overwhelmed by the progression of the Variant Delta, Auckland and Canberra now focus on an acceleration of vaccination, and no longer on the eradication of SARC-COV-2.
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On August 17, when the Delta Variant has, for the first time, been identified in Auckland, New Zealand, the government immediately deployed the great ways to eradicate the virus and not have to give up its policy. Zero Covid “. Seven weeks later, the finding is without appeal. The battle is lost. The country records a few dozen new cases every day, the highest figure since April 2020. After the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria, the archipelago has given up on Monday to eliminate the virus.
“It is clear that a long period of severe restrictions did not allow us to return to zero,” said the Prime Minister on October 4, Jacinda Ardern. As early as August, she had placed the main city of the country under bell, reducing the exit authorizations to a minimum and closing the schools as well as all non-essential businesses, in the hope that strong and fast measurements would allow it, a new times, to rid its territory of SARS-COV-2. But facing this skilled strain of “tentacle”, his government could only see his failure. “The elimination of the virus was important because we did not have a vaccine, now we have it, so we can start changing the way we do things,” relativised the Labor elected.
Nevertheless, with only 52.7% of New Zealands over the age of 12 with a complete vaccination scheme (as of October 9) and a goal of 90%, switching to the exit of crisis. will first step around to avoid any clogging of hospitals. Will the country then resolve to live with the virus? To open its borders, closed since March 2020? The authorities have not yet answered these questions, which divide in the small archipelago of five million people who have made its strategy of eliminating a model, recognized around the world for its effectiveness. Not only did New Zealand have lamented only 28 dead since the beginning of the pandemic, but its population was able to live, most of the time, in a country where the virus was not circulating.
Possibility of leaving the territory
On the other side of the Tasman Sea, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, sliced. Australia, which currently faces some 2,500 new daily cases, will not remain isolated from the world a minute more than necessary. At the end of July, his government presented a four-phase transition plan whose advance will depend on vaccination rates.
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