Despite some of the most draconian lockdown orders in the world, New Zealand is seeing a resurgence of the Chinese lung AIDS. There have been so many new cases, the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has postponed national elections in that country for 4 weeks.
Before the latest outbreak, New Zealand had gone 102 days without any locally diagnosed cases of the virus, and life had returned to normal for most people, with restaurants and schools open and sports fans back in stadiums. The only known cases during that time were returning travelers who were quarantined at the border.
How big is the outbreak? 58 cases. In the entire country. New Zealand has a population of around 4.8 million. Nearly a third live in Aukland, the largest city and epicenter of the outbreak. So far, the country has had approximately 1,600 infections and 22 deaths.
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New Zealand has been held up in international circles as some sort of a model to use for Chinese Coronavirus reaction. They shut down any international travel and imposed hard lockdowns on the population for months. The goal was zero infections.
The cost? That has yet to be fully measured, but seeing as the economy there is based on tourism, I suspect they’ve caused huge damage.