> I didn’t envy the likes of New Zealand or China throughout because they really have no exit strategy other than eventually losing the war after multiple years of damage and hardship.

I'm in NZ. It's more like multiple years of mostly normal life, while we got vaccination rates up high. The exit strategy has always been opening up again, after delaying and preparing, and that's in progress as we've now given up on containing Omicron, and currently have about 20k cases per day (well, more, as that's hitting limits of testing capacity). Graphs and numbers here: https://interactives.stuff.co.nz/2020/05/coronavirus-covid-1...

>The exit strategy has always been opening up again, after delaying and preparing

Does anyone know of solid evidence to back up this statement?

What else could it possibly be? The country can't keep the borders closed forever, which means opening up again, and pursuing Covid-zero until vaccination happened is obviously going to save lives. I think we would have delayed a bit further if possible, to get more people boosted, but Omicron has forced this timing.

I can think of various alternatives but I'm not interested in getting into that discussion. I'm interested in when the earliest point in time was that the NZ government communicated (either internal communication or external communication) that its plan was to prepare as best as possible and then open up.

It's been perfectly fine except you haven't been able to leave the country and come back, except for some exceptions. I mean I know people who left for Christmas and came back but that's a lot of work and risking policy change while you're gone.

Which works ok if you're an island in the middle of nowhere, but it works a lot less ok if you're an EU county with people used to the idea of travelling anywhere without even having to show an ID. We've been through some pretty rough two years, but most of restrictions are now lifted or lifting. With the amount of people being either vaccinated or recovered from covid infection we should be over the whole pandemic dance of lockdowns and ever changing travel restrictions. On the other hand, NZ and China will have problems with outbreaks as soon as they lift travel restrictions. It's inevitable.

EU countries have been incredibly incompetent in their handling of covid. What you're saying about expecting to travel freely is just copium. Pretty much all EU leadership should be fired and possibly prosecuted. I'm European myself btw.

One peoples' basic freedom is another peoples' copium.

I am all for firing EU leadership. But my reasons are probably different to yours. EU style of lockdown was stupid in more than one way. Like prohibition of open air sporting events well into summer of 2020. And then repeating it in 2021. Stay at home and get fat, so you don't catch Covid type of messaging. Completely mishandled public relations in some countries, etc. Ever changing vaccination rules with ever changing validity of Covid greenpass. My greenpass is valid in Slo, but not valid in Ita since January, etc.

I don't know what copium is supposed to mean. However freedom of movement is one of the basic principles of EU. Or at least it used to be.

Do you still have to do social distancing, limiting numbers, limiting hospitality, QR checkins etc? Are people living in fear of Covid etc?

I’m not saying it’s like that in China, but I would find it pretty hard to live like that plus no international travel to maintain zero Covid.

Social distancing has never been a big thing in China because we've had masks for two years. It's only when for example lining up for a covid test that there's been marked one meter distances you had to pay attention to. Only anti-mask backwards countries have promoted social distancing as a measure.

You sometimes check in with qr, but most of the time you just show your green health code which is a qr too, and sign your name, phone number etc on a sheet at the restaurant or such that you enter.

But for a long time now you haven't had to show your health code as there haven't been many cases.

> Social distancing has never been a big thing in China because we've had masks for two years. It's only when for example lining up for a covid test that there's been marked one meter distances you had to pay attention to.

I haven’t seen anyone pay attention to those stickers in over a year. In the group chats I’m in everyone is complaining about how they can’t even test building by building instead of getting entire compounds to wait in line at the same time. Social distancing is not a thing.

You are betraying your preconceptions here if you think masks are the difference between success and failure and QR codes and “health codes” are an acceptable and normal way to live.

That all sounds quite dystopian and of questionable value to me given what we know about Omnicron and the vaccine efficacy.

My point is about social distancing - it's convenient for incompetent leadership because it puts the onus on the population, which they then blame when caes rise, saying they haven't distanced enough. If only they'd provided masks from the start they'd fared better.

> Do you still have to do social distancing, limiting numbers, limiting hospitality, QR checkins etc? Are people living in fear of Covid etc?

Yes to all of the above in New Zealand. I was stuck there for some time after a short trip turned into a multi-month stay when their most recent lockdown was introduced, preventing me from flying out.

There was and still is a lot of fear surrounding Covid (it seems to a staple of their approach), but on talking to family still there, it seems to be slowly coming back down as Omicron rips through and most people come to grips with the idea of catching it.