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Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Death rate, impact on the healthcare system, economic impact... there are a lot of things one could go by that show NZ in very favourable light. They've done well. They had some tough lockdowns, but they also had extended periods of being absolutely free and clear, living as normal.
Vaccine supply has been an issue, but seems to be resolved now. They've fully vaccinated nearly 40% of the population in the last two months, and are at 80% of eligible with one dose (just 6% behind Canada), 57% with two. In terms of availability, they are roughly 4 months behind Canada, so their numbers are good, given that fact. The percentage of double vaccinated will likely meet ours in a matter of weeks.
As we've seen across the globe, vaccine supply is a difficult thing to manage. Some countries did very well securing it (Canada, the US, the UK, Russia, China) and other countries like Australia and New Zealand struggled. Does it have an effect on their overall handling of the pandemic? Of course. But they are also issues that can be evaluated separately, and outside of the vaccine rollout there is no ground to stand on in saying New Zealand was anything but fantastic in their handling of the pandemic to that point. And honestly, their vaccine rollout, even with the delay, does not change that fact all that much.
I know the crowd who have been anti-lockdown and never seen the need for lockdowns won't have their minds changed now, but there's no denying their effectiveness and overall benefit to a country dealing with COVID (absent of high vaccination rates). COVID-zero was the best approach worldwide.
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A question I would like to see studied coming out of this is would it have been possible for a euro zone country or a country like Canada to unilaterally lockdown while their major trading partners did not.
I don’t think any country that actively went for zero cases was unsuccessful and the Atlantic bubble was successful closer to home so that lends credibility to Canada being able to have done it. But could say France or Canada have done it successfully? I don’t think we have seen good research discussing that yet.