[plasma]

It takes leadership of government, focus, sacrifice, and understanding of the citizens to fight this virus.

I'm based in Australia, Victoria (population of 6m+, exceeding the 800k mentioned in the Bay Area [EDIT: San Mateo county]) and we have now had over 30 days of zero cases of coronavirus, after having a peak of 680+ per day [1].

We went into a tough lockdown, stamped out the virus, and are slowly easing restrictions. We are working towards a "COVID normal" holiday season.

We had stay at home orders, restricted access to shops (supermarkets remained open but most closed, with one trip per day per household), social distancing orders, and months of wearing masks, and 10-20,000 COVID tests performed per day (again, free).

Our Premier Daniel Andrews faced a lot of criticism for pushing this hard, and it was a lot of pressure on small businesses and the mental health of citizens, but ultimately it was the right decision -- the alternative was untenable, let it become out of control and watch our (universal, free) health care become overwhelmed, and no one would even be able to do anything -- an acceptance of the virus flourishing was not acceptable.

If you don't have a leader capable of fighting this virus, get rid of them. It's frustrating and sad watching from afar this virus run amuck in the United States (and the health care system failing you - I'd _never_ want your insurance system anywhere near me - but that's another battle).

I hope and wish for the health of everyone affected by this pandemic.

[1] https://www.dhhs.vic.gov.au/victorian-coronavirus-covid-19-d...

[postingawayonhn]

It did come at a terrible economic cost that has yet to be fully understood, and arguably was only possible due to the rest of Australia being largely COVID free and open.

[2trill2spill]

Did any non island democracy do well? Also just to note I'm including South Korea as an "island" as its effectively one being a peninsula and its only land border being with North Korea.

Edit: Also, one of the main reasons vaccines were able to get through trials so quickly is precisely because countries like the United States, Brazil, the UK, etc did so poorly handling the pandemic. Doing phase 3 drug trials in a country that successfully dealt with SARS-COV-2 such as Australia would take significantly longer.

[JamesVI]

800k is San Mateo county only.

The whole Bay Area has a population of closer to 8M.

[plasma]

Thank you, corrected.

[tims33]

What Victoria has done is highly commendable. The issue in the US is that there is no national commitment to reduce transmission to your levels. In turn, a single county, region, or state will be unable to reach the result you’ve achieved.

[garmaine]

> We went into a tough lockdown, stamped out the virus

Unfortunately no one here in the USA in a position of power recognizes that this should be the goal. Instead the lockdowns last only long enough for the ICU capacity to free up, then reopening the economy becomes the major goal.

We need to stamp this virus out entirely, like you and your neighbors in NZ and TW have done.

[xfitm3]

It shouldn't be a goal. The virus cannot be stopped with our current medical technology, but you can certainly punish people into poverty and homelessness with draconian lockdowns.

[garmaine]

You say it is not possible, but it absolutely is as it has happened. There are countries in this world which have had community spread and then stamped the virus out entirely, like Taiwan and New Zealand have. There are countries which have been in as bad a situation as we are (like Australia and South Korea) and then gotten their numbers down to the point where TW/NZ were at their peak. So there is a pathway from rampant community spread to eradication.

[newusr1207]

These countries you mention are vastly different in terms of population size and geography.

Also, pretending that there are no costs associated with strict lockdowns is terribly flawed.

[garmaine]

> These countries you mention are vastly different in terms of population size and geography.

Yes, South Korea and Australia span the gamut. So do Taiwan and New Zealand. The USA is somewhere in-between.

> Also, pretending that there are no costs associated with strict lockdowns is terribly flawed.

Those costs are largely suffered by this lockdown-reopen-lockdown cycle, without the benefit of getting rid of the disease. Indeed our trajectory is worse economically, because there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

Life in Taiwan and New Zealand goes on pretty much uninterrupted right now. We could have had that. We still could, if severe actions were taken.

[GhostVII]

Why should the US have an extremely costly lockdown (which will almost certainly fail) to stamp out a virus for which we will have a vaccine being rolled out in a week? Mask orders and other low-impact restrictions are great but I don't understand why you would try to get rid of the virus with lockdowns at this point.

[soupson]

It’s going to take at least a year to get the vaccine at scale and a significant portion of the population straight up won’t take it because they don’t want 5G autism.

[dboreham]

Because 100-200k people will die while the vaccine is being rolled out.

[plasma]

There were many people (other politicians, news/press stories, etc) saying it was unachievable and unrealistic, which added more pressure to our Premier to abandon his plans because it was keeping businesses shutdown and impacting mental health.

As you mention NZ did a great job (and the PM even offered to consult to other health officials [1] in how they carried out the lockdown), such leadership should be commended and people resisting should get out of the way to let leaders lead.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-newzea...