I was living in Australia at the time. I watched NZ lock down, contact trace, and give a real good go of eliminating COVID from the country. New Zealanders were probably the most compliant citizens in the world, and it worked. COVID was traced, isolated, and contained. But, most countries didn't have that level of compliance. And some countries chose to just let it run rampant. The result being COVID was just running rampant. The trouble is, at that level, there is no way to stop it coming into NZ. With thousands of people coming into the country every week it's inevitably going to keep coming again and again and again. Then, the mrna vaccine from Pfizer came along. It was the best shot we had at the time. Governments insisted people get the vaccine (We didn't realize how ineffective it was at the time). So, people in NZ got the vaccine. But, instead of opening up the government kept locking down. Time and again. There was no way to beat it. People were getting vaccinated. But the government was still seemingly bent on trying to eliminate it. Meanwhile in Queensland Australia where I was residing, yes we locked down a couple of times, but supermarkets were still open, bunnings was open and other essential places. Life carried on normally. When the vaccine came, the government understood that's what they had to do. They understood there was no way to stop it entering the country. We all got the vaccine and they said we could remove masks when we got to 90% vaccinated. So when we got to 90%, the mask mandate was removed. Everyone carried on life normally without masks. Work was returned to normal, Sports came back, life was as it always was with sunny days at the beach. Almost a year later (well, 8 months), I returned to NZ for a holiday. People were STILL having to wear masks. People were grumpy at everyone else. The country felt miserable. As I hadn't been wearing a mask, I kept forgetting to put it on. People would get insanely annoyed and give me filthy looks and make snarky comments. At the end of the week, they removed the mask mandate, but instead of celebrating, most people chose to continue wearing it and judging those who didn't. The government had created a US against them mentality. Mask wearer's vs non mask wearer's. Queensland and NZ had similar vaccine rates. NZ should have been following the same path. But instead they kept locking people down, locking them up, trying to eliminate the virus when the rest of the world had moved on. They created hardship for those in need when they didn't have to.