Is New Zealand Winning the War on Coronavirus?
With the help of extensive contact tracing detective work, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United States are managing their COVID-19 coronavirus outbreaks, while the United States continues to struggle with the pandemic. Meanwhile, New Zealand, which confirmed its first case on February 28, is poised to contain the outbreak before it even had a chance to spread. That is because of the early and decisive action taken across the country by its government.
The people of New Zealand will remain in the complete lockdown until April 27, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said, with restrictions easing if elimination progress is kept up.
New Zealand entered lockdown on 25 March, when there were fewer than 150 confirmed cases of the virus with no deaths. On March 19, this tourism-dependent nation completely shut its borders to international visitors, a move that was likely effective because it preceded community spread and took off locally.
“We have done what very few countries have been able to do. We have stopped a wave of devastation,” stated the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern.
“Our transmission rate, the number of cases each person with the virus passes it onto, is now 0.48, less than half a person each. Overseas, the average is 2.5 people. We have amongst the lowest number of confirmed cases per 100,000 people in the world.”
Epidemiologists working on New Zealand’s COVID-19 strategy urged the prime minister to continue the course and choose the conservative path, saying if the country came out of lockdown too early, months of good work would be lost.
New Zealand plans to keep strict social distancing measures in place for at least a full month, as indicated by Ardern. If current trends continue, that could put the country on pace to begin reopening its society sooner than the U.S. or Europe.
Source: www.theguardian.com