Ending The COVID-19 Restrictions, New Zealand Adopts New System Of Living With Virus Starting From December

Illustration of a COVID-19 center in New Zealand. (Wikimedia Commons/Alan Tennyson)

JAKARTA - New Zealand will adopt a new system of living with the coronavirus starting from December 3, ending a coronavirus crackdown and allowing businesses to operate in its largest city, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement on Monday.

New Zealand was unable to beat the outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 centered in Auckland, forcing PM Ardern to abandon her famous elimination strategy, switching to a system that treats the virus as endemic.

Its largest city, Auckland, has been in lockdown for more than 90 days, despite some recent easing of measures.

"The hard reality is, the Delta variant is here and won't go away, but New Zealand is ready to tackle it because of our high vaccination rates, our latest safety measures including a traffic light system and Vaccine Pass," PM Ardern said, November 22.

In the new system, regions will be put in a red, orange, or green setting, like a traffic light, depending on their level of exposure to COVID-19 and vaccination rates. Auckland, which is the epicenter of the outbreak, will start in red.

PM Ardern said about 83 percent of eligible New Zealanders were fully vaccinated now and if everyone who was about to get a second shot got it, that number would rise to 88 percent.

The government previously said the country would end lockdown measures and switch to a new traffic light system, to manage the outbreak after 90 percent of the eligible population was fully vaccinated.

To note, New Zealand imposed some of the strictest pandemic restrictions of any OECD country that have helped limit the spread of COVID-19 so far, helping the economy bounce back faster than many of its peers.

The country of Kiwi has so far reported around 7.000 cases and 39 deaths. Its international borders still remain closed to the rest of the world.