New Zealand is allowing zero non-New Zealanders into the country; moreover

[SiliconValley_Dem]

NZ Citizens and others with status to return (such as immediate family member) can come back to NZ but they have to stay in government operated quarantine centers (designated hotels) for 2 weeks and have to come back with negative coronavirus tests in first and second week.

just for perspective on exactly how wide open our stupid country is in the face of this deadly and growing pandemic.

the reason they are doing this is their draconian stay at home orders, massive testing and contact tracing/isolation have gotten them down to pretty much zero cases.

edited to add there are very rare exceptions to this such as people being allowed in for specific expertise they can provide relative to health and medicine.

[Dem2theMax]

1. It must be wonderful to live in a sane country.

I've forgotten what it feels like.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. It helps a lot that New Zealand is a small island nation

with fewer than 5 million people.

[SiliconValley_Dem]

3. sure. that's it.

Auckland is a dense city with 1.4 million + population

Santa Clara county where I live has about 1.9 million pop and over 11,000 cases and over 200 deaths.

this is in a state and county which have taken more aggressive actions to fight virus spread than many other retions of the US.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. It really matters.

Is Santa Clara county completely surrounded by ocean, making it easy to control who gets in or out?

Yes, we should have been a lot more aggressive as a country, but when there are idiot politicians who defy sensible restrictions, and even more idiot citizens who take individuality to an extreme, we were going to be screwed no matter what.

And as bad as things are here, just give India a few more months.

[meadowlander]

4. Lots of countries that are large and densely populated

have gotten the epidemic under control a lot better than the US. For example, most EU countries and China. Neither of them are islands or small or sparsely populated.

Lockdowns work. So does clear and unified messaging from political leaders and an ingrained sense of social responsibility in citizens built up over decades.

New Zealand was one of the first countries to go into one of the most restrictive lockdowns in the world. We were threatened with arrest for leaving our home to do anything other than go to the supermarket or pick up medicine unless you were an essential worker. You weren't allowed to leave your neighbourhood to exercise.

People busted their asses and made massive sacrifices and that's why there hasn't been any community transmission for the past 100 days and people can live normal, maskless lives with only a few cases in quarantine.

Doing the same thing would work in the US if people had the will, and discipline and pro-social attitudes and competent political leadership to make it work.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. +100

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. New Zealand did it right.

But you still can't overlook the fact that it's a physically small island nation with a small population. And probably none of the stupid American devotion to individualism that's killing us all.

[SiliconValley_Dem]

10. you are really going to completely ignore their point about EU and

other larger dense nations like S. Korea?

[BannonsLiver]

13. +1

It’s bizarre people don’t believe that matters or is not a factor at all.

[meadowlander]

14. It's not that small.

It's about the same size as France or Germany.



Did it help that we had a few more weeks to prepare than Taiwan, Iran or South Korea because we are more geographically remote? Yes, obviously.

But the US has had six months to get this thing under control and things are only getting worse.

New Zealand is in the position it's in because we have a great PM who took swift and decisive action, who rallied the "team of five million" to all work together and had clear messaging that the point was to protect lives and to support the health care system.

People in New Zealand have respect for individual liberties but also recognise that we're all in the same boat together and to overcome some challenges, you all have to be rowing in the same direction.

New Zealand didn't succeed because it's an island with a small population. It's larger and has a comparable population to Ireland and had a fraction of its cases and deaths. It succeeded because the response it used worked. Dismissing that risks failing to learn the lessons about what does work.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. But it's still an island nation.

That's huge. I am not dismissing anything. I'm only pointing out factors that really do matter.

And it might be instructive to look at the deaths per million here. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries We are not the very worst country.

[JI7]

11. New York also got it under control

[Blue_true]

15. Germany and France are having excellent results. nt

[erronis]

8. Just reading how Thiel (and probably many other plutocrats) bought his way in to NZ

I don't think NZ is quite as righteous as they may want to appear. Apparently big $$$s get what you want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#New_Zealand_citizenship

New Zealand citizenship

Thiel was a German citizen by birth, and became an American citizen by naturalization.[138] He became a New Zealand citizen in 2011, which became public in 2017.[139] In 2015, he purchased a 193-hectare estate near Wanaka, which fitted the classification of "sensitive land" and required foreign buyers to obtain permission from New Zealand's Overseas Investment Office. Thiel did not require permission as he was a citizen.[140]

He had received permanent residency in New Zealand in 2007.[141][142] He had visited the country on four occasions prior to his application for citizenship,[143] and had spent 12 days in New Zealand, fewer than the typical residency requirement of 1350 days.[144] When he applied, he stated he had no intention of living in New Zealand, which is a criterion for citizenship.[145] Then-Minister of Internal Affairs Nathan Guy waived those normal requirements, under an "exceptional circumstances" clause of the Citizenships Act.[139][143][145]

Thiel's application cited his contribution to the economy—he had founded a venture capital fund in Auckland before applying, and invested $7 million in two local companies—as well as a $1 million donation to the 2011 Christchurch earthquake appeal fund.[143] Rod Drury, founder of Xero, also provided a formal reference for Thiel's application.[139] Thiel's case was cited by critics as an example that New Zealand passports can be bought,[143][146] something the New Zealand government denied.[143] At the time that his citizenship was revealed, the New Zealand Defence Force, the Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications and Security Bureau were said to have long-standing links with Palantir, according to a report in The New Zealand Herald.[147]

[SiliconValley_Dem]

9. what the hell does that have to do with Nations' COVID response?

US has investor VISAs as well as do many European countries.

non sequitir

[JI7]

12. This was all before covid 19. The article is about how NZ deals with Covid

[roamer65]

17. NZ has the right to do it.

I don’t blame them.