There and New Zealand both. The responses (extreme lockdown) of both countries to Covid has been nothing short of insane.
As a result NZ has had one of the lowest infection rates in the world. Also, those actions let them "return to normal" quicker then anywhere else.
It worked.
Perhaps you feel that the mid-evil practice of nailing the doors and windows shut and posting a guard outside of a quarantine house, would be more reasonable? Pray that the village stays safe while the sick were imprisoned?
People were inconvenienced. Nothing more.
EDIT: since my account has been rate-limited... The msn article below was released before the stats and is purely speculation. The stats before covid already indicate an increase, and NZ has long had fluctuating child poverty rates, which the current government is attempting to address. However it is essential to realise that this increase is largely driven by the effects of the previous government, and the housing and rental market - not the effects of Covid-19. https://www.cpag.org.nz/the-latest/current-statistics/latest...
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/number-of-children-i...
https://www.cpag.org.nz/news/?m=202107
"An additional 18,000 children were probably pushed into poverty in the 12 months to March 2021, even without taking rising housing costs into account, according to new modelling in the report, entitled The first year of Covid-19: Initial outcomes of our collective care for low-income children in Aotearoa New Zealand"
"This increase in child poverty of around 10% comes at a time when property owners have seen their wealth rise at an accelerated rate," said McAllister. "Loss of income related to job loss was probably inevitable for many families; but loss of income to the point of inadequacy - or further inadequacy - was due to political decision-making.
"The Government avoided one massive health and economic crisis but it enabled another one - that of poverty, homelessness and inequality - to grow rapidly."
Sure, for people that can't work from home it has been harder. But Government support has been set at a level well above the unemployment benefit. That is paid to employers to pass on to staff so the employment relationship is continued with strong encouragement to pay at least 80% of the employees normally wages. While it has been hard for some it hasn't been impossible. There have been no reports of abnormal bankruptcy levels (business or personal) or mortgagee sales.
Some people have used the fact that the support is higher than the unemployment benefit as evidence that benefits are set too low.
In fact, some lower paid workers look forward to a lockdown as a 'covid holiday'. That has pissed a few people off.
But all of that is way, way better than asking why are thousands of Kiwis dead? Did my [Nan|Mum|Brother|best friend|insert other person you care about] really need to die, 'for the economy'?
But it worked for New Zealand. They're in a very odd position now. Domestically as long as they can keep it out, they could go completely back to normal. Except for international travel. (It's been mostly normal most of the time aside from that, from what I understand.)
I just... don't get it?
Furthermore, the response has enabled New Zealanders to lead an almost completely normal life aside from the two lockdowns - going to work without even thinking about the necessity of masks or social distancing. Attending concerts without a fear of contracting Covid-19. Stadiums full of people when the US and other countries have been in limbo for 2 years now. Your idea of `insane` is quite bizarre to me.
Virus is here to stay for many years, if not decades. We're never going to eliminate it. It is time we push back on draconian measures in the name of covid.
Unrelated but I can't even go to bathroom in SF city because every restaurant, convenience store, gas station, etc. have an excuse to say that because of COVID restrictions, restrooms are closed. I was fine with Gov-mandated measures last year when we didn't have vaccines. But, I am turning against my own self from last year.
Whether or not the ~20 000 lives saved from these lockdowns comes down to opinion in the end.
I wish this meme would die. People in the US got paid decent money too.
The federal gov spent $3 trillion more on transfer payments in Q1 2021 than it did in Q4 2019. This is more than a doubling. That's nearly $17,000 for every human in the US.
But stimulus checks alone (ie free money for everyone under the income threshold of $75k) were over $3000 per person.
Additional unemployment was hundreds of dollars _per week_, on top of the standing unemployment benefits.
Several zip codes in the Bay are at what... 98% vaccination rate? I still don't get how the "much better" governments of Australia and New Zealands, held as examples through the pandemic, couldn't match the vaccine rollout of... the Trump Administration.
The initial vaccine doses destined for Australia were diverted to more urgent areas (which was the right thing to do). Then as domestic product of AZ ramped up, a scare campaign ramped up (media love to make people worried) and the body for recommending vaccines gave advice for under 50s to not take AZ (whilst there was no actual alternative). Because covid lockdowns were effective, and Australians were seeing such low rates, there was complacency amongst the population and they were willing to wait for their vaccine of choice. Now delta is looking like it is making lockdowns less effective, and there is ample supply of Pfizer, people are scrambling to get vaccinated.
I wouldn't give all the credit to the government for the low infection rate last year. I think it was mostly fear and reaction of people. e.g. by the time government started ordering restrictions, most companies had already switched to fully remote. Toilet papers were already gone from the supermarket shelves. People were already bunkering down. Then in a few weeks the infection peaked, and 2 months later students were back in school.
Since that initial success, the state governments improved their contact tracing process, which was successful to eliminate outbreaks every now and then, while things were mainly normal for most the year (except overseas travel).
Unfortunately, in late June this year, the Delta variant arrived to Sydney, and it proved impossible to control. The world-class contact-tracing process failed to stop the infection rate. So we are still in lock-down, with cases still increasing over a 1000 per day in the state (NSW).
However, other states in Australia are still enjoying full freedom. Probably, because they do snap lock-downs (3 to 7 days) whenever a case appears in the community.
Vaccination, the federal government put most of their eggs in one basket. It planned to produce and use the AZ vaccine, but the AZ blood clot issues, derailed their plans. So they stopped or limited AZ, and went begging for Pfizer doses. They are struggling to get enough of this, so they can acchieve 80% rate, to start re-openning the states currently in lock-down.
There might be plenty of vaccines in US and Europe, but unfortunately the rest of world can't get enough of it.
I can understand the initial delay in vaccination in AU & NZ, because given the scarcity of vaccines, and the high death rates in other countries, it would preferable the vaccines were given to those countries first.