We are now witnessing one of the darkest hours in the history of humanity. The global pandemic of coronavirus is still going on one year after it appeared in China, back in 2019. The whole world mourns people who’ve lost their battle against this virus. The whole year was pretty tense, but we can see that the biggest numbers of infected people have appeared in the last two months.
The reason is that the regular flu, we have pretty much every year, is now a part of the combination, alongside COVID-19. This is a cause for major concern all over the world since hospitals and the whole medical systems are already overcrowded with people who are battling this dangerous virus. Naturally, we can see that there are some countries, who have succeeded in reducing the number of infected people within their territories.
One of them is certainly New Zealand. We are talking about the country that managed to beat the virus completely at some point. It goes without saying that the geography of this country played a pivotal role in their battle against this virus. At the beginning of August, the country’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced that they have no active cases, which was a major cause for a celebration within the country.
When we take a look at a majority of the countries in the world, we can see that New Zealand has some impressive numbers. But it should be said that the battle against COVID-19 is far from over. The virus is alive in pretty much all parts of the world. Nevertheless, pretty much every expert agrees that New Zealand applied the best strategy, which results in so little active cases of the virus. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective elements of this strategy.
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1. Early Lockdown
Maybe you didn’t know, but New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world that decided to cancel all of the massive gatherings and introduce the concept of a lockdown for its population. This happened at the end of February, which is much earlier than a plethora of other countries that had the same measures.
Schools were closed, patients were able to speak to their doctors online, and all the festivities were canceled or postponed. For example, all of the casinos were closed down. So, people turned to online casinos. Thankfully, this is a country known for its high numbers of online casinos. In case you are interested in taking a look at some of the best of them, visit this site. Alternatives were found for pretty much all of the activities.
2. High Testing Rate
As was the case with the concept of lockdown, we are talking about a country that had some of the highest testing rates in all of the world. At some point, these numbers were as high as 8,000 per day. If you take the population of this country into consideration, we can see that this is one of the highest numbers per capita. This resulted in the prevention of the further spreading of the virus.
One of the ways doctors were able to establish some patterns in order to prevent all of these negativities was the usage of the COVID-19 tracer app. This is an app that works as some sort of diary. This is the reason why it makes it possible for people to establish where they were infected with COVID-19. Therefore, all of the potential cases were prevented by closing down particular places or finding patients who weren’t even aware that they are infected.
3. Geography Has Its Role
As you probably know, New Zealand is an island nation, which makes it much easier for its government to close down and prevent all the potential spreading of the virus. The country’s position made it possible for the experts and the government to have full control over the people who are interested in entering their country. At the same time, the population of this country is 5 million.
If you know that we are talking about a pretty big country, you can presume that the population density is not as high as it is the case with many other countries in the world. Population density played a major role in prevention since it’s not so easy for the virus to travel since fewer people were encountering others during the crisis.
4. Exceptional Communication
One of the most important things we would like to point out is effective communication between the government and the population. If you ask any New Zealander, you will receive an answer that the whole population of the country formed a 5 million-team in order to fight this dangerous virus. All the measures were completely respected by people, without too many problems.
From the beginning of the crisis, the prime minister, Ardern, stated what is the way out of this crisis for New Zealand. So, all of the measures and precautions were executed effectively. As we’ve mentioned, effective communication is one of the prime reasons this country has been able to overcome all of the problems related to the virus at one point. At the same time, the effectiveness of these measures was praised all over the world.
5. The Guard is Still On
As it was described by the government and experts from this country, New Zealand is not letting their guard down, even though their numbers are pretty impressive. Dr. Kasai, one of the experts who is credited for New Zealand’s success, stated that the measures are still on and that the country will continue to be vigilant.
We can see that the virus is still pretty active in all parts of the world, after all. In some of the countries, the numbers are higher than they have ever been. So, there is no room for relaxation. The best way to describe the situation in New Zealand is that their current numbers are nothing short of exceptional. At the beginning of November, there are only five active cases in the whole country.