A couple of years into the pandemic, we can cautiously hope that we are in a position to retrospect. Countless strategies, clash of opinions and mixed fortunes have characterized the different ways in which the countries have gone about mitigating the Covid19 crisis. The case of New Zealand is fascinating and has sparked debates around the world. 

Unlike most of the western countries, New Zealand adopted a non-conventional approach to mitigate Covid-19. It closed the borders and stopped the influx by imposing the world’s strictest lockdown. However, in addition to this, it made sure that their approach was empathetic and designed to reach out to people efficiently.  Adoption of strict lockdowns and aggressive contact tracing might have been universal in most of the countries but New Zealand did things a little differently. 

Initially when the world went through its first wave of the pandemic, New Zealand and especially its Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern received many plaudits, to the point that Joe Stockman who worked with the New Zealand government went on to state that they had successfully eliminated covid 19. Yes ‘eliminated’. Mind you this was back in January 2021. The world had not witnessed the second wave yet. 

This does not take away any of the advances made by New Zealand at that point and it certainly helped them going forward. As outlined by Joe Stockman, an initial admission of under-preparedness by the government laid the ground for proactive efforts to fight against the virus. This together with the daily briefings by the Prime Minister, clear communication from the government and intensive outreach completed the full circle. 

If we compare this with the initial whataboutery by the former President of the US, Donald Trump, one can conclude that New Zealand would’ve fared better on face value. If we dive into the statistics it only confirms our suspicions. The number of positive cases and the deaths in the US serve as a stark reminder of the magnitude of the covid crisis in the North American country. All seemed good for Jacinda Ardern, but the initial days of the pandemic are behind us, and strategies have to be altered to adapt to changing times. 

The aggressive strategy adopted by New Zealand is called the Zero Elimination Strategy. While  New Zealand achieved success in deploying this aggressive strategy, the vaccine rollouts meant that the strategy had to be rethought. The dissent started to brew in the middle of 2021. After only recording its first case in a couple of months, the country went into a level four lockdown. Outrage followed, with New Zealanders stuck at home unable to meet their friends and family. The blistering Delta wave might have been the worst we have ever seen (We hope), but perhaps the declaration of such a strict strategy early on inevitably was met with disapproval.

This Zero Elimination strategy works on the premise of delay. Countries that are small in size and have limited health resources want to delay the onslaught of the virus and ensure that hospitalizations are staggered to avoid a collapse of health infrastructure. However, with a rollout of vaccines, this strategy could be reassessed. Since severe lockdowns only serve to break the chain of transmission, vaccines perform the same role. 

There are also arguments that even after one and a half years of the pandemic, countries should have had the foresight and adequate time to build up their healthcare capabilities. Let us try and play the role of devil’s advocate here. Is it possible to rapidly build up hospital beds, ICUs and general healthcare facilities in such a short period? Also even if we assume that it is doable, is the construction of such an infrastructure economically feasible in the long run, especially considering once the pandemic eases the newly constructed facilities would be surplus to the actual needs of the population?  

With the advent of a global pandemic, governments across the world have encountered some serious challenges. Comparing any two countries may be futile since multiple factors determine the handling of a pandemic. Initial days might have spelt fortunes for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, but the continuation of the same strategy might hurt her ratings. Overall, however, NZ has done a  good job. With 94% of the adult population vaccinated it can only be uphill from here.

Parker, R., Coglianese, C., Scheffler, G., Walters, D., Essays, S., & Rothermich, E. (2021). 

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Mixed inferences at the end of the pandemic: The NZ story

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