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Comment by wozniacki | Hacker News Reader

Also, a country with a GDP the size of the U.S. state of Oklahoma mind you (New Zealand's G.D.P 204,671, Oklahoma's G.D.P. 206,058 (in USD million, 2019, according to the IMF) [1]

[1] Comparison between U.S. states and sovereign states by GDP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states...

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What does GDP measured in Oklahomas have to do with anything?

It gives you a general idea, how significant or insignificant an economy is and also roughly how many other moving parts of the global economy it has complex gears in.

And thereby how many more fold damages can result from a catastrophic shutdown of the country, something a small geographically-on-the-periphery-of-the-world nation need not worry about, to the same degree.

NZ isn't North Korea. It's not a hermit jurisdiction relying on its own internal economy. It relies a lot on trade with the rest of the world - it gets a lot of money from exports and relies a lot on imports (everything here is depressingly expensive for that reason).

Hell I'm even able to connect to communicate you using internet (the exact same kind you get in Oklahoma).

You got it all in reverse. Large countries are much less affected by this as they are more self sufficient. Small countries have far more open economies and depend far more on import and export to work. They are too small to make everything themselves.

Except that's completely wrong. All the costs are borne by the citizens of NZ. Someone who can't go to work in NZ is just as affected as someone who can't go to work in the US. The difference is, and was, in the government's response in assisting those bearing those costs.

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