Fortress island flaws

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When the pandemic hit, some countries opted to pull the shutters down. They reasoned the best way to stop the virus was to turn inward, closing borders and pursuing a goal of zero cases. That approach may have worked for a while. But as Australia and others are discovering, relying on isolation over vaccination as the main defense against Covid could have been a mistake. Australia has been blessed with only a handful of daily cases (the U.K. is averaging 20,000 or so). But the government has backed itself into a corner with a sluggish vaccine rollout that has seen few people inoculated, forcing it to take drastic action every time infections tick up even slightly. Now several states are in lockdown, and political leaders are under pressure. They face something of a doom loop. They can't reopen borders (and bring in tourists and labor crucial to the economy) because, with low levels of immunity, it risks igniting a bushfire of new cases. That means Australia could be left behind in the global recovery. Another island that has leaned heavily on isolation is now reassessing. By accelerating vaccinations, Singapore's leaders are starting to talk about adjusting to "living" with Covid-19, shifting focus from daily cases to hospitalizations, and treating the virus as endemic. The U.K. is doing the same. North Korea in turn seems to have failed on almost all counts. Leader Kim Jong Un, who insisted the country had zero cases, now admits a "grave" episode of quarantine negligence has created an unspecified crisis. The impoverished regime hasn't accepted any vaccines through the Covax program. It's unclear if anyone there is inoculated at all. That means it's one country where the fortress model could prove utterly disastrous. — Rosalind Mathieson

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