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Medicine

With No New Cases in 17 Days, New Zealand is Now Covid-19-Free (stuff.co.nz) 209

Long-time Slashdot reader heretic108 writes: Following its "go early and go hard" lockdown regime, New Zealand's active COVID-19 case count has now reached zero. Stringent border quarantine rules remain in place, however, and New Zealand is just now starting to count the economic cost.
New Zealand has now marked 17 days in a row without a new case, according to the article. Throughout a population of 4.8 million, to date there have been just 1,504 "confirmed and probable cases," and the death toll remains at 22.

"Laboratories across the country have completed 294,848 tests."
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With No New Cases in 17 Days, New Zealand is Now Covid-19-Free

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  • The point of the lock downs has never been about getting rid of the virus. It was to buy time to prepare.

    Australia and New Zealand has spent the last 3 months preparing our health systems and procedures for when it does start to hit badly.

    We're ready.

    • A common misconception among math-challenged dipshits. When R0 is < 1 the virus is effectively an endangered species. Until it isn't.
    • by roca ( 43122 )

      No, in NZ the publicly declared goal shifted quickly to "eliminate the virus" so we can quickly get back to normal life. That has been achieved (for now). Yes, we are prepared if we get new cases.

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        The publicly declared goal of a program frequently has little to do with its actual intent.

  • Awesome competent job.

    Hope you can keep it until better treatments and maybe even a vaccine are available.
    It will be tough. Covid 19 has barely gotten started. Only about 5% of the world population infected at most.

    • by orlanz ( 882574 )

      Yeah, truely kudos to NZ. Well done. Obviously no one is saying its "over" but its a bright bit of news in the world and a good chuck of valuable data to look over.

      But I think most of the world is much better off today than they were 3-5 months ago. Most countries have good testing regimes and isolation policies and the hospital in take procedures have been well defined through a ton of trial & errors. So I think the 95% will have a much better outcome than the first 2%. Hopefully we will remain vi

  • Because *you don't dare tell them vioe that the virus is real, and that filming is over.

  • by kiwioddBall ( 646813 ) on Monday June 08, 2020 @07:11AM (#60158952)

    I am a New Zealander - living in Australia.

    Where does NZ go from here? I think this was the easy bit. Lock everyone away and get rid of the disease. Now what?

    A major part of the NZ lifestyle is to do the big OE, that is a lot of young kiwis spend a year or two travelling the world getting life experience and enjoying other cultures. That is over at the moment :( It was part of who I am too, I did exactly this. It is a big risk that as soon as a kiwi goes overseas they will be exposed to covid.

    The other thing is that a major part of the NZ economy is tourism, and foreigners cannot efficiently visit - bad for the country and jobs, and mental health.

    Tough decisions still ahead.

    I'm not saying what Jacinda Ardern has achieved is bad, it clearly isn't (to all the purists who always criticise me with personal attacks) but it was the easy bit. Where to from here is the hard bit as NZ is now isolated.

    • by olau ( 314197 )

      A major part of the NZ lifestyle is to do the big OE, that is a lot of young kiwis spend a year or two travelling the world getting life experience and enjoying other cultures. That is over at the moment :(

      Huh? You send them over the seas and quarantine for a fortnight when they come back?

  • by Bearhouse ( 1034238 ) on Monday June 08, 2020 @07:29AM (#60158994)

    I wish they were, but just because there are no more infections & deaths being reported, there are probably some still happening, and asymptomatic carriers presents in the population.

    Like the common cold, this thing is never going to magically disappear completely.

  • Sure. New Zealand has a relatively small population, and they're literally isolated to begin with, being on essentially an island. Nothing to see here, really.
  • And now the tinfoil hat brigade will have to go back to attacking (suspected, but actually 4G) 5G towers seeing as we're no longer being "held prisoner by the government"

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