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Comment by andylynch | Hacker News Reader

Aussie and I think most impressively China too.

No other western country has actually been willing to do what NZ or Australia did - strict contact tracing, strict lockdowns, and a near-complete ban on entering the country, with those that do being picked up the police or military at their plane and driven to quarantine hotels where the doors lock from the outside.

I don't know why everyone keeps going on about other countries not getting the same results - no other rich country has even talked about trying, as far as I know.

In fact it’s worse, western nations have done the stupidest thing which is half measures. They’ve wrecked their own economies by taking measly half measures and not providing adequate relief. Wrecking people’s lives without actually achieving meaningful ends.

At risk of being labelled “anti-lockdown” or whatever, i’ll clarify my point is we should have done MORE. Strict lockdowns, tracing, etc... AND providing direct relief and freezes.

Led by the US with a president that would change his mind about COVID three times in two sentences. Somehow the rest of the "free" world decided that emulating this mess is a worthwhile venture.

Australia is an island with a population almost half California.

China welds people in their houses and forcibly enters homes and drags family to some location. I have no desire to emulate them.

I’m tired of hearing excuses. 20% of New Zealand export income[1] came from tourism, yet we closed the doors on February 1st, cancelling tourists while the season was still high.

If you want to get rid of the virus, you can, but you have to suck up the costs: shut down your borders and do whatever it takes. Close down internal travel: domestic flights were virtually shutdown in NZ; Ozzie’s had other overland travel restrictions between states etcetera. Stay at home: fuck the economy for a while, but then you all can relax.

NZ is about the same size and population as Oregon, so a single state could choose to do it, if they were willing to face up to the implications of the choice.

There is still time to do it now, to give yourselves enough time to vaccinate people that would be network nodes in the transmission graph, and health workers, and the at-risk population.

Or be honest like Sweden and decide that some deaths and chronic repercussions are acceptable costs (versus the alternative economic and human damage.)

But don’t give lame just-right excuses like “Australia is an island with a population almost half California.” Oz has a higher population than every other state except Texas, so....

[1] https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-figure...

> but you have to suck up the costs

In other words immiserate anyone who’s not a comfortable white-collar person that can hole up in their home, Zoom to work, and dispatch immigrants to deliver food

I suspect your perceptions are coloured by your environs: what do you know of NZ and Oz? The poor in New Zealand and Oz were not hit any harder than the middle-class and wealthy people that lost their savings due to circumstances e.g. businesses going under.

I personally don’t know of any restaurant that had to close due to Covid (and most restaurants are close to the edge during normal times).

My friends on unemployment benefits and requiring state healthcare would prefer not to be, in other circumstances, but they muddle through e.g. one friend needed emergency care the other day (free), and another friend needs their gall-bladder removed (free). And Covid is low (or no) risk even for the most unlucky jobs.

America is so broken, the idea of providing meaningful support top down just can’t be fathomed by some..

By suck up the costs I believe the parent is referring not just to the economic pain but also the cost of the extensive and unprecedented government support that Australia and NZ (and even in fact the UK) made.

Unemployment benefits and the aged pension were raised significantly, employers were paid a subsidy to continue to employ people of income dropped by 30% or more from the jan quarter 12 months earlier - and the support is clacheduled to continue until March at present.

This was also exceptionally well distributed and applied in almost no time.

Just want to point out that US states aren't allowed to run a deficit, while countries are, so I mostly agree with this but this hamstrings states like Oregon who aren't allowed to provide relief for strict measures through debt. Also Oregonians would have to still contribute to the Federal government via taxes, essentially stealing more money from this plan.

Excuses. If the state really wants to do something, they can. It is just a question of the costs.

NZ is not a state, but instead has a precarious relationship with the USA and other countries, which can ban-hammer us for things it really shouldn’t have any say in.

A better example: “Since Canberra pointedly demanded an investigation into the origins and spread of the coronavirus, the number of Aussie businesses being squeezed in China has exploded. Crates of Australian rock lobsters have been left to rot at a Chinese airport, and mountains of coal have been stuck in Chinese ports. Beijing turned the screw again, hitting Australian wine exports with punitive tariffs of up to 212 percent, essentially closing off a US$1 billion market.” “Australia's virus-weakened economy is being targeted for political retribution and the two countries may be sliding into a shadow trade war.”

There’s no way a US state could have done it, especially with Donald Trump at the helm.

The federal government certainly could have done a lot better. But frankly, even a federal government that didn’t do anything would have been better than the current one which was promoting snake oil, and not promoting wearing masks or social distancing but working actively against them.

AFAIK there is no legal mechanism for a US state to close its borders to other states. Regulating interstate travel is a purely federal matter.

Not a state, but American Samoa's governor ordered the ports closed in 1917 and allowed no ships to dock. They escaped the flu pandemic with zero cases.

> NZ is about the same size and population as Oregon, so a single state could choose to do it, if they were willing to face up to the implications of the choice.

In the US, some of the relevant choices have to be made at the Federal level.

For example, Oregon does not have authority to close state borders to travellers from other states or countries.

I really don't understand the island fixation that so many seem to have. Is it just accepted that non-island nations are incapable of policing their borders?

I think the argument is that other nations have economies that depend much more heavily on interaction with their neighbours. Which is probably true to an extent. But I mostly agree with you that this option was open to other countries.

As an inhabitant of the Netherlands, I would be very surprised if we would police our border with either Belgium or Germany. There are no natural obstacles, and plenty of spaces with forest crossing the border. No-one but the military comes close to having enough man-power to enforce that border.

Sure, with actual army deployment we could get somewhere (it seems we have about 20 soldiers per kilometer of border). But the massive difference in effort between "police airports and the coast with radar" and "Mobilize the army" is huge.

The same could be said of Australia's internal borders, which were largely closed as well. Most people will follow the rules, so simply closing the borders will get you most of the way there.

The issue is not whether it's possible - it is - it's whether the cost of doing so is too high. It's a fair consideration to make, but it should be clear that that's the consideration being made, rather than pretending that only island nations have this option.

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