Coverage has focused far more on financial costs and Australians stranded overseas than lives saved. The country has lost 4243 people to Covid-19 out of a population of 26 million.
The head of Tourism Australia, Phillipa Harrison, said Australia has been "a little bit ridiculed" for its border closures and other rules and warned that could have an impact on its tourism recovery.
Australia, like New Zealand, has become synonymous with strictness in dealing with the coronavirus. It is a narrative that has taken hold, but is this image fair?
Both countries certainly made the most of their island borders and geographical isolation.
Australia has a death rate of 163 per million people from Covid-19 and New Zealand's is 11, according to the Worldometer website. Japan (154), South Korea (134), and Singapore (147) have also done well. Major countries with death rates over 2000 include the US, Brazil, France, the UK, Russia, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Greece.
Australia's closures of state borders and Auckland's lockdown fence have all drawn attention to Covid measures in this part of the world. It has made Australasia stick out in a pandemic that has been politicised around the world, even though other countries have also used tough requirements.
A time lag between when pandemic events such as variant surges and vaccine rollouts occurred overseas can give the impression other countries haven't also been stringent.
For instance, when New Zealand initially delayed reopening borders, Omicron was setting record case numbers overseas and vanquishing Delta. France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark are just now starting to ease restrictions but their Omicron waves began towards the end of last year.
On the Oxford Stringency Index, which tracks governments' coronavirus responses, neither Australia or New Zealand's ratings - 55.56 and 62.04 - are out of the ordinary. For instance, Canada, Italy, Greece, Germany and France are rated more stringent.
New Zealand has had vaccination mandates in sectors such as health, education, emergency services, police, and defence.
In Europe a variety of mandates target specific groups. Germany requires vaccination for the military, in Britain it is compulsory for nursing-home staff. Greece has ordered people aged 60-plus to have it and in Italy people over 50 can be fined if they aren't vaccinated. Austria requires most aged 18 and over to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
European countries have had extensive border and travel requirements. In December France temporarily banned travellers from Britain and Germany imposed quarantine on them. There has also been extensive use of vaccine passports. Ireland had a night-time curfew in December.
Several European countries have used outdoor mask mandates and required the wearing of specific types of high-quality masks. America's most populous county of Los Angeles has had a mask mandate for large outdoor events as well as for outdoor spaces at schools and childcare places - on top of indoor mask requirements.
Citizens in other countries have been confronted with huge death counts, infections and long Covid. That's family members and friends lost.
Kiwi expats have drawn attention to the shortcomings of MIQ, but a new poll shows most voters steady in their views on how the Government is performing.
Once most countries are reconnecting and the pandemic eases, the figures remaining for posterity will show how countries fared in health and overall economic terms.
