Australia’s elimination strategy during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most effective in the world.

Through a combination of early border closures, widespread testing and meticulous contact-tracing, localised lockdowns and mask mandates, the number of reported cases was kept at around 28,000 in 2020.

This compared with 805,000 in 2020 in the Netherlands, which has a population nine million fewer than Australia.

In 2021, Australia recorded 402,000 cases. The increase was largely due to the Delta outbreak in the second half of the year.