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by matthewmacleod
2067 days ago
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The US population, as an example, is only about 70 times that of New Zealand. This is a large difference, but I have yet to see any reasonable argument as to why this matters beyond "the population is small so it doesn't count". |
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The major factor that accelerates spread is the frequency/duration of interactions between different people.
So a country such as NZ, that has:
- a much smaller population
- a much less dense/more spread out population
- geographic isolation from the rest of the world
- its population split across two islands
- a small fraction of the international and domestic passenger movements that the US, Europe and Asia have
- a very small number of infection cases in the country when the world suddenly woke up to the scale of the problem in mid-late March
- a centrally managed national health system (and government)
- a cohesive and compliant society
... will have a vastly easier (like, exponentially easier) time controlling the virus.
NZ deserves credit for handling it well before it got out of control and they're deservedly enjoying the benefits now.
But the conditions that made it even possible for NZ to achieve this apply in very few other places.
I can't actually fathom a way the US could have contained the virus the way NZ did, no matter who was in power federally ("just be like China" obviously can't happen).
(FYI I'm an Australian living in Melbourne, which has partially similar conditions to NZ but has spent the past 4 months battling a "second wave" and enduring a brutal lockdown which is just starting to ease now. That was after we'd seemed to have beaten it in May, and the rest of the country has stayed on top of it. So I know what it looks like to win and lose against this virus. Though even then, our case numbers and fatalities are far lower than the US and many European countries.)