How lethal would it have to be that you would accept to act against the pandemic? And not only the lethality, but long-term damages the infection can cause to the survivors. Even worse, the time how long the antibodies remain in the body is unclear and the fact that the virus can mutate are making it possible for the virus to continue circulating for a long time. Just like with influenza virus.
There are countries which had acted more swiftly and have managed so far with far less infections and deaths. Short, temporary actions tend to extend if they have been too slow or have been ignored.
But you can be angry at the government if you want. Most of those who are angry at the government now are always angry at the government.
This does not bear out. Look at Italy, the first country in Europe to lockdown and harder than elsewhere yet the rates soared.
New Zealand, cut themselves off from the rest of the world (easy being surrounded by water) and after a time proudly announced they had defeated the virus, with no further infections or deaths. And then a couple of weeks later, it started again.
In the long term, lockdowns are ineffective and destroy the infrastructure that provide the goods and services we need.
Lockdowns cannot be indefinite.
As for facts, the numbers tell the story, while cases of infection are on the rise again, death rates are not matching this.
You can explore the statistics worldwide from these charts.
https://mackuba.eu/corona/#compare_countries?val=d&c=us-ny,us-ca,us-tx,us-fl,us-nj,us-il,us-az,us-ma,us-ga,us-pa
@krnel also raises very valid points, the government rules are ad hoc.
The issue with Italy is that they ignored safety measures and pretty much continued as normal.
I'm not sure why you're bringing New Zealand as an example. They cut themselves off the rest of the world and now they have cases again, just as you said. But in entire New Zealand it's been zero or few new cases per day. They don't have new cases even daily. And as the spread is extremely minimal, they need only minimal restrictive actions. Lockdowns aren't meant to last for long, but if the worse the situation is, the longer lockdown might be needed.
You can see the statistics here:
https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-current-situation/covid-19-current-cases
And not sure about that valid point. When you're in a restaurant, you're passing multiple people in a closed area. When you sit down, you most likely don't move as much anymore. Larger groups of people, especially indoors and/or in close proximity, have higher risk for easy spread of the virus. Being outdoors and having space between people helps. It's not magic, even if it might seem like it.
And anyways those are only details. If the specific actions are the problem, you can criticize them, but complaining about all actions makes no sense.
The valid point is this, in an enclosed space (restaurant) there is a higher chance of catching (any) infection. So one enters the restaurant with a mask, yet once seated the masks are removed. Most restaurants have air conditioning which recycles the air. So the "precautions" are ineffective.
Then when this is compared to mass demonstrations such as the recent BLM, where no social distancing was followed, few people if any wore face masks, the authorities did nothing to enforce their own rules about public gatherings.
All the while, every public event since March until September is cancelled.
There is no consistency to the enforcement of the rules.
No, Italy did not continue as normal. As stated, they were the first EU country to go into full lock down. The dramatic rise in cases there was because the industrial North of Italy was exchanging many people with China on business / work grounds. The high death rate was because there was a large number of aged care homes there.
Why New Zealand was mentioned, as stated above, the lockdown and isolation has proven ineffective because there is a further outbreak.
Define the duration of "aren't meant to last for long". Define longer lockdown.
The initial lockdown has already seen many people lose jobs and businesses close. Governments are already handing out rescue packages to keep things afloat. How long do you think this is possible to sustain before things really break down?
Even at the very start of the lockdown, Austria had to put out an emergency call for people to work on farms to plant and reap the first harvests of the year, because they are normally reliant upon itinerant workers from poorer EU countries to the East and South to do the work.
Food and products don't just magically appear on the shelves. It becomes a chain reaction that flows onto the rest of society and the nation as a whole.
I'm picking few points there as I'm losing my interest.
Italy did continue like normal quite long. First there were limited or no instructions and when instructions were given, they were quite strongly ignored at first. One of the issues is that even medical staff had limited instructions and the virus had easy to spread in hospitals and people who had been infected in hospitals spread the virus among their family and other people. The lockdown was enforced in a situation the virus had already spread, so it wasn't as effective as it could have been.
Also, are you pretending that the "further outbreak" in New Zealand is as serious as if they hadn't enforced a lockdown? Their "new outbreak" is 0-3 new cases per day. If they hadn't had a lockdown, the numbers wouldn't be even close that low.
You have an interesting way to see things if you are more worried about some businesses crashing, but you're OK with people dying and their health being permanently damaged. How do you assume someone can run a business if they're dead?