no offense but nz and other islands are extremely easy to control. as long as you close your border early and don’t allow it to take root in the first place, you don’t have to worry.
To that point, Hawaii currently has 1/7th the per capita mortality rate of the entire US.
Hawaii's mortality rate is nearly 1/3 the rate of Canada (which has done a solid job by comparison to the US) and 1/6 the rate of Sweden. Finland, which has one of the elite outcomes in the West, is how far you have to go to find a better outcome (Finland's mortality rate is only 2/3 that of Hawaii).
Sweden only borders Norway and Finland, which are both stable countries with amicable relationship with Sweden. Also most of the border is arctic forest with very few people.
It may be harder than NZ, but closing borders should be much easier for Sweden than Germany, Turkey, or Thailand. They all fared better than Sweden.
> no offense but nz and other islands are extremely easy to control. as long as you close your border early and don’t allow it to take root in the first place, you don’t have to worry.
I'm not sure there's actually much of a difference in ability to "close the border" between a island country like NZ and one with land borders like the US. The US probably has equal control over arrivals by air, and most land traffic comes via controlled border crossings.
The main difference is basically the greater amount of illegal immigration and other kinds of smuggling. I don't know what the ratio of legal international travel vs. illegal immigration is, but I'd strongly suspect there's orders of magnitude more of the former than the later (at least during normal times). IIRC, the rates of illegal immigration have also dropped significantly during the pandemic.
But you don't need to be an island to close your borders. Yes, some borders are porous and it would be ineffectual, but fundamentally, if a country commits to isolation, they will be isolated, island or not.
After decades of the single market, any EU country relies on at least a steady stream of freight trucks to keep its population fed, and fruit pickers have to be brought in seasonally from other countries, because otherwise all that produce will simply rot in the field, etc. Completely closing borders would simply not be feasible without years of preparation.
Yep, that is exactly what people like the OP fail to grasp.
Based on NZ's past actions I would bet they come out of total lockdown sometime in mid 2022 or about 2 years from now. If the people of NZ are fine living this way for the next 2 years while their economy and lively hoods crumble then that is their business.
No way in hell I would let that silently happen to me.
> Aside from international travel, Covid now has basically zero impact on my day to day life. Because there is effectly 0 chance of communitry transmission at the moment, life has essentially returned to normal. Bars, restaurants, etc are open and buzzing.
All this and our case numbers are lower than almost any other countries death numbers.
Doesn't sound like "total lockdown" is what's happening there right now.
> Based on NZ's past actions I would bet they come out of total lockdown sometime in mid 2022 or about 2 years from now.
Most of New Zealand is at "Alert Level 1" which means there aren't any restrictions or mandates, but since COVID-19 exists you're asked to please consider wearing masks on public transport, and try to keep your distance when possible.
For now (likely until next Wednesday) the city of Auckland is at "Alert Level 2" with a prohibition on large gatherings (more than 100 people in one place together) and a requirement to wear masks etc. as a result of an outbreak that happened there in August.
