https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-enc...
The average for island nations like New Zealand was 0.
The chance of stopping it early increases exponentially, if there are fewer ways into your country from countries that are themselves exploding with the virus.
In Europe, all countries broke down eventually and all these cases are ultimately imported from crisis areas. Many were never caught.
Keeping borders open - in the EU sadly not something that could have been realistically changed, if ever - is the reason.
Look at the facts: NZ caught all cases early. Full stop. So did Germany - at the beginning. It worked in either case. But NZ also kept cases low by limiting travel. Germany did not do this - least of all because the EU literally sued Germany when it started (very recently) to lock borders.
Australia not only can limit travel easily, but is also huge and barely populated. When there was a significant outbreak, it was physically possible to cordon off the state in question.
In Europe, once the spread began, it was already present in every locality - since Europe is tiny and entire countries have higher population densities than Sidney or Melbourne! And, this is also important, there is significantly more travel of people and goods, and it is far less concentrated on a few areas. Many people in Europe go to work in a different country from where they live, every day. There are literally no borders where you could test people. It is being tried. It does very little. Look at the spread in areas bordering high incidence regions. The borders are as closed as EU laws allows. It simply does nothing.
This is it. If you closed borders, then you made it. If you did not, then nothing much helps except trying to reduce incidence rate such that hospitals do not collapse.
We all dreamed of containing non-regionalized outbreak clusters by contact tracing. In reality all health services, even the very best ones in the world, eventually got rolled. Some sooner, some later. Sometimes contact tracing worked up until the mutation showed up. But it never worked consistently, except with closed borders.
Which countries contained the spread while having a high density and without being an island? Vietnam. However, cross border traffic between Laos and China is either strictly controlled or not economically significant - in either case, Vietnam is also an example of a country that managed to lock down borders - even tourism - almost entirely.
Conclusion: Covid has to be geographically contained with maximum force. If that is not realistic, for example if your country has the density of a city, then you need to stop it from getting in in the first place.
And unsurprisingly, being an Island and not 100% dependent and interconnected with daily border-less traffic helps a lot. Being a huge country with less population density or other ways to cordon off locally also helps.
In Europe, several countries were doing fine. They had lockdowns, contained local spreads and did contact tracing. They did not do less than NZ or Australia - except they were still surrounded by dozens of other highly populated areas with entirely different policies, all with different timings. The result was the same everywhere - eventually.
So, theoretically the EU could have been saved, if border would have been closed off immediately after the first cases appeared in Italy. Despite the fact that people believed contact tracing was viable - an option that does not shatter the political and economic fabric of the region.
This post is already too long, but you can read up on the discussions at the time and the political, geographical, economical and demographic situation in the EU to convince yourself that the chance of early border closings was close to zero.
FWIW I'm from Australia (Melbourne), which mostly eradicated the virus last May, then had a resurgence in Jun-Aug, and it took hard lockdown from early August to November to get the outbreak fully under control - effectively four months of pretty strict lockdown. We managed to beat it but it was hugely costly.
Australia, like NZ, is an island with a relatively (compared to US and Europe) small, compliant population, so it's much easier for our governments to control our international borders and internal movement. But it was still incredibly hard, and slow.
We did it, which I'm pleased about, but I understand why what Australia and NZ have done is not possible in the US and Europe; they have much denser populations and many different jurisdictions and cultures all meshed together, so it's much harder to restrict movement and apply restrictions consistently enough from one place to another.
So, sure, take comfort that we live in places that were able to avoid major outbreaks, but resist preaching that any other country/continent could have done it just as easily, as it really isn't that simple.
One of the hardest challenges of leadership is resisting the urge to DO SOMETHING when crisis happens.
> Fair to say what you're doing didn't work.
And yet western nations keep trying the same failed policies over and over again and getting the same results.
https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/countries-nor...
How is this a fair comparison?
Lockdowns are not about islands. It helps, kinda, but not completely. Vietnam completely sacrificed the tourist industry, unlike US or Europe. Quarantine is at a designated facility, not at home, unchecked, like in US or Europe. And dissent is suppressed.
The last part is a bit unfortunate, but the former ones are really just a matter of decision. And it works.
That said, I want people from island countries to stop saying "being an island country has nothing to do with it", when all evidence and logic says being an island country has a lot to do with it.
I'll happily take criticism from Vietnam, even if I think it's of questionable utility to say "you just did it wrong" when the overwhelming majority of countries seem to have "done it wrong"
And islands still have to watch for random boats from any direction. Right now in Vietnam there is a little outbreak where a group of Vietnamese nationals illegally crossed the border by a fishing boat from Cambodia to Phu Quoc island, trying to avoid the mandatory two-week quarantine. Then they boarded a plane, arrived at their homeland and tested positive. Immediately their steps were traced by police, whole Phu Quoc is under a mask mandate, 3 levels of contacts are tested and in quarantine. It really isn't about being an island. That's a myth, you've been lied to. If you want an example closer to your home, look how hard it is to seal a land border with Mexico. They actually cross by rivers, so water makes it easier.
Lockdowns and people immediately willing be a part of the contract tracing part.
https://www.businessinsider.com/vietnam-coronavirus-measures...
I don't think humans anywhere are able to "pull in the same direction" to the extent that such a lockdown is possible without an authoritarian government. Italy imposed pretty draconian rules for at least six weeks, and has still had to deal with a second wave and additional lockdowns.
Personally, I think that the principles of personal freedom (that such an authoritarian government is largely incompatible with) are much more valuable in the long run. Working through the disease has been messier in the last year, but the economic system largely based on these principles was also able to produce novel vaccines. While the last year has been rough, I'm much happier overall that I don't live in a place where an authoritarian lockdown is even possible.