Abstract
Background: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, some countries in the Asia-Pacific Region used very intensive control measures, and one of these, New Zealand (NZ), adopted a clear " elimination strategy ". We therefore aimed to compare key health and economic outcomes of NZ relative to OECD countries as of mid-June 2021. Methods: This analysis compared health outcomes (cumulative death rates from COVID-19 and " excess death " rates) and economic measures (quarterly GDP and unemployment levels) across OECD countries. Results: NZ had the lowest cumulative COVID-19 death rate in the OECD at 242 times lower than the 38-OECD-country average: 5·2 vs 1256 per million population. When considering " excess deaths " , NZ had the largest negative value in the OECD, equivalent to around 2000 fewer deaths than expected. When considering the average GDP change over the five quarters of 2020 to 2021-Q1, NZ was the sixth best performer (at 0·5% vs-0·3% for the OECD average). The increase in unemployment in NZ was also less than the OECD average (1·1 percentage points to a peak of 5·2%, vs 3·3 points to 8·6%, respectively). Conclusions: New Zealand's elimination strategy response to COVID-19 produced the best mortality protection outcomes in the OECD. In economic terms it also performed better than the OECD average in terms of adverse impacts on GDP and employment. Nevertheless, a fuller accounting of the benefits and costs needs to be done once the population is vaccinated and longer-term health and economic outcomes are considered.