New Zealand celebrates 100 days since stopping spread of coronavirus

New Zealand yesterday marked 100 days since it stopped the coronavirus spreading domestically – a rare bright spot as the US hit five million cases.

Life has returned to normal for many people in New Zealand, a nation of five million, as they attend rugby games at packed stadiums and sit down in bars and restaurants without the fear of getting infected. But some worry the country may be getting complacent and not preparing well enough for any future outbreaks.

New Zealand got rid of the virus by imposing a strict lockdown in late March, when only about 100 people had tested positive. For the past three months, the only new cases have been a handful of returning travellers.

With confirmed coronavirus cases in the US hitting five million yesterday, the failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe and elsewhere.

Perhaps nowhere outside the US is the bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe’s epidemic.

Italians were unprepared when the outbreak began in February, and the country still has one of the world’s highest official death tolls, at 35,205.

But after a strict 10-week lockdown, vigilant tracing of new clusters and general acceptance of mask mandates and social distancing, Italy has become a model of virus containment.

“Don’t they care about their health?” a mask-clad Patrizia Antonini asked about people in the US as she walked with friends along the banks of Lake Bracciano, north of Rome. “They need to take our precautions. They need a real lockdown.”

Much of the incredulity in Europe comes from the US having had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the virus that the continent itself did not have when the first Covid-19 patients started filling intensive care units.

Health officials believe the actual number of infections in the US could be 10 times higher, given testing limitations and that as many as 40 per cent of all those who are infected have no symptoms.

“We Italians always saw America as a model,” said Massimo Franco, a columnist with daily newspaper Corriere

della Sera. “But with this virus we’ve discovered a country that is very fragile, with bad infrastructure and a public health system that is nonexistent.”

In New Zealand, “it was good science and great political leadership that made the difference”, said Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at the University of Otago. “If you look around the globe at countries that have done well, it’s usually that combination.”

From early on, New Zealand pursued a bold strategy of eliminating the virus rather than merely suppressing its spread. Prof Baker said other countries were increasingly looking to New Zealand for answers.

“The whole western world has terribly mismanaged this threat, and they’re realising this now,” he said.