> it is absolutely, demonstrably true that individuals can cause a 'chain of deaths'

"Can" is not the same as "will". I already said "when done with with appropriate precautions and care" in my previous comment.

The thing is, just because there are some Oz bogans returning from their coma drinking holiday in Bali acted in an idiotic fashion doesn't mean we should prevent everyone else on the planet from travelling at all, no matter the personal circumstances. Lockdowns also cause real harm, see e.g. [1], although the full effects won't be known for certain with time.

"There's enough people not doing the right thing for it to cause major problems" with many things: cars, guns, knives, etc. It's always a matter of balancing different interests and trade-offs.

> Lastly, it's very obviously false to claim that a hard lockdown cannot help, see New Zealand as a shining counter-example. Extremely aggressive lockdowns and widespread testing can indeed control it.

That's not exactly that I said either. What is your long-term plan with this? Institute a draconic hard lockdown every time there is a single case? It doesn't seem that any of this is just going to disappear from the world any time soon, if ever. It's not a solution, just a stop-gap measure (which is what people have been saying pretty much from the get-go).

The real question is what will happen in 6 months, a year, or 2 years time with New Zealand. Remember, we've managed to eradicate exactly one disease in the history of humanity, and that was a far more serious one, although we've been close with Polio for years.

New Zealand had great success in the short term (being a fairly sparsely populated island more than 3 hours removed from any other significant landmass probably helped with that), but you can't lock everyone indoors every time there is a new case and it's almost certain this will happen unless NZ commits to a long-term multi-year border lockdown.

[1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/...