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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
by 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 agoRight, 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?