New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that her country is “currently” seeing success in its fight against the community transmission of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
This as tough lockdown restrictions on commercial centers as well as a number of schools are scheduled to ease on Monday night, reported the Guardian.
The transmission rate in New Zealand is now under 0.4, compared to the average overseas transmission rate of 2.5.
With this, Ardern said they have “avoided the worst” in the pandemic. However, she stressed that the fight continues.
“There is no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand. We have won that battle. But we must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way,” she said.
Adern is expected to downgrade level-4 lockdown one scale lower, but she warned citizens that there are perceived new risks in level 3 such as people coming into more contact with others.
“To succeed we must hunt down the last few cases of the virus,” said Ardern. “This is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Schools across the country are slated to reopen on Wednesday for children up to Year 10 who cannot study from home, or whose parents need to return to work.
One million New Zealanders will also return to work on Tuesday, as per authorities estimate.
