I'd say a number of things made it inevitable, it was only a question of when.
Timing factors:
Vaccines changed the equation.
They had a plan they were happy to show off but Delta pissed on it a bit.
They are now heading towards seasons that arent winter.
Australia revealed their exit strategy.
The situation in some parts of New Zealand dragged on for longer than what they were able to get away with effectively earlier in the pandemic.
They actually diverged away from their original approach earlier in September, but misleadingly claimed they hadnt abandoned the goal of stamping out the outbreak entirely, even though it was reasonable to conclude they had. (
‘Calculated risk’: Ardern gambles as New Zealand Covid restrictions eased )
The opposition revealed their alternative strategy just a few days ago (
‘Clearly not working’: How New Zealand’s consensus on striving for Covid zero is finally cracking )
I will judge them by how well they handle the next few stages and what sort of levvels of hospitalisation and death result. Minorities and the vulnerable tend to get fucked over at this phase of the pandemic response in all countries, and things will have an uncomfortable feeling in New Zealand because their extremely low number of deaths so far is expected to be dwarfed by what will come in the vaccine era. There are a lot of things they will need to do right now in order to reduce that to whatever an acceptable level is deemed to be. We'll have a fresh chance to judge their establishment and how much of a shit they really give. No reason to expect them to live up to zero covid idealists sense of balance in this pandemic, bit I'd hope they still manage to make the UK establishments 'cant be bothered' approach in so many areas look bad.
It is a shame that public announcements and fanfare about their exit plan couldnt have been neatly timed to work with appropriate vaccination milestones. But then again the plans are on paper at least still supposed to be linked to vaccinated population percentages, and part of the story may be other political and journalistic forces simply making the most of such timing by taking the opportunity to pretend other forces are in the driving seat and dictating the pace of change. Take one of those Guardian headlines as an example, "finally cracking".
But then I've probably ended up playing my own role in this stupid dance of using New Zealand to make broader pandemic political points, in my case usually in response to others using it in this way first. New Zealand and zero covid approach embarrassed those responsible for some other approaches and the resulting amount of death, even when the zero covid ambitions were temporary. One way to reduce that embarrassment about our priorities was apparently to go on the attack at every opportunity, writing stuff in the press that makes zero covid sound like a disease more worthy of eradication than covid itself. And of course I always felt the need to get gobby in opposition to such attacks. Hopefully I managed to show suitable admiration for zero covid ambitions whilst acknowledging various limitations, very much including its temporary nature, not sure I know of anyone who thought it would be sustained too far into the vaccination era. I'm sure there are people here who thought I went too far when talking about zero covid and what countries like the UK could or should have done, and I can understand why. But I dont feel bad about my stance because hopefully I made it clear that its about ambition and actually bothering to try to do as much as possible during the acute phases of a pandemic when there are few alternatives. Where all the options have downsides so at least start with the ones that involve the least death. That phase doesnt last forever, and if it drags on long enough in terms of the fundamentals then its inevitable people will pretend otherwise. ie I wanted us to do more and be more cautious but I am something of a realist about timescales I hope. I never expected that I'd be stuck to the same pandemic stance for too many years in a row, I know that people feel the need to move on and other parts of the balancing act grow heavier over time. Ideally the immunity/susceptibility picture moves at about the same pace as peoples attitudes to the virus, but its probably asking a bit much for these things to be perfectly in sync. And so the exit phases tend to be a bit messy and give me various reasons to moan. But move on we will, and even if I lag behind that a bit I will still be moving too.
