New Zealand’s COVID-19 response highlights America’s failures
New Zealand has been revered for how it has tackled the COVID-19 pandemic and rightfully so. The country began its process of locking down far earlier than America and took a much different approach and the U.S. should have followed in their steps.
While some may argue that New Zealand’s case numbers aren’t comparable due to its significantly smaller population, an argument that has been seen too many times on social media, it’s important to recognize that the population difference doesn’t matter when the data is per capita.
According to WorldOMeter, New Zealand has had a total of 2,146 COVID-19 cases as of March 11. If you divide that number by their total population (5 million), you’ll find that means about .05% of the population has contracted COVID-19 at some point.
New Zealand has had 26 COVID-related deaths. For every 100,000 members of the country’s population, only about .51 of a person has died as a result of the virus.
The United States has had about 29,912,112 cases in total as of March 11. Doing the math again with the total population (328.2 million) means that about 9% of Americans have contracted the coronavirus.
About 543,454 COVID-related deaths in the U.S. means that for every 100,000 members of the population, 161.77 people have died.
On a smaller scale, according to the numbers provided by WorldOMeter, about 9% of the Florida population has contracted COVID-19.
Regardless of any personal political beliefs, it should be hard for anyone to see those numbers and not come to the conclusion that New Zealand citizens have been much safer through this pandemic than our own.
The reason for this is not mere coincidence.
According to writers Ryan Goodman and Danielle Schulkin for Just Security, Trump signed a bill in 2018 that cut $1.35 billion in funds for the CDC’s Prevention and Public Health Fund.
In January 2019, The Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment warned the U.S. that it was vulnerable to a pandemic. In October 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services determined that the U.S. was underprepared for a pandemic after a months-long simulation.
Before the U.S. had a coronavirus case, Trump refused to be fully prepared or take the advice of scientists. Reportedly, in 2017 Trump even instructed CDC officials to refrain from phrases such as “science-based” and “evidence-based.”
The U.S. saw its first confirmed case on Jan. 20, New Zealand didn’t have its first case until Feb. 28.
On Jan. 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the coronavirus was a public health emergency and only three days later the New Zealand government started to introduce COVID-19 prevention measures. That same night, former President Donald Trump hosted a campaign rally in Iowa.
“At every step of the response, the Government of New Zealand was guided by public health advice and evolving evidence,” said the country’s Director-General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, according to the WHO.
Trump’s response to the coronavirus was focused on herd immunity, an idea discredited by the scientific community which warned the Trump administration that such a goal could result in the death of even more Americans.
Instead of herd immunity, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern chose the elimination strategy.
According to the McGuinness Institute, a non-partisan Wellington, New Zealand think tank, by late March the government began closing its borders and released its first economic package which allocated NZ$12.1-billion. NZ$5.1 billion of that package was used as wage subsidies for businesses that were already suffering or predicted to suffer as a result of the virus.
The U.S. did announce $1,200 stimulus checks that would be sent to Americans in April 2020, but millions still hadn’t received them by October.
Later, the U.S. also implemented the CARES Act, additional unemployment funding, and two more rounds of stimulus checks.
The New Zealand government took the coronavirus seriously from the start, something that America wasn’t prepared to do even if it wanted to.
Their strategy includes instructions such as, “controlling entry at the border, disease surveillance, physical distancing and hygiene measures, testing for and tracing all potential cases, isolating cases and their close contacts, broader public health controls depending on the alert level we are in.”
New Zealand uses a four-level system, level four being the highest alert level; each level is determined by the number of cases, the sense of control, and indicates different safety guidelines. If during a level-four period a citizen were to break quarantine or other safety rules, they could face a fine of NZ$4,000 or even six months in jail.
To Americans, such a consequence may seem very extreme, but it worked.
In August, New Zealand was able to celebrate the milestone of being COVID-free for 100 consecutive days.
On Feb. 27, 2020, PM Ardern announced that after one case emerged in Auckland, the country’s largest city, the city would go back to a level-three lockdown which meant no one could leave home unless it was for essential shopping or essential work. On March 11, Auckland is back down to level-one, with no restrictions on crowds and gatherings.
Since May, New Zealand has been using a tracker app to trace citizens’ movements and create more effective contact tracing. When entering businesses, people simply scan the QR code out front on their phones. If American’s are afraid of fining or imprisoning those who oppose lockdown rules, this at least would have been a helpful addition to the U.S. COVID-19 response strategy.
New Zealand’s grip on the pandemic hasn’t been perfect, the Māori people have been impacted far more than those of European descent, according to the Ministry of Health.
But their response was obviously much more effective than ours. The New Zealand government was willing to spend money and take care of its people, something that America was just not willing to do.
The U.S. descended into chaos with a president who refused to believe the science and allowed states to make (or more importantly, not make) their own rules.
New Zealand’s ability to quickly combat the virus demonstrates the American hubris that idolizes individualism, the facade of freedom, and distrust of science.
