>What NZ did manage by pulling up its highly effective drawbridge and locking down hard, was a total C19 death tally measured in dozens rather than thousands. However, C19 is not the only cause of death, or even the biggest internationally during this pandemic; that's still held by cancer, cardiac and chronic respiratory, usually in that order. So now there's consequences of delayed cancer and other treatments yet to land, plus of course huge increases in national debt, firms gone under, mental health...

It will never be possible to prove to skeptics that not letting COVID ravage through an unprepared population would have been worse on every single one of those terms.

But it will always be strange to me that people think that a death toll akin to the Spanish Flu wouldn't have had severe mental health effects and destroyed many more businesses than the sporadic lockdowns of the past 2 years. I guess wiping out 5-10% of the population (especially older people) would have greatly reduced pension liabilities for governments.