New Zealand stops ‘Zero Covid’ | Abroad

New Zealand managed to temporarily reduce the number of corona cases to zero in the past year. But an outbreak of the extra contagious Delta variant threw a spanner in the works in August.

“With this outbreak and the Delta variant, it is incredibly difficult to go back to zero,” Ardern said at a news conference. “This is a change in approach that we’ve always wanted to make over time. However, the Delta outbreak has accelerated this transition.”

In recent weeks there had been much criticism from the opposition for sticking to the containment strategy, which has also been used in countries such as China, Singapore and Taiwan.

Zero Covid

There is much international division about the idea of ​​’Zero Covid’ because states such as Australia and New Zealand would use it to legitimize extensive control measures. For example, in some Australian states it is now common practice that those traveling between different areas must then be quarantined, and can be called up at any time to take a selfie at home, with facial recognition technology being linked to location. At the same time, the model resulted in intensive, but shorter, lockdowns, and there is hardly any corona because it is immediately, and hard, crushed. As a result, care never collapsed.

On Monday, 29 new corona cases were reported. The majority of cases occur in Auckland, which has been in lockdown for almost 50 days because the country takes drastic measures in the case of the smallest outbreak. This is now gradually being phased out. The current vaccination campaign should support the new strategy, Ardern emphasized. According to the government website, 67 percent of people in New Zealand over the age of 12 have had one shot so far. 40 percent are fully vaccinated.

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