[Reporter] Less than two weeks ago
Australian authorities moved fast to clamp down.
Curfews imposed.
Beaches, streets, stores emptied in the city of Adelaide.
Everyone ordered to lock down at home.
All this after nine people tested positive.
Just nine.
[Man] It makes sense doesn't it?
You know what I mean?
We don't want to end up like other parts of the world.
[Reporter] Australia has been extremely serious
about its lockdowns.
When the second wave hit in the summer
authorities didn't pause.
Nearly every business in Melbourne was forced to close.
There are limits on how many people
can return to the country
and when they do, mandatory quarantine hotels
guarded by soldiers.
Police checkpoints to ensure no one was ever more than
25 kilometres from home.
And $1,300 fines readily handed out
to the rule-breakers.
Politicians didn't mess around.
They're not rules that are against you.
They are rules for you.
Your safety, your job
your community, your family your state.
There is no second chance to stop a second wave.
[Reporter] You're there in Australia.
I'm here in Canada.
What's the big difference?
Well we're doing much better.
That's the the obvious difference.
It's one of the few places in the world
that's actually managed to suppress a real second wave
and that was because
we had one of the world's longest lockdowns.
[Reporter] Canadian Dr. Nancy Baxter moved to Melbourne
just before COVID closed nearly everything.
She heads the University of Melbourne's
School of Population and Global Health.
Are you in a cabin?
[Reporter] I am in a cabin.
Yeah, it's a good question.
So I was in the United States on an assignment
and as you know when you return to Canada
you have to do two weeks of quarantine
which I am doing in a cabin in the woods
very alone.
So you and I might talk for nine hours
just for my companionship.
[Reporter] Jokes aside, Dr. Baxter has family in Canada.
Hi, mom how are you?
[Reporter] And she's worried about home.
Hearing what's happened in Ontario
it's pretty shocking.
So they just kind of have changed the policy
to just basically admit defeat
and say they're going to let the epidemic just
run wild in Ontario.
[Reporter] But I mean that's a pretty big thing to say.
Politically it's hard to try to shut down your entire economy.
That's cost jobs in Australia.
It's cost jobs here in Canada.
What has been the priority in Australia?
You can't have a well-functioning economy
with a raging pandemic.
It's not an economy versus lives.
Today some 16,200 retail stores
5,800 cafes and restaurants
and about a thousand beauty salons
and 800 pubs
can reopen their doors.
[Reporter] After three months of a second lockdown
Melbourne is emerging gradually.
Restaurants reopening.
Stores too, and COVID cases
remarkably they're at or near zero nationwide.
But a million jobs have been lost.
Thousands of businesses too.
I think clearly we've done you know better
and we've gone about it the right way
going for the aggressive suppression to zero.
But on the other hand
I don't own a bar that's gone under.
[Reporter] Jason Dutton is another Canadian
living in Melbourne.
Glad to be back outdoors again
albeit wearing a mask
as he says everyone did for months
no questions asked.
[Jason] When the government came out
you know they mandated masks
the first week of August
and there was about 20 seconds of complaining
and then everybody emerged
with like a mask that matched their shirt.
[Reporter] And Jason says there isn't much appetite
for political waffling over what measures to take
or how quickly.
When his state saw growth five times less
than where many Canadian provinces are now
politicians simply locked everything down.
There has been this kind of push-pull in Canada
between locking down to control the virus
and still allowing the economy to exist, to thrive
as much as possible
and that's meant that there hasn't necessarily been
a public push to drive COVID numbers to zero
just to get them to a manageable level.
What's the message been in Australia?
The unofficial policy which has clearly been followed
has been elimination
because Australia is unique in that
we can really control who comes in and out of the country.
[Reporter] Australia certainly has geographic advantages
but those alone don't explain
how it is now one of the few countries in the world
and one with many similarities to Canada
to virtually eliminate COVID
through nearly draconian measures.
David Common, CBC News Plevna, Ontario.