[maxerickson]

It's preferable to have very low infection numbers, to reduce the likelihood of mutations taking hold.

Doesn't mean you go on forever waiting for 0 infections, you just wait a bit longer than the minimum number of vaccinations to go back to activities with highest risks of transmission.

[garmaine]

With both travel restrictions and lockdown, It takes about 6 weeks to get to (effectively) zero new cases. Not forever.

[rhino369]

That depends on how many cases you started with and how low you can get the transmission rate.

No way could the EU or USA get to zero in 6 weeks. It took Victoria Australia about 6 weeks to get from 500 cases to 20. America and Europe have a 100X more than 500 cases.

And the longer you need to lockdown, the less restrictive the lockdowns can be.

[jgalt212]

Yes, but you're still stuck with a population who remains very susceptible to the diseases. Lockdowns, as I'm sure Australia will discover, are not a complete solution to the problem.

[siquick]

We're pretty happy here in Australia with how few of our friends and family have been affected by COVID. Life is practically back to normal and has been this way in Sydney for a while. Vaccination roll-out started this week.

You'd be hard pushed to find a single person who would trade our state's response with pretty much any other countries response.

[jgalt212]

I'd rather be lucky than good.

-- Lefty Gomez