I've been mulling that over as all this has been going on, and I wonder if it's more of an island mentality.

I only have Hawaii to compare with here in the states, and while they are far less, let's say draconian, than Aus, NZ and the others, all of them have similar tactics to approaching this situation. That being lock everything down until it burns out on the island. But the folly is thinking that you can ever have external travel or trade again because they'll just reintroduce it.