New Zealand abandons zero COVID-19 strategy coronavirus | dw

“Elimination was important because we didn’t have vaccines. Now we do, so we can start to change the way we do things. We have more options and we have good reason to be optimistic about the future, but We can’t rush,” the Prime Minister at a press conference this Monday (4.10.2021).

Ardern stressed that, despite this change, it is necessary to “contain and control the virus as much as possible” for this infection in which vaccines are added to restrictions to guarantee public health.

“Vaccines mean that in the future we will be able to do things differently, but even so, our strategy remains: as long as cases continue, we want to control the virus, eliminate cases.” And want to prevent hospitalization. With vaccines, we have more options.” , he indicated.

It is the first time that the New Zealand government has publicly acknowledged that it is abandoning its strategy of complete eradication of the coronavirus, which it recognized as the most successful country in the fight against the pandemic with 4,352 infections and 27 deaths Is. So far.

However, officials have been unable to control the outbreak, which has affected the city of Auckland since August, the worst since the start of the pandemic with 1,314 infections, 29 of them in the city this Monday for seven weeks. Despite rigorous imprisonment. ,

The president announced that restrictions in the city would be eased in phases, allowing groups of up to 10 people from two separate households to meet on the street from midnight on Tuesday and reopening early childhood centers. Education.

Ardern announced that strict confinement could end when 90 percent of the vaccinated population had a complete diet, a figure still far away in a country where only 46 percent of people over the age of 12 took both doses. and 76 percent had at least one hundred people.

RML (EFE, DPA)