The heartwarming scenes of families and friends reuniting at Auckland airport after two long years exemplified the toll taken by Zero Covid isolationism. New Zealand decided to shut its borders in March 2020, but now allows people from over 60 countries to enter if they are vaccinated and test negative for the virus.
The country has gone through a challenging journey, justified by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern due to the low death toll of just 713 out of a population of five million. Some argue that the UK should have taken a similar approach at the start of the pandemic, as being an island could have potentially kept the virus at bay.
New Zealand and Australia, both island nations that closed their borders, managed to escape the worst of the Covid outbreak in the early stages, partly because it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Unlike the UK, they didn’t have thousands of citizens returning from skiing holidays, inadvertently spreading the virus. This allowed them to effectively handle outbreaks and restrict incoming travelers to keep Covid out.
While efforts were made to maintain a sense of normalcy within the closed borders, lockdowns were also implemented whenever cases were detected. Some Australian cities, like Melbourne, faced even stricter restrictions than the UK, with the abandonment of the Zero Covid strategy only after achieving high vaccination rates.
Historians will determine whether the antipodean nations’ approach was the right one. However, those who see Zero Covid as a model for managing future respiratory disease pandemics should consider China’s extreme and impractical measures.
Shanghai, the world’s largest port with a population of 23 million, remains under excessive lockdown measures that have left some residents hungry due to the inability to access food. Beijing is also tightening restrictions as the virus resurfaces among the unvaccinated elderly population, not reaching the same vaccination levels as in the West.
The ripple effects, both socially and economically, are escalating, with significant implications for global trade and prosperity, especially for countries heavily reliant on imports like ours. It’s encouraging to see New Zealand reopening. When will we be able to say the same for China?
Reference
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The heartwarming scenes of families and friends reuniting at Auckland airport after two long years exemplified the toll taken by Zero Covid isolationism. New Zealand decided to shut its borders in March 2020, but now allows people from over 60 countries to enter if they are vaccinated and test negative for the virus.
The country has gone through a challenging journey, justified by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern due to the low death toll of just 713 out of a population of five million. Some argue that the UK should have taken a similar approach at the start of the pandemic, as being an island could have potentially kept the virus at bay.
New Zealand and Australia, both island nations that closed their borders, managed to escape the worst of the Covid outbreak in the early stages, partly because it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Unlike the UK, they didn’t have thousands of citizens returning from skiing holidays, inadvertently spreading the virus. This allowed them to effectively handle outbreaks and restrict incoming travelers to keep Covid out.
While efforts were made to maintain a sense of normalcy within the closed borders, lockdowns were also implemented whenever cases were detected. Some Australian cities, like Melbourne, faced even stricter restrictions than the UK, with the abandonment of the Zero Covid strategy only after achieving high vaccination rates.
Historians will determine whether the antipodean nations’ approach was the right one. However, those who see Zero Covid as a model for managing future respiratory disease pandemics should consider China’s extreme and impractical measures.
Shanghai, the world’s largest port with a population of 23 million, remains under excessive lockdown measures that have left some residents hungry due to the inability to access food. Beijing is also tightening restrictions as the virus resurfaces among the unvaccinated elderly population, not reaching the same vaccination levels as in the West.
The ripple effects, both socially and economically, are escalating, with significant implications for global trade and prosperity, especially for countries heavily reliant on imports like ours. It’s encouraging to see New Zealand reopening. When will we be able to say the same for China?