A previous poster wants to be like America in starting to open up. Except that we're not like them. We didn't take the suppression and containment measures they did.
I had to explain to my friend in Florida what track and trace is after I mentioned being hounded 3 times in Costa. Having worked in Panera for the last year, she was genuinely amused. And then sympathetic. And then a bit... what's the word you like to use again... no, she was never actually horrified because she's not a loon.
Schools closed for a year
Not true. Many states used a levels system to dictate if fully open / hybrid / home. There is also the anecdotal evidence that all three of my colleague's children were in structured lessons with teachers, being taught, all day, all week, when they were home, allowing parents to continue to work as close to full time as possible. This was certainly not the case with my school where we were given a worksheet and expected to teach our own children with one mass drop in teams session a day, at most. I for one perhaps wouldn't have been calling for schools to reopen if it was clear children were actually getting an education and parents at least had the opportunity to work. Daycare was open full time in many states after the initial stay at home orders were lifted.
Masks worn outside
Hmmm... not really though? Even when it was mandated by states in areas of rising cases there were exceptions. It wasn't until Biden was elected that masks were mandated federally (on public transport).
Borders shut to high risk countries like the UK.
Their policy is arguably better than the UK which exempts almost all business travel from tracing and quarantine, yes, but you can go to the US Department of State website and see the list of exemptions. Immigrants, fiancés, students, academics, journalists, those providing support to critical infrastructure or supply chain or significant economic activity, those providing care for a US citizen, amongst others, and family members accompanying for any of those reasons. One of the few differences is the UK has a blanket exemption for "anyone who regularly travels for work".
As you might have gathered from my post, the United States is indeed made up of different states, each of them with their own governments, so it's almost impossible for these blanket statements to resemble fact.
Kind of like how the United Kingdom is made up of four countries, three of them with their own elected governments, so it's almost impossible for blanket statements like "We're an island nation" to be in any way helpful in discussions surrounding Zero Covid in comparison with New Zealand.
They're not laughing at us btw. Laughing, no. Horrified, yes.
Which is fair enough as we're all entitled to an opinion, but a friendly word of warning that nearly all of my American friends (Democrats) have gone from wishing they were in a European country at the start to thankful they're in America now. And not because they are horrified by death rates or anything, they're glad they've got their lives back and have had the most important aspects of their lives back for some time. There is still time for your horrified friends, who are going to have to open up eventually, to change their minds.