The article says there was no secret sauce, which isn't quite right. Some factors that played a role:
- Australia had had an unusually bad fire season and an associated scandal about the government response: our PM was on holiday in Hawaii while an unprecedented area of land was burning. The framework for state/federal cooperation on disaster management was being revised right as 2020 started, and there was political will for strong measures, such as ignoring WHO recommendations to let international borders stay open.
- Victoria had strong state of emergency/disaster powers, including the right to impose movement restrictions, and clear conditions and precedent for imposing them.
- The states had the power to close their borders, and did so, isolating the second wave to one state. Victoria was the odd one out - the other states set the bar at near-total suppression.
- The lockdown really, really sucked. The Victorian state government relied heavily on the support of the federal government, support from the general populace, and federal spending on income supplements. They still came under enormous pressure to end the lockdown early, even with more federal and individual support than states in the US would have gotten.
They went into EXTREMELY hard lockdown for 6-8 weeks, and now they haven't had a single case in four weeks.
https://www.vox.com/2020/12/4/22151242/melbourne-victoria-au...