[notacoward]

New Zealand has a healthy tourist industry, and Auckland is effectively the capital of Polynesia, so it has a lot more air travel than you might think. Also, if isolation were such a large factor, why is New Zealand doing so much better than (for example) Iceland? NZ has a lower growth rate than Fiji, Maldives, Saint Kitts and Nevis. Isolation might be a factor, but it seems to have less effect on outcomes than when and how nations responded.

[usaar333]

> New Zealand doing so much better than (for example) Iceland?

They are only doing so much better if you define better solely in terms of deaths (about 14x per capita). The difference is that New Zealand locked down; Iceland had much more modest restrictions (and did very well overall with containing the epidemic - a bit better than say the locked down Bay Area)

The interesting question is if "deaths/capita" is the correct and only metric. Both countries are basically at the end of their curve and Iceland lets say might lose about 200 years of life (using some worse case guesses for currently hospitalized) or about 5 hours a person.

What's better for the average person? A 4 week lockdown or life expectancy dropping by 5 hours?

[kaesar14]

But Iceland is a part of the Schengen Zone and is open to free travel with Europe, I don't see how New Zealand is NOT more isolated than Iceland

[ashtonkem]

We can actually answer these questions rather than just guessing.

In 2018, 3.82 million people flew into NZ, an increase of 1.2 million over the previous year. Iceland meanwhile received 2.3 million people in 2018, most from the United States, which is in line with historical averages of around 2 million.

[rhino369]

It's also something of a mini-hub for travel from USA to Europe. A lot of America's do a mini-vacation in Iceland on the end of a trip to Europe.

[ghaff]

I'm guessing not so much in January and February.

[dzhiurgis]

Kiwi’s have good common sense and when needed can pull their shit together. I’ve compared few countries in Google’s Mobility report and no other country reduced their activity as much as NZ!