But it won't be "ready" for at least 6-9 more months, if it's ever "ready" at all. No vaccine exists for any other coronavirus. And when it's "ready" you won't know if it's safer than the virus itself, since there wasn't time to conduct large-scale, long-duration safety studies.

I mean, sure it's nice to be able to shut down borders for a year and a half, but you must see how this is not a realistic option for most other countries, including Sweden, so it's not really a valid comparison in the first place.

> this is not a realistic option for most other countries, including Sweden

It is also a question of how much economic cost a country is willing to incur. Trucks can swap trailers/tractors at borders so drivers never cross border. International Tourism can be completely shutdown. Borders of some countries could be closed by the army, incurring personal costs to anyone that normally would cross the border regularly.

Tourism in New Zealand contributed 6% of the country's GDP and supported 8% of New Zealand's workforce. Most of that was international so has dropped radically, and there are other economic costs to NZ on top of that. There are also the personal costs of families that are split between countries and people that can’t get to important life events like weddings or funerals etc.

NZ has decided that the economic costs are worth the gains of avoiding 2500 early deaths (expected 10yr decrease in lifetime for each) and x0000 long-term health problems. I don’t know if the gains are worth the costs, but I am pleased we have given ourselves time and avoided making a rash decision to incur those costs.