Oxford Uni's Prof John Bell cautions against comparing UK/NZ Covid management strategies: "The UK is not New Zealand, they've got quite a lot of sheep ... and they're a million miles from anywhere ... its a lot easier to put up border controls."

Prof Bell on trying to eliminate COVID-19: there is NO respiratory virus that we can eliminate through herd immunity.

"It's the world we live in and we're going to have to live with that."

Prof Bell asked about NZ comparison: "Have you flown into Auckland? have you ever flown into Heathrow? You're in a completely different world."

He points to China as bigger places able to do it but cautions against making 'retrospective' judgements.

He says the UK can't be compared to New Zealand and Australia, acknowledges there could be some border measures but says elimination has not worked in NZ either, pointing to lockdown last week.

Prof Bell says he doesn't think anyone is going to have zero Covid.
He points to Rwanda and India as two countries where Covid should have thrived but hasn't. He says eg Vietnam's low death rate doesn't mean it has done something better than others.

He says Vietnam's geographical closeness to bats means their population could have better resistance to coronaviruses.

He says no doubt UK could have done things better but that country comparisons are not useful because there are too many unknowns relating to Covid-19.