New Zealand stamps out coronavirus - again

All the country is now on alert level one

New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern speaking at the televised election debate on 30 September 2020 (EPA/ Michael Bradley / Pool Pool)

The city of Auckland has lifted its coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday, meaning that the whole of New Zealand is once again on the lowest national Covid-19 alert level.

This comes after prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s announcement earlier this week that the country was close to stamping out a second wave of the virus.

New Zealand thought it was free of community transmission and downgraded its alert level to one on 8 June, before an outbreak in Auckland led the country’s biggest cluster of cases to date, resulting in 179 cases.

As a result of this set of cases Ms Ardern decided to impose restrictions on the city.

The rules, which limited gatherings to 100 people and required social distancing in pubs and restaurants, were lifted at 11.59pm on Wednesday after no new cases had been recorded for more than a week.

Michael Barnett, chief executive of the Auckland Business Chamber, told Radio New Zealand that he hopes business will pick up again now that the alert level has been downgraded.

“In level two, 75 per cent of businesses in Auckland were operating around 60 to 65 per cent. But in level one, the same group is more likely to be operating at about 85 per cent, so that’s good for the economy and good for business,” he said.

Although there are still 39 active cases in the country, none are in the community, as they are all in managed isolation or quarantine sites.

On Wednesday, three new cases were reported in New Zealand, bringing the total number of infections so far in the country to 1,864, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. In total, 25 people have died from the virus in New Zealand.

As part of her campaign to be reelected in the election on 17 October, Ms Ardern has been campaigning on her successful handling of the pandemic.  

Her Labour party is expected to win almost enough seats in parliament to win an outright majority, with a poll released on 8 October suggesting that it would fall just one short of the 61 it needs to form a government.

Support for Ms Ardern’s party has stayed at 47 per cent since the last poll on 28 September, while the main opposition National Party continues to trail it by 15 percentage points.

Additional reporting by Reuters