Here’s a wonderful article which was in the Spinoff from a New Zealander studying there.
It was fashionable, for a time, for some people who were baulking against our lock down to say “why aren’t we like Sweden”? Well here is a graph which shows why:
New Zealand is the Blue. Sweden is yellow.
I really like the author’s final paragraph:
The few Swedes that I’ve spoken to are all of the opinion that the rest of the world has gone a bit mad. Back at home my friends are overwhelmingly in favour of the government’s zero-tolerance policy towards avoidable death and bereavement. What’s interesting to me, torn as I am between the two worlds, is how both here and there, the majority seem to believe that the approach their society is taking is the right one. For myself, I am doing my best to withhold judgement, while still feeling prouder than ever to be a New Zealander.
Leave a Reply