New Zealand extends COVID lockdown; PM Ardern says Delta strain ‘a whole new virus’

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday extended the COVID-19 lockdown as the country added 38 cases to its total confirmed cases driven by the delta variant. Although, Ardern stated that she would relax the stringent COVID-19 nationwide lockdown slightly for the areas in the South of the country, but not for the biggest city Auckland, according to the local press reports. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that all of New Zealand, except populous Auckland and Northland, will move one step lower to alert level 3 from Tuesday onwards next week. A snap lockdown was instated earlier on August 17 over one case of the novel coronavirus.

Under New Zealand’s level 3 alert, the businesses can operate contactless services but the public venues such as eateries, bars, and shopping malls all remain shut. Gatherings at weddings and funerals have been limited to 10 people. New Zealand PM described the relaxation of the health safety measure as the "wait and watch level,” stressing that the country has to proceed with caution or it might witness a gigantic surge of the COVID-19 cases nationwide driven by the hyper contagious delta variant. 

"A single community case was detected in the city of Auckland, it's counterintuitive,” said New Zealand's epidemiologist Michael Baker. “When there’s a threat, you usually increase the response as it gets more dangerous. Here, we’re doing the opposite, with the maximum response when the threat is tiny.”

Both Auckland and neighbouring Northland will remain under the full level 4 lockdown for at least 2 more weeks, the New Zealand PM told press reporters. Auckland has been the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak accounting for 70 new cases of COVID-19 of the total 347 coronavirus caseload. Ardern told a press briefing that the daily tally of 70 cases showed that the latest outbreak is beginning to “plateau”. And that the epicentre had to be under the most severe level 4 restriction. Residents were advised to adhere to the household bubbles and carry out only the essential movements amid the stay-at-home government orders. 

“As you will have seen from today’s case numbers reported earlier today, we may be seeing the beginning of a plateau of cases,” Ardern told a conference. “Our job is to bend and then flatten that curve.” Ardern emphasized that the lockdown has an effective impact, adding that the Delta variant “is tough to deal with.” 

Lockdown 'most effective tool', says New Zealand PM

The order of extension of the COVID-19 measure in one of New Zealand’s most populous cities came after the discussions which were held at high-level cabinet meeting about the plan of action to tackle the emerging delta variant. Ardern labelled “strict lockdown” as the “most effective tool” available to the government to combat the rising trajectory that might stretch the healthcare systems. Thus far, New Zealand had administered close to 2 million shots of the COVID vaccine, inoculating nearly 29.8 per cent of the country's total population. The island nation has registered 26 COVID-related deaths per 5 million population since the start of the pandemic.