Covid 19 coronavirus: Kiwi's response to people saying NZ beat Covid-19 because it's 'a small island'

When Wendy Lester woke up this morning, she didn't expect to go viral on Twitter - but that seems to be what's happening.

After seeing many people from other countries attempting to dismiss New Zealand's Covid-19 success, Lester decided to use an image to dismistify the idea that we are a "tiny island".

"Good morning from New Zealand. Here's one for all of you 'tiny island' people who keep jumping into my timelines," she posted, alongside an image she found online of the New Zealand map juxtaposed over a map of Europe.

The image shows that the "tiny island" is actually a long country that spans from the top of Denmark to almost the south of France.

The visual representation of how New Zealand's land mass compares to Europe brings home the size of the country that many dismiss as "tiny".

Lester told the Herald she thought it was funny that she didn't even mention Covid-19 in her tweet but everyone seemed to interpret it the same way.

The tweet had nearly 1000 likes in less than four hours and continues to spread.

It also generated quite a few discussions on land mass comparisons with other Covid-19 affected countries and states, as well as discussions on population size and density.

Wendy, I got tired of the "maroons" who were saying "of course NZ is ahead of the curve to deal with the pandemic...you're so SMALL." Colorado is about the same size, and has nearly the same population. Below is a current comparison (COVID19 figures from 15/06/20) pic.twitter.com/LdnlegwDCs

— Shamanator (@Shamanator) June 14, 2020

My fav comparison is "oh you have a small population of 5 million"

Me: pic.twitter.com/4gTaFq6Kp8

— David Smiler feat. Artemicion "Beeps" the Cat (@DavidSmilerXII) June 14, 2020

So sick of those comments, it is trying to negate that we all went through lockdown. Just because they perceive us as small, that doesn't change that we isolated for 7 weeks.

— Jacob Marley (@marley_jacob) June 14, 2020

The same image had been used on Twitter in August 2019 by former Prime Minister Helen Clark, long before Covid-19 hit the country, also to make the argument that New Zealand is not as small as people think it is.

New Zealand sometimes is thought of as a small country, so it's interesting to see juxtaposed on a map of Europe. This shows its length from the north of the North Island to Stewart Is comparable to the disatnce from north of Copenhagen to southern France & maybe a bit below! pic.twitter.com/NpLsn5wWJD

— Helen Clark (@HelenClarkNZ) August 4, 2019