While it seems as though there is no "magic bullet" for defeating COVID, some governments have done better at it than others. One country, New Zealand, has a track record of doing it right. As a matter of fact, there have been no domestic restrictions in NZ since early October.
What the Numbers Tell Us
New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island and the South Island —and more than 700 smaller islands, covering a total area of 268,021 square kilometers.
The country of 5 million has confirmed 1,949 coronavirus cases and processed over 103,000 returned travelers in managed isolation facilities since the pandemic began.
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New Zealand’s successful response has resulted in just 25 people dying from the virus. That's remarkable in a nation of 5 million. The only new cases are those originating from returning travelers. Authorities and people around the country remain highly tuned to any breaches at the border.
Over 1.5 million COVID-19 tests have been processed, giving New Zealand one of the world's highest rates of testing per positive case.
The big picture: Last March, the government closed the borders to non-permanent residents and imposed one of the world's strictest lockdowns under a four-tier system.
The country is currently on level 1 measures, meaning "the disease is contained in New Zealand, but it remains uncontrolled overseas," per the Health Ministry. Masks are required for public transport and planes.
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On Saturday, Jan. 16, approximately 20,000 music fans attended a concert in Waitangi, New Zealand, marking one of the biggest single gigs since the pandemic began. The show was the first of New Zealand band Six60’s six-show summer tour around the nation.
While the show was outside, audience members came into close contact with one another, did not have to wear masks, and did not have to follow any social distancing guidelines. New Zealand has effectively contained the virus; they currently have fewer than 80 active cases, according to NME.
New Zealand has been able to safely hold large, non-socially distanced events since the end of 2020; they held several New Year’s Eve festivals with crowds around 20,000, such as Rhythm and Vines in Gisborne, Rhythm & Alps in Wanaka, and Northern Bass in Mangawha
How New Zealand Handled COVID
A private company that played a leading role in eradicating COVID-19 in New Zealand has opened an office in Texas and is sharing some key learnings about stopping the spread. In order to eradicate the coronavirus in the United States, many experts say our system of contact tracing must become more robust.
If leaders want the public to trust and engage with the process, one New Zealander says they need to get rid of the word “tracing.” The word and term has become poison here in the U.S., implying “big brother,” that the government is watching. Instead, SaferMe CEO Cint Van Marrewijk, said we should be calling it "contact logging.”
“You do not have to track where someone goes,” Van Marrewijk said on a Texas Podcast. “It’s all about logging the interaction between two people and then making sure that you can respond quickly and protect people.”
SaferMe is based in New Zealand and is focused on businesses. At the start of the pandemic, the New Zealand government started providing SaferMe’s product free to all businesses in the country. Its tracing system played a large role in helping the country essentially eradicate the disease.
"If you get sick, imagine trying to remember all the people you’ve met with over the last four or five days,” Marrewijk said. "It’s easy to forget someone and if you’re coming into the office, you want to know there's a professional system is in place and if someone gets sick, the right people are being isolated quickly."
The technology works just like a key or swipe card you likely already use.
Marrewijk said the amount of data needed to do an efficient job isn’t that much, usually nothing more than which rooms or areas you might have visited.
And he says all of that data is encrypted.“So, if you were to lose the card, it’s a useless piece of equipment to anyone who’s trying to figure out what data is on there.”
What's Next for New Zealand
New Zealand health officials said on Sunday (Jan 24) they were investigating what they said was probably the country's first community coronavirus case in months in a woman who recently returned from overseas.
The 56-year-old, who returned to New Zealand on Dec 30, tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 days after leaving a two-week mandatory quarantine at the border where she had twice tested negative.
The woman who took a flight back to New Zealand was supposed to avoid all physical contact with others for 14 days as she went into mandatory quarantine. The man working at the quarantine hotel was supposed to be the last line of defense.
But the two started passing notes to each other, including one written on the back of a face mask. Then she ordered a bottle of wine, which he delivered to her room. When he didn’t return 20 minutes later, a security manager sent to investigate found the pair together in what authorities are describing as an inappropriate encounter, one in which physical distancing wasn’t maintained.
