3 ms·

> However, they have been taking covid very seriously and have had correspondingly low infection rates. I think geography is doing the bulk of the lifting. Bei

• goodcanadian 5y ago
  86% of the population is urban, so it is only sparsely populated on average; there are plenty of opportunities for a disease to spread. Their relative isolation and the fact that they effectively closed their borders (so hard that even Australian citizens had a hard time getting in) before covid made it in has indeed helped with their "success." They have also had very hard (but short) lock downs whenever a case was detected in order to trace contacts.
  • throwaway894345 5y ago
    Right, but "closing borders" is dramatically easier when you're an island. You have formal ports of entry, your infrastructure is set up such that you have a cargo ship unloading at a port and then someone else drives the cargo to its destination. Consider, for example, goods produced in Poland and delivered to central Germany--there's no neat handoff between different delivery personnel at the border, unlike at a shipping port. Further, consider how many millions of people live on one side of a European, Asian, or American border and work on another side--how many Australians commute outside of Australia in their daily commutes or vice versa?