> Same could be said about disregarding societal needs in favour of individual rights.
Of course, which is why I said a balance is needed.
I'm not familiar with the jurisprudence of New Zealand or Australia, but the restrictions appear to be too aggressive from my point of view. You mention not being able to "go outside", which seems absurdly extreme with no scientific basis to support it (I'm assuming there were some caveats, but maybe not). I've seem extremely large protests in Australia regarding the lockdowns so apparently there is some difference of opinion re: the nature of the restrictions.
In any case "people who couldn’t temporarily go outside" doesn't seem to come close to describing the nature of the actual restrictions.
Same could be said about disregarding societal needs in favour of individual rights.
But the main issue here is that there hasn’t been any regression in individual rights in New Zealand, or Australia, for that matter. We are talking about people who couldn’t temporarily go outside to prevent the spread of a global pandemic. It just seems that the necessary trumps the individual accommodations in this case.