
New Zealand and Australia were Covid success stories. Why are they behind on vaccine rollouts?
CNN
New Zealand and Australia were once lauded for their success in containing the spread of the coronavirus. But now they're being criticized for their failure to quickly vaccinate their populations against Covid-19. What went wrong?
As other countries battled months-long lockdowns and hospital systems on the brink of collapse, New Zealand imposed a five-week nationwide lockdown before returning to something resembling normality. Although borders have been closed to foreigners for more than a year, music festivals and weddings have gone ahead. The country has reported around 2,500 cases and 26 deaths. It was a similar story in other parts of Asia-Pacific -- so much so that when Australian think tank Lowy Institute scored more than 100 countries on their Covid-19 performance earlier this year, it found Asia-Pacific had, on average, been the most-successful region in the world at containing the pandemic.More Related News