Are we going to ignore the fact AUS and NZ are island nations who have nearly permanently banned international arrivals unless there's a 14 day quarantine upon entering, and sometimes that's not even allowed?

The United States can't stop illegal immigration and cross-border state travel with or without a pandemic. The laws and expectations are significantly different in connected regions like the US and EU compared to a singular island nation.

The US's covid numbers aren't high because of a few people crossing the mexican border illegally. (And Mexico seems to be handling covid better than the US anyway.)

Being an island has nothing to do with it. The difference is due to different health policies.

- We had mandatory masks in all public places here in Melbourne with on the spot fines by police. Over in the US lots of people thought covid is a hoax, and even your president refused to wear a mask.

- Australia declared mass gatherings to be illegal - it went through the courts and the judges decided public safety trumped a citizen's rights to protest during the pandemic. Germany's courts ruled in the opposite direction for an anti-mask protest. And meanwhile the US had BLM protests for months, presidential rallies and the capital hill riot.

And so on. These differences have nothing to do with sharing your continent with Canada and Mexico. They have everything to do with culture and public policy.

I mostly agree with you but Mexico is one of the very few countries that has done worse than the US. By one ranking they are second to last in the world, only ahead of Brazil (it sounds like the US was ranked fifth worst with Colombia and Iran also doing worse).

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/coronavirus/index-of-covid-...

And it sounds like that is based on official statistics, which the Mexican government has admitted is way off.

It isn't completely irrelevent that the US shares a border with another country that has done horribly badly at managing the pandemic.

> These differences have nothing to do with sharing your continent with Canada and Mexico. They have everything to do with culture and public policy.

Exactly. I live in Washington State and even now, one major party in our Legislature is trying to get at least three bills through that would declare "Emperor" (language not used in the bill, but definitely on Twitter) Inslee's emergency orders, including the mask mandate, void and tell everyone to do what they think best. Which, fine, except for the whole community transmission and insisting on businesses be open--with those employees being told "work or starve"--things.

We've been hearing for many months that masks are required and must be worn and put them on and yet...everyone disclaims all responsibility for enforcing this. I don't blame retail employees from saying "we do not want to be on the other end of a screaming patron in exchange for minimum wage," but when even the government tells us that they're relying solely on people's discretion and good sense, things fall flat. I'm not saying arrest everyone who has their nose hanging atop a mask, that would be disproportionately unwise, but we absolutely can and should be having people in authority out day and night at shops, buses, parks, ferries, and so on reminding people that your nose goes under your mask.

You do know that EU countries implemented border controls last year blocking off Schengen travel ?

They could've easily continued that and added mandatory hotel quarantine.

Just like now with Macron they instead prefer to choose populism instead of tough, early, decisive action.

Montreal is following the same rules, down to the silly curfew, but, we're at 600 cases a day still and rising. Obviously people aren't following it, but... It doesn't seem to be enough.

When did you start?

Because of the incubation period, covid numbers are effectively delayed 2 weeks. That is to say, there's a 2 week delay between the time your government changes policies and when you see the effect of those policies on covid case numbers. It took us awhile too - after they brought the lockdown into effect our numbers kept going up for awhile - which was terrifying. But the numbers trended down eventually.

December 26th, in order to not get in the way of Christmas celebrations. Since our numbers dropped by half, they're looking to reopen on the 8th.

Looking at the case numbers, that looks pretty similar to the numbers here in Victoria. You're down from a peak of 3000/day on Jan 9, (as predicted, a couple weeks after your brought your lockdowns into effect) down to 1600/day.

Looks like the policy is working and you'll hit 0 if you keep it up for a few more months. Why are you stopping?

Good question. It's reported as pressure from store owners and the local religious community. Returning vacationers are also against it. Legally, it has to be a temporary measure, so it has to be a hard deadline for reconsideration - perhaps, they might actually extend it.

> On the spot fines from police

Shouldn't it be the courts who issue fines?