> Australia and New Zealand are islands where the borders can be closed much more tightly than elsewhere and imported goods arrive mainly through container shipping. In the EU, the need to ensure regular freight truck traffic and move hundreds of thousands of seasonal agricultural workers from east to west means that a comparable lockdown could not have been achieved.
I wonder about this. I'd expect freight truck traffic in China to play at least as big of a role in distribution there that it does in Europe. China is a giant connected piece of land, and if their numbers are to be believed even in the slightest, it's clear China was able to keep Covid under control to a much greater extent than the western world.
Australia never fully halted interstate freight truck traffic, as it was deemed essential. I've heard Covid tests were given to truckies at state borders, but that seems possible for US states or European countries to do, even with limited resources. Is freight truck traffic really to blame for Covid spread, then?
And although Australia largely shut itself off from foreign crop labor, and is struggling to harvest crops given this, there's not all that much appreciable damage that I can see. Perhaps this was really a good season to err on the side of going short handed. Prices will go up, but the juice is worth the squeeze, it seems.
Also, Hawaii is an island, as is the UK. Alaska would seem to have similar advantages to an island state. Yet these islands are doing very much more poorly compared to Australia and New Zealand.
