NZ has been dangerous to visit for a long time. Not because you might catch Covid - all Americans have had access to the vaccine since last spring - but because you might get detained for weeks for having had Covid, or worse, for just having been in the same building as someone who had Covid.
NZ saved a lot of lives but only at the expense of trampling on people's civil liberties to the extreme. I understand that for some, their path was the right one. But to me, Patrick Henry's speech still rings true.
Last but not least, it's important to realize for a country with land borders, in order to achieve zero-Covid, we would have had to implement Chinese-style restrictions. NZ's approach, which was authoritarian but much more laid back than China, only worked because they are two islands of 4 million people. We would have needed the even more overbearing Chinese tactics.