New Zealand is Covid Free!

[KenDodd]

Well done JA!
This is such good news! I bet if JA had been in charge of China this disease would never have escaped the country and would now be in the bin of history. Well... hopefully.
I'm in the UK I want better leadership.

With all the caveats around their population size, land mass etc etc, this is a really great achievement. They locked down early and rigourously, they didn’t ease restrictions even when the virus numbers were very low, they had a target and they achieved it.

Kiwis are having lots of fun with their memes right now

Forgive me for asking the obvious, but how are they proposing to keep it that way?
Don't get me wrong, I really admire JA and her leadership seems to go from strength to strength, but I wonder how the covid status can be sustainable?

@WomanIsTaken

Forgive me for asking the obvious, but how are they proposing to keep it that way? Don't get me wrong, I really admire JA and her leadership seems to go from strength to strength, but I wonder how the covid status can be sustainable?

They’re going to do away with quarantine for arrivals, and replace it with mandatory covid testing at the airport and then another follow-up test later on.

Good for them. I like her a lot but she had an easier job in many ways. They aren’t a global hub country.

Their problem will be how to open up. You assume at some point they’ll need to start letting people in & then I imagine it’ll get back in. This isn’t going anywhere fast due to the incompetent leaders in other countries, so do they stay shut for 6 months? A year? Longer? I guess if a vaccine comes about this year, that’ll help!

Our border restrictions and quarantine will be with us for a long time to come. But it's going to be nice to be somewhat back to normal!

Good for them. It’s much different to us as they aren’t a global hub. But they’ve done a great job. I’m so angry how we’ve handled things here. Lack of PPE, crap track and trace and a late and non proper lockdown.

Not comparable to us unfortuantley.

My brother emigrated just before all this started and my mum is desperate to visit, I cannot see how they are going to be able to lift restrictions and remain covid free.

OK but NZ population is smaller than Yorkshire spread across a country bigger than the UK, comparing it to China is a bit daft

@greygardens it’s not about population density. It’s about how quickly they acted (in contrast to China).

For an outbreak to be declared over, 2 times the length of the incubation period from the last recovery has to pass without any new cases.

So if they still have no new cases by 29th June they can say they are covid free.

Great for NZ but I'm not sure that I'd stretch to JA being able to stop covid19 from spreading globally! NZ is a small country with low population density. As with all over the world the burden for lockdown in NZ hadn't been shared equally - I know a few kiwi small business owners who have had to go into debt in regions that didn't have any cases. They've all said they can't afford to go into lockdown again so if there is no vaccine they will be run out of business if Covid comes back.

For those asking how we’ll keep it out, I think everyone is expecting this ‘covid free’ status to be temporary. There’s obviously a high chance it’ll come back once the borders reopen in 6-12 months. But the idea is we’ve got it under control and will be able to keep it fairly controlled when it does come back. I think.

I just hope we still have a labour government in at that time, it being an election year... I wouldn’t want anyone else but Jacinda handling things when it makes a reappearance

they aren't a global hub country
^this
Being a global hub used to be an advantage, but what made us wealthy has also made us sick 😳

It is excellent news and hopefully we will stay Covid free. NZ got cases after many other countries so were able to see just how bad the outcome could be if it spread. The health service here would have collapsed under a large number of cases and one of the first priorities was to protect the health care professionals.

I suppose the border will be opened slowly and visitors from some countries allowed or not allowed in, depending on their number of cases. It has had a huge effect on the economy with job losses being announced every day.

There were articles in the press at the weekend suggesting that patient zero arrived back in the U.K. on 6 January. I had two (otherwise fit and healthy 40something) colleagues who became seriously ill at the beginning of January with a strange virus that caused pneumonia. Also, I had to complete a survey when my son had a random Covid-19 test and it asked for symptoms since November 2019. We were never going to be able to eradicate it. I strongly believe that it was widespread in the U.K. before we even knew it existed.