They recently managed 102 days without a single person getting infected with COVID-19 on New Zealand soil. A couple of British ladies had brought COVID-19 into the country in June, but there wasn't any onward transmission.
Restrictions had been lifted, entertainments could restart, and people could hug each other again. Life back to normal. Hurrah!
Then a family of four were tested positive in August. The government put Auckland into lockdown the next day, banning residents from leaving home for non-essential reasons. That's some 1.6 million people for an outbreak that affected less than 150 people in all.
Then a man died. Now his brother.
Here is the latest statistics since the start pf the epidemic:
Whilst very impressive, the statistics highlight the scale of the challenge any country faces, despite the strongest restrictions:
- There remains 53 cases of infection that occured on New Zealand soil
- Plus 26 people who have arrived from abroad ("imported cases")
- There's 3 people in hospital, of which 2 are in ICU
- 1.4% of confirmed cases have died, excluding anyone who is currently ill. Over 1%.
Maybe people would accept a hard lockdown again once, maybe twice. But surely they can't keep going into full lockdown every time there's an outbreak? There will be other outbreaks.
If this SARS2 (SARS-COV-2) was as deadly as two other coronaviruses SARS or MERS, which claimed one out of every three people infected, New Zealand's StrictZero approach would be essential. Indeed it would be needed if a future SARS3 or SARS4 was both highly infectious and highly murderous.
SARS2 is dangerous, but not as dangerous as MERS. Whilst New Zealand's strategy has worked so far, is it sustainable? Somehow we need to live with the virus whilst opening most if not all of society.
Here's why an elimination strategy wouldn't work for the UK.
Hence #NearZero
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