After a month, the strict lockdown in New Zealand’s metropolis of Auckland will be relaxed. The reason is the falling corona numbers in the largest city in the country, which was considered the epicenter of the latest outbreak of the delta variant in the Pacific state, the government announced on Monday. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that the restrictions would be eased slightly from Wednesday.
Shops and schools are then at least partially allowed to reopen. However, Ardern urged older people to largely stay at home if they have not yet been vaccinated.
In the rest of the country, the lockdown imposed on August 18 after just one single corona case was largely lifted two weeks ago, but in Auckland people were only allowed to leave their homes in exceptional cases.
New Zealand is considered a model country in the fight against the virus and is pursuing a so-called zero Covid strategy. Since the beginning of the pandemic, people have largely been isolated from the rest of the world, but have continued to live relatively normally – for months even without masks. So far, only around 4,000 cases of infection have been confirmed, 27 people have died in connection with Covid-19. However, so far only about 38 percent of the five million inhabitants are fully vaccinated.