I’m really proud of my home country, New Zealand.
It was announced earlier this week that it had eliminated coronavirus.
To be clear, there are still people with the virus, but the government is confident there are no unknown cases of community transmission.
Despite this huge success, there are dissenting voices within the country. Echoes of “we should’ve opened the economy faster,” and “the government overreacted,” can be heard.
I think this logic is ludicrous, and here’s why.
In any normal situation (e.g., business, non-profit, investment), it’s hard to tell if you picked the right strategy. You can’t turn back the clock and choose a different approach to see if things would’ve played out differently.
However, in this global pandemic, every country is broadly facing the same virus, and a clear correlation has emerged between countries that have taken a more relaxed approach (e.g., the United Kingdom, and the United States), versus those who were vigilant and pre-cautionary at an extremely early stage (e.g., Australia, and New Zealand).
Sure, New Zealand has structural advantages (e.g., a population of 4.5 million people, and it’s a 3-hour flight to the nearest neighbouring country), but it still has achieved what no other country has been able to do.
The point here is that even in the face of wild success, there will always be dissenters.
In this case, and for the sake of my family and friends, I’m so glad my country “over reacted”. I’d take that any day over the alternative.