant of Covid.
But never mind that, it was bad for the local economy, right? You know what's worse? Excessive deaths due to Delta.
Our level 4 lockdown was scored at 95/100 ("extreme") by the Oxford Coronavirus Government Response Tracker. Our border lockdowns and MIQ system were extreme and very prolonged stretching into 2022 and even impacted returning citizens.
Our level 4 lockdown didn't last very long.
The strictness index (which is what I'm assuming you're referring to) varied over time as the response changed.
The claim I was initially responding to was, "New Zealand locked down less than a lot of countries". Not specifically length. NZ lockdown was especially strict in some regards (level 4, border lockdown) and especially prolonged in others (Auckland lockdown, border and MIQ).
The claim meant less time. The lockdown periods in NZ were very short. That's because they actually worked.
we just locked down quick and strict, we then were one of the only places you could go about life relatively normally without too much worry while the rest of the world went through comparatively ineffective lock downs and rrestrictions.
I hear people describe their lockdowns and how difficult shopping was, and work, and seeing friends.
That ceased in Auckland, and was policed hard, it was very aggressive.
And the worst part of our 7 day lockdown? The first 3 months.
In New Zealand there were only a few weeks of lockdown followed by much time when people could go out without any fear.
COVID never ended (we chose that). The pandemic turned to an endemic, which is a way of saying that the plan is now natural selection, as everyone will get infected (most people already have been). The death rates have somewhat reduced, but not to the extent that it's as harmless as the cold. Essentially it's now a particularly nastseasonal flu strain. If you're vaccinated, no you aren't, because COVID mutates as fast as any other flu and you last got vaccinated for it years ago.
Auckland was locked down for months
Initially it was locked down the same as the rest of NZ. And then it got locked down again a few months after the initial lockdowns, due to a Delta outbreak, the most lethal variant of Covid.
It wasn't locked down for months on end while the rest of NZ was having fun in the sun, it was locked down the same as the rest of us initially, then it wasn't, then it was locked down again because a strain with a high lethality was present in the city. That strain was first detected in a rest home where it killed multiple elderly people.
The second lockdown wasn't for shits and giggles.
I really struggle to understand why Aucklanders don't understand this, and fixate on "We were locked down for months, unlike the rest of New Zealand, and it was really bad for our local economy" when the second lockdown was to save lives in Auckland and the lives of other Kiwis, because if it had spread from Auckland, there would have been plenty more dead Grandmas around the motu.