New Zealand

[dooderooni]

If only we could find a leading female politician who wasn't a sociopath then we'd be sorted.

 

[NZBoro1]

Possibly. Alternatively they are running their economy at full capacity when there is nobody to trade with. Once the rest of the world has had the virus and people have recovered and everything reopens and cases start spreading again in those countries they will have to shut down when the rest of the world is back up and running.

*This isn't what I think will happen but just making the point that it is far too early to tell what all of these countries will look like when this is over.

The idea behind our 'lockdown' is to almost eradicate the virus, to at least eradicate community transmission, which it looks like we have done. Yes, we have some cases a day, but these are all linked to known clusters, and we are planning to have a robust track & trace, with QRC for peoples phones to track when they enter & exit buildings & traders.
We are also doing community testing, at supermarkets etc and yesterday we did the most number of tests we have done (around 6500 I think), doesn't sound much to you but to us its quite a lot.
I also think you overestimate our trade. We do quite a bit, but our trade is mostly with China, the States & Australia now. Our 4 main income generators are Agriculture, Forestry, Aquaculture & Tourism. Trade with Europe is on a par with the States.
At the end of the day, we are a small island(s) in the South Pacific. Forestry was the first industry to be hit, the majority of our wood goes, both processed and unprocessed, to China. When they shut down it stopped the business dead. However, they re opened about 4 weeks ago to receiving imports again and out ports were the busiest they have been.
I get the impression that we will keep our borders closed until there is a vaccine. We may extend to Australia, which will help our tourism, but I can't see us letting anybody else in until then, for the very reason that you have quoted.
In the long run we'll see what happens, but all this talk of league tables, who's up and running etc smacks to me a little of competitiveness. Surely it would be better if we were all in this together.