The idea the virus has been "eliminated" in New Zealand is utter naivety. It simply doesn't make any sense that a virus can be simultaneously so ferociously contagious and deadly, yet also so easy to contain that even our Ministry of Health can manage it.
Finally, a serology study has been performed in New Zealand, and although the authors' preferred point is that Covid isn't very widely spread in the population, the real take-home point is that it is far more widely spread compared to the official "detected/known cases" figure.
It's rather annoying that the study wasn't performed months earlier - when it could have provided a much more accurate picture of the overall spread of the virus.
However, at the very least, it shows that the virus is almost definitely out and about in NZ: extrapolating the results to the general population it indicates that there were at least 6000 undetected cases (in addition to the detected cases) - although it is likely many times higher than this, given that the ability to detect seroprevalance wanes with time.
Its virtually impossible that every single one of those undetected cases came to a "dead end", and so, somewhere, in multiple locations, the virus is proliferating undetected.
And causing no noticeable material harm compared to other common respiratory illnesses.
New Zealand's long summers, mild winters (particularly in the more densely populated north), relatively low use of public transport, relatively low density living and high affinity for the outdoors are some considerably more likely reasons as to why Covid has had minimal effect here.
New Zealand is not the only location to have had a negligible Covid effect. Australia is the much the same; the warmer climates, high sunshine levels and pre-exposure to earlier coronavirus strains are likely to explain the non-event Covid has been in pretty much the South East Asia-Pacific region.
To claim that the credit for this negligible effect in the Asia-Pacific region is due to the myriad of varying mitigation techniques used in the various locations (which differed massively in scope, enforcement and adherence depending on location) is to engage in simple-minded handwaving rhetoric, at best. It makes no logical sense, and indicates very poor pattern recognition on the part of the claimant.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.12.21255282v1?fbclid=IwAR38iMCoLjSWvcYahYQemFR8cOnD1iyqqlCZETNmdlellwu5FllxHINpT6E
