New Zealand largely controlled the pandemic through decisive and timely actions including closing borders, containing superspreader events with a strict lockdown, fixing the public health system, clearly communicating with citizens to gain widespread cooperation, prioritizing lives over economic concerns, and listening to epidemiological experts. While some credit New Zealand's geographic isolation, even isolated places like the UK struggled due to factors like large passenger airport volumes. If other leaders understood epidemiology better instead of spreading misinformation, they could have learned from New Zealand's successful approach as well as failures in other countries.

1. ManagementAspects of Pandemic
Control
If you take the case of NewZealandsupposedto have controlledthe
pandemic well :
You agree with the following
 It’s an island
 Low population density & isolation
 Weird, compliant, sociallydistancingKiwi behaviour
Most citizens of most countries read information and take
what they want from it. Most of the people agree that he
pandemic was mishandled in their —with gross incompetence
Misinformation spreadlike w̶i̶l̶d̶f̶i̶r̶e̶ a reallynasty virus. It’s still
spreading.
It’s warmlyreassuringto believe that Kiwis are weirdpeople isolated at
the opposite end of the world, and that incompetent politicians
elsewhere couldn’thave done better, that lockdowns don’t work, that
some magical fix will cure your COVID-19 so you don’t need to worry,
that it only affects old people, and so on. All of which is complete
nonsense, but people see what they want to see
If they had not done precisely the right things—andthey very close to
blowingit—they would be stacking up the bodies, just like many other
islandnations such as the UK, especiallythose with a developed tourist

2. industry (Heathrow passenger numbers were 80 million in 2019.
Aucklandairport passenger numbers were 21 million in 2019, over ten
times the Aucklandpopulation, then at 1.7M, and it just takes one
superspreader to kick things off). They wouldhave thousands of dead,
rather than 26 dead (so far, the pandemic isn’t finished). They did the
following, just in time:
 They closed our borders
 They containedthe superspreading events that had already
started, using one of the most vigorous lockdowns (NZ Level 4)
anywhere in the world
 They mostly fixed their neglected public healthsystem quickly
 They got practically everyone on board—a “team of 5
Million”—bycommunicatingclearlyandwell
 Their leaders actually led,rather than wringingtheir hands
 They put lives before illusory ‘economic growth’
 They listened to competent epidemiologists
 Their lab experts rapidly developed& adopted reliable testing
 And so on.
If your leaders don’t understandthe epidemiology, then you’re a lost
cause. And if you do, well then, you’re part of one of those teams from
aroundthe world watchingandlearning, not just from New Zealand, but
also from Taiwan and Vietnam, and so on. Watchingandlearning, not
just from r successes,but also from errors. For of course there were
errors.
In summary
There are competent people aroundthe world—in countries blightedby
COVID-19—watchingandlearningfrom NZ. It’s just their voices are
generallydrownedby the blatheringof the misinformed.
There’s so much nonsense floatingaround, I’ve almost given up caring
about those who see what they want to see.
They a’re doing very well—sofar—in New Zealand, anybody can learn
from them, rather than boasting “We are the ones who did reallywell
Jayadeva de Silva for Humantalents International