New Zealand Admits Lockdown Failed to Achieve Covid Zero

BUCK: Clay, you’ve been talking to me offline about New Zealand and how they’re finally saying Covid Zero ain’t happening.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: We never had real lockdowns in America in the sense that people were barred by the force of the state from leaving their homes. There were always essential workers. There were always these loopholes. So we had, in some ways, a worse epidemiological situation where we had all these downsides of lockdown but not even keeping…

Yeah, if you don’t see anybody, you’re not gonna spread the virus. Australia and New Zealand have had their highest caseloads ever during extreme lockdown, and they’re both now — New Zealand at least officially now — is going to say, “We can’t keep doing this. We just can’t keep doing it.”

CLAY: And I think this is the failure of the lockdown, the Fauciites, as you I think accurately call them. “The country is changing course seven weeks into a lockdown,” this is New Zealand, “that has failed to end the outbreak and tested the patience of many residents.” I’m reading an article from the New York Times. Opening paragraph:

“For a year and a half, New Zealand has pursued a strategy of ‘Covid Zero,’ closing its borders and quickly enforcing lockdowns to keep the coronavirus in check, a policy it maintained even as other Asia-Pacific countries transitioned to coexisting with the viral threat.

“On Monday, New Zealand gave up the ghost. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acknowledged an end to the elimination strategy seven weeks into a lockdown that has failed to halt an outbreak of the Delta variant, announcing that restrictions would be gradually lifted in Auckland, the country’s largest city.” This is big, Buck. I think this is big.

Because as many of a direct defeat as the lockdowners could get ’cause they’ve been pointing to New Zealand probably out there if you’re on social media, people are like: Why couldn’t we just be New Zealand? Why do we fail? [Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern:] “We’re transitioning from our current strategy into a new way of doing things. With Delta, the return to zero is incredibly difficult, and our restrictions alone are not enough to achieve that quickly.

“In fact, for this outbreak, it’s clear that long periods of heavy restrictions has not got us to zero cases. What we have called a long tail feels more like a tentacle that has been incredibly hard to shake.” This is the most lockdown extreme success story in New Zealand for all of the Fauciites, acknowledging that they have failed in their battle with covid. It’s a big deal. I think it is.

BUCK: Plus, the whole world is not tiny island where sheep outnumber people 10 to one if we’re gonna be honest here, you know?

CLAY: (laughs) Yes.