Okay, so we had a couple of cases. Then we went into level 4 lockdown (essentials only, leave house to exercise or supermarket). That happened in 2020.

The spread stopped, though we detected cases for the next two weeks (as normal for Covid) which had been infected pre-lockdown.

Then we spent a whole year with no restrictions, no masks, normal gatherings, no covid. There were a couple of minor lockdowns lasting a few weeks in there from small border breaches.

This time, we did the same thing. Same lockdown, same cases afterwards. The only difference is that Delta spreads now within families post lockdown, otherwise everything is the same.

In a month from now, we'll be back to open with no restrictions or deaths.

Our total deaths so far since Covid began in 2019? 27.

We currently have 4 people in critical condition at hospital.

How do the totals look where you live?

> I feel bad for you all. All of that for an endemic virus that's never going away.

I’m not from NZ. I’m from USA, a country that took the opposite approach and allowed the virus to spread before vaccines were available. Over 600,000 of my fellow citizens died as a result. The NZ approach may not have been effective in the USA for various reasons, but we can’t dispute it was very effective in NZ at preventing the death of their citizens.

Now, even if they reopen to the world without any controls and allow the virus to become endemic in a few months, they’ll have saved many of their citizens’ lives. Vaccination reduces the death rate from Covid-19 by around 10-20x so 90% or 95% of Covid-19 deaths are preventable if you vaccinate before letting the virus become endemic.

NZ has had way, way less lockdowns than pretty much anywhere else in the world.

This is because they are an island, and they eliminated Covid once and are aiming to do so again.

Any nation could do the same. It's less to do with "being an island" so much as "having strong borders"

I feel like "only NZ could have done this, since they are an island" is a cop-out.

Any nation could adopt other pillars of our system also, such as free testing, free healthcare, free vaccinations. Or Contact tracing, quarantine of infected people. Clear scientific communication by those in charge.

It's not magic, it has been well documented what to do in pandemic situations for 20 years. Only the specific tools (the test, the vaccine itself) are specific to Covid-19.

They delayed Covid once. And are going to delay Covid again.

The only way to eliminate it to a basic endemic state, is via the immune system.

And the fact that vaccines just reduce the symptoms and don't stop it's spread....means it's never going away.

The word "Eliminate" has an epidemiological meaning and it is not up to you to interpret it into some other word.

Eliminate revolves around the strategy of stopping viral spread in a given population until there are no new cases. That population in this case is NZ, not the world.

For more info on "Keep it out, Prepare for it, Stamp it out," read https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/...

> the strategy of stopping viral spread in a given population until there are no new case

Will never happen happen except temporarily. That's just fundamental epidemiology.

Well, naturally we won't eliminate Covid globally until we globally pursue an elimination strategy.

It's a pity that more nations aren't doing so.

Has there ever been an airborne disease that's been elimated globally?