I guess the frustration from my point of view is that leaders were running around spruiking "suppression, suppression, suppression" from March until mid-July but what did that mean? 10 cases a day, 50?, contact tracing and localised lockdowns? No-one in the broader community had any idea what that actually looked like until it was explicitly stated a couple of weeks ago. That's the first time I ever heard the phrase "zero-community transmission" and, like many of us, I've been following this pretty closely. I don't have any particular problem if eradication is the goal but the government should have made clear to the public early that its stated goal of "suppression", really meant eradication.
We may well have been there in early June with several days of zero cases reported in all states and territories, but systemic failures brought us undone. Worryingly, it means that everything needs to be perfect from here on. Harsh lessons have been learnt in relation to hotel quarantine. New Zealand fortunately dodged a couple of bullets in that area of vulnerability too. If the public are not on board, for example, if 15% of positive cases are still failing to self-isolate as evidenced by door-knocking in Victoria last week, then we are in for a very difficult time indeed.