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Comment by hnracer | Hacker News Reader

That can only ever work in a small island country like NZ or a country with totalitarian control over the populace (China)

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and yet Ireland, (island nation, similiar population) is way worse off.

I'd argue that it would work in any nation with an educated population where the leadership is listening to health experts and not undermining the containment effort or lying about the danger.

Except I can fly to Ireland from most of the EU for cheap (sometimes under 10 euros), with no passport and it's part of a very interconnected economy. Ireland also shares a land border with hr UK.

It seems entirely reasonable to disallow non-essential international travel during a global pandemic.

Maybe now, but that was not at all a sanctioned idea at the time, if we only listened to health experts as you suggest. [0][1][2]

[0] https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/updated-who-re...

[1] https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/31/as-far-right-calls-for-c...

[2] https://euobserver.com/coronavirus/147576

Did Ireland employ the same strategy as NZ? My claim isn't that being a small island nation is a sufficient condition.

Did a larger, non-island country without totalitarian control over their population unsuccessfully employ the same strategy as NZ? You can't have this both ways.

Yes. Australia copied NZ almost move for move (travel nearly completely banned - small handful of daily flights with quarantine, harsh lockdowns), and failed, primarily because Australia is too big.

They were able to eliminate covid in states of equivalent size as NZ, in effect achieving something just as impressive. But because the country is bigger, all it takes is a cluster in a single state to then propagate to others.

Australia is a pretty small country. In a country as big as the US it would be virtually impossible to eliminate without extreme levels of control over the population.

This is wrong, Australia did not have New Zealand's elimination strategy. It followed the same sort of strategy as most of Western Europe. Control the worst spike with a lockdown, and then relax once the worst is over.

One of the giveaways was in their briefings at the time. New Zealand was interested in every new case, because you don't get to elimination with some sort of high level statistical approach, you get there one case at a time. Australia was happy to cheer success if it had fewer cases this week than last week - but fewer isn't elimination.

New Zealand left Level 2 only after weeks with zero new cases. Because they understood that "it's just one case" plus "infectious disease" multiplied by time = unlimited cases. Meanwhile Australians decided they were done, after all it's only a few cases, what's the harm? Well this is the harm.

It worked in China and Vietnam, neither of which are small or island countries.

As for your edit according to which this is only possible in large countries if they are totalitarian, the tactics China used are exactly the same that NZ has used, and are fully consititutional in the United States. Basically, telling people not to leave their homes for two weeks, using the Army to deliver food and supplies, and stopping travel between cities. These tactics have been implemented historically in the US in other epidemics and pandemics, so unless your claim is that the US is authoritarian, I don't follow.

China has totalitarian control over its populace which can simulate the level of control possible in a small island democracy. Vietnam I haven't studied.

It is fully constitutional in the US to stop travel and enforce quarantine in cities, and has been done before, and this was only ever needed in a select few cities in China.

Here in Canada I'm not allowed for the next 28 days to socialize with anyone outside of work. This is more restrictive than what was imposed on most cities in China.

You can't nail people's door shut in the US with them inside, which happened in Wuhan. You also can't unilaterally and swiftly implement extreme lockdown measures that would be required, only China can move that quickly with its one party dictatorship. So it's not a valid comparison being made here.

No, but you can legally stick a policeman outside and prevent them from leaving, which is functionally identical.

You can also legally take them into a complex and prevent them from leaving until they test negative, as has already been done for other infactions in the US.

The executive branch in the US also has the authority to rapidly execute such measures, and has done so historically.

It is functionally identical but completely theoretical and not achievable in practice. There's no way you can achieve that level of homogeneous control in a large democracy with states that have heterogeneous beliefs and political values, which is what you have when a democracy is sufficiently large.

If New York was isolated totally and completely self governed, you have a hope of achieving what NZ achieves.

Even a country as small as Australia is evidence of this thesis. They can get it under control in one state but a cluster pops up in another and it becomes a never ending game of whack a mole. If Australia was only Sydney, covid would be a distant memory. If Australia, population of 25 million, can't eliminate it, then trying to do so in a democracy with 300 million is a pipe dream.

You've moved from saying that NZ's policies couldn't be implemented in other countries because they wouldn't be effective to saying that NZ's policies couldn't be implemented in other countries because other countries refused to implement NZ's policies. The first is meaningful, the second is tautological.

Where in Canada is socializing banned?

In Québec as of midnight today it will be illegal to engage in any social activity outside of work, with the sole of two people living alone visiting one another in their residence, for a period of 28 days, in the regions marked as "zone rouge"

This includes outside gathering.

The end result is that I am not allowed to engage in any in person social activity for the next 28 days, at all. The only context in which I will be able to see people outside of my dwelling will be going to work (sadly/luckily I work remote), and getting groceries.

So basically, I'm banned from socializing for the next 28 days at minimum, and so are most people in Québec.

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