CORONAVIRUS ‘CURRENTLY ELIMINATED’ IN NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand says it has
stopped community transmission of Covid-19, effectively eliminating the virus.
With new cases in
single figures for several days – one on Sunday – Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
said the virus was “currently” eliminated.
But officials have
warned against complacency, saying it does not mean a total end to new
coronavirus cases.
The news comes hours
before New Zealand moves out of its toughest level of social restrictions.
From Tuesday, some
non-essential business, healthcare and education activity will be able to
resume.
Most people will
still be required to remain at home at all times and avoid all social
interactions.
“We are opening
up the economy, but we’re not opening up people’s social lives,” Ms Ardern
said at the daily government briefing.
New Zealand has
reported fewer than 1,500 confirmed or probable cases of coronavirus and 19
deaths.
‘Avoided the worst’
New Zealand’s
Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the low number of new cases
in recent days “does give us confidence that we have achieved our goal of
elimination”.
He warned that
“elimination” did not mean there would be no new cases, “but it
does mean we know where our cases are coming from”.
Ms Ardern said there
was “no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand”,
adding: “We have won that battle.”
But she said the
country “must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way”.
New Zealand brought
in very tough restrictions on travel and activity early on in the pandemic,
when it only had a few dozen cases.
It closed its
borders, started enforcing quarantine of all arrivals in the country, brought
in a stringent lockdown and mounted an extensive testing and contact tracing
operation.
Ms Ardern said
modelling indicated New Zealand could have had more than 1,000 cases a day if
it had not brought in the lockdown so early.
She said the country
could never know how bad it would have been, but that “through our
cumulative actions we have avoided the worst”.
At midnight local
time (12:00 GMT on Monday), New Zealand will move from Level Four lockdown to
Level Three. That means most businesses will be able to reopen – including
restaurants for takeaways – but not those in involving face-to-face contact.
New Zealanders are
being told to stick to their “bubble” – a small group of close
friends or family – and to stay 2m (6ft) away from people.
Mass gatherings are
still banned, shopping centres remain closed and most children will remain away
from school. New Zealand’s border will remain closed.
