Pakistan News & Features Services
New Zealand, one of the most disciplined nations on earth, has made the welcome announcement of having eliminated coronavirus (COVID-19) from the country as the restrictions have been eased from level four to level three with new cases down to single figures.
The level three ruling went into effect on April 28, which allowed businesses to partially reopen with some restrictions, including requiring physical distancing of two meters outside of home.
New Zealand's Director General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, had declared on April 27 that with just one new case, four probable cases and one new death they had the confidence of having achieved their goal of elimination.
"Our goal is elimination. And again, that doesn't mean eradication but it means we get down to a small number of cases so that we are able to stamp out any cases and any outbreak that might come out," he added.
New Zealand's popular Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, however, warned that the country needed to remain alert even though coronavirus was currently eliminated.
"So as we have said elimination means we may well reach zero but we may well then have small numbers of cases coming up again, that doesn't mean we have failed, it just means that we are in the position to have that zero tolerance approach to have a very aggressive management of those cases and keep those numbers low and fading out again," she remarked.
"It's been nearly five weeks living and working in ways that just two months ago would have been impossible. But we did. And we have done it together," the Prime Minister observed while praising the efforts of New Zealanders.
