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?