New Zealand has eradicated the Coronavirus completely after the health official reported about the last patient’s recovery on Monday.
It has been seventeen days since the last coronavirus patient was reported and Monday also marked the first time since February that there have been no active cases in New Zealand.
Health officials have alerted about the new cases that can be transmitted from citizens coming from abroad. New Zealand has closed it’s borders to everybody except it’s own citizens with some rules to be followed.
Experts say its location in the South Pacific isolated from the countries has helped in providing important time to perceive how the outbreaks proliferate in other countries and by the 7-week strict lockdown imposed by Jacinda Arden, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, in the early outbreaks. Both of these factors have provided help to obstruct the spread of the disease.
Just over 1500 people were affected and 22 died by the virus. The country has worked on the strategy of aiming to not control the virus but ‘eliminate it altogether.’ Elimination did not mean eradicating the virus permanently from New Zealand, but eliminating “chains of transmission” for at least 28 consecutive days after the last infected person left isolation, which would be on June 15, the ministry said.
“We united in unprecedented ways to crush the virus,” Ardern said at a press conference in Wellington. “Our goal was to move out the other side as quickly and as safely as we could. We now have a head-start on our economic recovery.”
Asked about her reaction upon hearing the news, she replied: “I did a little dance” with baby daughter Neve.
“She was caught a little by surprise but she joined in, having absolutely no idea why I was dancing around the lounge.”
After the seven weeks strict lockdown in which only essential workers were allowed to move out, New Zealand has lifted all domestic restrictions coming from Level 2 Alert to Level 1 Alert, the lowest rating on its four tiers virus elimination response system. The economy of New Zealand was no doubt greatly affected by the lockdown imposed however the upliftment would be easy with complete eradication and opening up all the services with no danger as opposed to other countries that didn’t impose Lockdown.
Source- Reuters
Cover Image- Time Magazine.
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