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Comment by throwaway894345 | Hacker News Reader

New Zealand’s results are largely due to it being a small, isolated nation. Hawaii similarly enjoys the fewest COVID cases per capita of the US.

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And furthermore their border is still essentially closed. Their approach was almost certainly the right one for them but locking down access in that way was never practical for most countries.

You’re totally right. It’s strange to see random self-righteous, presumably highly-educated, safety-minded people suggest that the US should just be New Zealand. There’s been some really wildly unworkable things offered as though it’s just obviously correct.

Hawaii, the only state that requires a COVID test within 36 hours of flying there? I mean, of course they'd have the lowest cases per capita when they're the only ones actively refusing entry to those who have it.

How many entry points does Hawaii have compared to the average state? How do those points of entry compare in terms of staff and systems to operate those restrictions? Hawaii gets a lot more mileage out of its restrictions than Iowa is going to do. We can acknowledge these differences without conceding that restrictions aren’t worth the squeeze; it just means that New Zealand isn’t a good reference point.

A fair number of states did have travel restrictions in place but there were oodles of exceptions and AFAIK no real enforcement although it probably did limit cross-border travel some.

Right, but if all states had a handful of ports of entry manned by TSA who could enforce those restrictions and supply chains that were already inadvertently optimized to prevent disease transmission, then the US would probably look a lot more like New Zealand!

And if I looked like an eagle I could flap my wings and fly.

We didn't even shutdown widespread commercial traffic between the US and Canada (although otherwise travel was largely shut down).

> And if I looked like an eagle I could flap my wings and fly.

???

> We didn't even shutdown widespread commercial traffic between the US and Canada (although otherwise travel was largely shut down).

Why bother? It’s not like any significant number of transmissions are coming via commercial transit with Canada. I don’t pretend to be an epidemiologist but it seems pretty intuitive that a small island nation and one of the largest countries are going to differ.

I think I misread the tone of your reply. Yes, the situations are nothing like the same and the idea that the US could have been just like NZ if only is silly.

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