New Zealand abandons lockdown strategy due to pandemic

From next December 3, people will follow a system of color codes that determine the level of risk according to regions.

• Appearance of the reporter A year and a half locked up in Australia and New Zealand: “We have to get out and live”

Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinta OrtonThe country announced this Monday that it will switch to a new system for managing Covid-19 from December 3, thus abandoning the prevention strategy against the pandemic.

Since that date, more than 5 million people in New Zealand have followed suit Color code systemLike a traffic light that determines the level of Covid-19 risk, if the country’s health regions provide a complete schedule of vaccinations to 90 percent of their target population.

“Setting the date gives people, communities and businesses time to prepare for a safe and smooth transition to the new traffic light system,” Ardern said at a news conference in Wellington, referring to the new system.

All regions will move to mbar level, while the city of Auckland, which has been in lockdown for almost a hundred days, is expected to reach the 90 per cent vaccination target, and will be governed by code red (highest alert). Under Code Red, which deems the virus threatening to overwhelm the health system, hospitality businesses must show their customers vaccination certificates and can open with capacity restrictions, while those who don’t request them must operate without doing so. with people.

Likewise, health officials are allowing face-to-face classes to be taught at this maximum alert level, although social distancing measures and the use of masks will prevent unvaccinated people from going to restaurants, gyms and social gatherings. More than ten participants..

With the mbar system, businesses can operate freely with vaccination certificates, while with the green system, immunized and unimmunized individuals have freedom of assembly and movement.

Health director-general Ashley Bloomfield said she was comfortable The most significant adjustment in policy against Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. “You could tell we’d come into this stage in great shape,” Bloomfield said.

“We’ve got the outbreak under control, summer is coming and we have high and growing vaccination rates,” he added.

Similarly, between December 15 and January 17, nearly 1.7 million people living in New Zealand’s most populous city, Auckland, can travel across the national territory if they are vaccinated or have a negative result in a 72-hour PCR test. Before. New Zealand, which has vaccinated 83 percent of its target population, has accumulated about 10,200 infections since the outbreak began, including 4,640 active cases and 40 deaths.

Ardern government – this It has kept its borders closed since March 2020. Apart from non-quarantine travel bubbles with Australia and some Pacific countries – this will strictly limit people with a few Covid-19 cases.