"If New Zealand's the COVID-19 role model then we're in strife", an Australian economics journalist has argued, claiming that declining case numbers are not correlated to the success of "draconian" lockdown measures.
Sydney-based journalist Adam Creighton has argued that New Zealand's COVID-19 response - internationally lauded for its success at flattening the curve - is not deserving of praise, arguing lockdown in response to a virus with a low infection fatality rate is not worth the economic sacrifice.
"New Zealand is held out as a role model, but it's a small, remote country. Its biggest industry, tourism, has been ruined, and at some point its citizens may want to come and go," he wrote in a piece for The Australian, published on Wednesday.
"The question is whether a civilisation that put man on the moon a half-century ago could have come up with a more targeted way of protecting the elderly and vulnerable than causing a downturn so serious forecasting has become impossible."
He cited the findings of a recent study published in The Lancet, which claimed border closures, full lockdowns and widespread COVID-19 testing "were not associated" with "statistically significant reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality".
"Observing a decline in deaths or case numbers after a government took a sledgehammer to its economy says nothing about the effectiveness. Pointing to New Zealand in rapture proves nothing," Creighton wrote.
"In fact, there's no reliable relationship between lockdowns and viral trajectories across countries."
New Zealand entered alert level 4 lockdown at 11:59pm on March 25 - which required all New Zealanders to remain at home except for essential reasons - before transitioning to alert level 3 on April 27. New Zealand entered alert level 2 on May 14 and alert level 1 - similar to pre-COVID normality - at midnight on June 9.
According to Ministry of Health data, New Zealand experienced its highest numbers of new cases per day from March 23 (36 new cases) to April 10 (44 new cases), reaching its peak - 89 confirmed cases in one day - on April 2 and April 5. The curve began to flatten soon after, as daily case rates started to decline. There have been no more than 20 new cases per day since April 15, with a long stretch of zero cases.
As of Tuesday, it has been 95 days since New Zealand's last case of COVID-19 was acquired locally from an unknown source, indicating there is no evidence of community transmission in the country.
Since June 17, 61 COVID-19 cases have been detected across New Zealand's 32 managed isolation and quarantine facilities for New Zealand citizens and permanent residents who have returned from overseas, 39 of which have recovered.
New Zealand's virus-related death toll stands at just 22, with 1219 confirmed cases to date. In comparison, Ireland - a country with a similar population size - has had 1763 virus-related deaths and more than 26,200 confirmed cases.
The Ministry of Health's Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield - a key figure in the COVID-19 response - said lockdown was imperative to New Zealand's "elimination" strategy.
"[New Zealanders have] shown in alert level 4 that they get it, that they know what they need to do to break the chain - which we've done - so we can do our bit," he said in April.
Although many experts in the field, such as Dr Michael Baker and Dr Siouxsie Wiles, have praised the Government's plan of action and taken a pro-lockdown stance, others have issued a similar sentiment to Creighton. Dr Simon Thornley, a senior epidemiology lecturer at the University of Auckland, also likened the lockdown to an overreaction - as "most working people and children are at very low risk of any harm from the virus".
"We believe we should pay attention to protecting people in nursing homes and the elderly, and reducing the risk of disease spread in hospitals - but for the rest of us, we believe we can go back to work, school and university," he said during an interview with Magic Talk.
Amid the lockdown, Thornley founded a group of six academics who argued that alert level 4 was "no longer proportional" to the threat posed by COVID-19.
In Australia, the country's initial response to its COVID-19 outbreak allowed far more freedoms in a bid to keep the economy healthy and industries up and running, although measures differed from state to state. Its earlier approach focused on a "suppression" strategy rather than "elimination".
Following a surge of new cases - with seven deaths and 671 cases recorded overnight on Saturday - Victoria entered a stage four, six-week lockdown on Sunday evening.
