> NZ has extremely high international air traffic.
Maybe per capita but not per se. The US had 241 million international air passengers in 2019[1]. The UK had >160 million[2]. The US has two land borders with significant traffic and the UK had 21.5 million Chunnel passengers in 2019[3]. The volume of passenger shipping is also vastly higher in both countries. NZ also has almost no illegal border crossings.
NZ has a much smaller risk profile than these and many other countries. And this is born out by events. By the time the world became aware of what was happening the virus had already been spreading in Europe and the US for months. While it had been introduced to NZ it was still in much earlier stages.
Keep in mind that NZ is less than a tenth the population of the UK and less than a 60th of USAs. And those figures are for the country, not a city. The point made that Auckland has a lot of travellers.
It is true that in absolute terms NZ has small trade and travel relative to the UK and US, but those factors are far from being the only reasons that NZ has suffered less death and destruction. It’s more that the UK and US have done poorly.
> Keep in mind that NZ is less than a tenth the population of the UK and less than a 60th of USAs.
Yes, hence my "per capita" comment. The risk of infection getting into a country is more of a function of how much total traffic it gets rather than the per-capita traffic.
> And those figures are for the country, not a city.
Auckland Airport represents the vast majority of all international traffic into New Zealand, and not just flights.
> The point made that Auckland has a lot of travellers.
Not by absolute number which is what matters most for how easy it is for a virus to find its way in and get established domestically.
> It’s more that the UK and US have done poorly.
This is an important point and I do not belittle it at all. My point isn't to defend the USA and the UK but to point out that the difficulty of NZ's response was enormously easier both absolutely and relatively given the nature of NZ's geography and the fact that the local epidemic had barely started by the lockdowns. NZ has a lot to be proud of in its response, but no reason to be smug.
> Auckland Airport represents the vast majority of all international traffic into New Zealand, and not just flights.
Yes - and that is a hell of a lot for a small place. It’s comparable to something like SFO, but at the far end of the planet. But yes, the scale is small by international standards.
> the difficulty of NZ's response was enormously easier both absolutely and relatively given the nature of NZ's geography
This helped, but there are a lot more islands that have done poorly. I’m not sure that it was enormously easier, but the few week we got were key.
In terms of getting governments to move fast, NZs government moved far faster than one would have expected, and the advantage gained by the short delay due to geography undoubtedly saved us a lot of deaths. We were on a vicious exponential growth.
> NZ has a lot to be proud of in its response, but no reason to be smug.
Absolutely. My view is more one of horror at the considerable reliance placed on gut feeling, belief systems and hope rather than science and cooperation.
NZ had swine flu just 10 days after the USA. Covid19 reached New Zealand before Berlin. Even back in 1918 the flu pandemic reached NZ in months at a time when that journey by ship wasn't much faster!
Correction, NZ had its first cases of swine flu connected directly with travel to Mexico, the epicenter of the pandemic, 10 days after the USA identified its first cases which were community spread. In other words the virus had been circulating for some time in the United States already and just happened to be observed then. Case in point. The US/Mexico border is the most crossed border in the world with 350 million documented crossings annually and undocumented crossings in the 6 figures annually. Each crossing is another chance that the virus gets in and starts spreading domestically which is why the first case was community spread and not associated with travel to Mexico.
> Covid19 reached New Zealand before Berlin.
Maybe the first detected case but considering that Germany had its first detected case in late January in Bavaria a full month before NZ's first case, again directly associated with international travel, the virus very well had opportunity to have already gotten to Berlin and elsewhere undetected.
> Even back in 1918 the flu pandemic reached NZ in months at a time when that journey by ship wasn't much faster!
This was the massive demobilization from WWI with a rush of repatriation from the epicenter of the pandemic which had been active in Europe for some time, Spain was just the first country to admit it had an epidemic. Again, my case in point, NZ was infected long after most of the rest of world because NZ is out of the way. Thank goodness it is.
Maybe per capita but not per se. The US had 241 million international air passengers in 2019[1]. The UK had >160 million[2]. The US has two land borders with significant traffic and the UK had 21.5 million Chunnel passengers in 2019[3]. The volume of passenger shipping is also vastly higher in both countries. NZ also has almost no illegal border crossings.
NZ has a much smaller risk profile than these and many other countries. And this is born out by events. By the time the world became aware of what was happening the virus had already been spreading in Europe and the US for months. While it had been introduced to NZ it was still in much earlier stages.
[1] https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/final-full-year-2019-traffic-da...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/303654/number-of-arrivin...
[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/304968/number-of-passeng...