[starik36]

> At what point does this become "zero COVID"

In New Zealand, it already has. Every time there is a single case or two, the entire locale (Auckland in this case) fully locks down. This is the 5th time it locked down. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/world/australia/new-zeala...

It's ironic that Covid has been arguably more disruptive in NZ than in US, which has a ton of cases.

[DanielR31D]

This is untrue. In New Zealand we locked down a reasonable amount for the information we have on the case. With the current lockdown, there was a single case with no known link to the border which had traveled around the country while infectious. Knowing just this and that every case in managed isolation (iirc) was is the Delta variant, we went into lockdown. Also, '5 lockdown' is misrepresentive. We can see on this page https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-levels-and-updates/history-of-... that while some lockdowns were very restrictive, country wide, and long (2.5 months), most were short and regional (with other regions maybe going to lvl 2 alert)

[starik36]

How is that untrue. There were three Alert Level 3 and two Alert Level 4 instances.

> short and regional

Downplay it all you want. Auckland is a pretty big place. Alert Level 4 means that 1/3 of New Zealand population is locked down.

[xadhominemx]

Definitely not more disruptive in New Zealand over the entire course of the pandemic and also we have suffered 600,000 fatalities as a result of the virus.

[dcolkitt]

I'm virtually certain that the pandemic disrupted everyday life in NZ more than it did in Florida. Now more people died, but Florida demonstrates that even at the height of the pre-vaccine pandemic it's perfectly possible to live a lockdown free life post-Covid without society collapsing.