Australia and NZ had the advantage of being quite remote, true. But they had no vaccines. With vaccines and a decent uptake, the difficulty level to achieve ze

Australia and NZ had the advantage of being quite remote, true. But they had no vaccines. With vaccines and a decent uptake, the difficulty level to achieve zero spread should go down significantly. That said, I totally agree that short but strict lockdowns would be much better than permanent half-assed measures.