NZ struggles to eliminate doubts over strategy

Accustomed to their PM’s boasts about NZ locking out the virus, dismayed Kiwis are grappling with an explosion of case numbers.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, left, and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield. Art: Getty Images

Fortress New Zealand has been breached, with Jacinda Ardern’s hermit kingdom of 4.8 million proving just as vulnerable to Covid’s voracious Delta variant as Sydney with a similar population.

Accustomed to their Prime Minister’s boasts that NZ was a world exception in locking out the virus, dismayed Kiwis are grappling with an explosion of case numbers all-too familiar on this side of the ditch.

Like Sydney’s disastrous outbreak, blamed for seeding clusters in Melbourne and regional NSW, the New Zealand eruption started with a single case in Auckland on August 17 that prompted Ms Ardern to order a nationwide lockdown.

By Wednesday, this had increased to 62 new infections, taking to 210 the total of identified cases in six sub-clusters based on the North Island city. NZ Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins conceded the government’s centrepiece strategy to eliminate the virus had to evolve.

“It’s too early to throw in the towel now,” he said, pressed by reporters on whether the approach was workable.

“But you will see changes in the medium term. We do want to see a time when lockdowns are not the answer to cases in the community. But we are not there yet.”

Rejecting Scott Morrison’s assertion that the country’s elimination strategy was “absurd” – a dig also at Labor-governed Western Australia, Queensland and ACT for pursuing zero case targets – Ms Ardern’s office insisted the plan was not only viable but endorsed by experts as the “best option at this stage of the pandemic”.

A spokesperson for the PM said on Wednesday: “It’s a strategy that’s worked for us before and has both saved lives and ensured the economy has been stronger than many others.

“Ultimately, we want as many people vaccinated as possible so we can avoid having to use lockdowns in the future. This strategy is also in line with the approach being taken in Australia.”

A Covid-19 testing station in Narrowneck, New Zealand. Picture: Getty Images

NZ police have set up checkpoints outside Auckland to stop residents fleeing, in a move reminiscent of the “ring of steel” established by Victorian Premier Dan Andrews around Melbourne at the height of its punishing 112-day lockdown last winter.

But the New Zealand Herald reports the crackdown has had unforeseen consequences: people from the coastal town of Mangawhai north of Auckland have been turned back while attempting to collect mail or making a run to the supermarket. The Road Transport Forum, representing the NZ trucking industry, said supplies of perishable food and medicine could be disrupted.

An unapologetic district police commander, Tony Hill, warned anyone travelling into or around the Northland region could expect to be pulled over. “We have been under alert level 4 for a week, and there’s no excuse for people not following the rules,” he said.

Under the lockdown rules, New Zealand’s toughest to date, people must stay at home and all schools, public facilities and non-essential businesses are closed.

Ms Ardern said on Tuesday that infection numbers would continue to increase, while Shaun Hendy, an epidemic modeller with the University of Auckland, predicted they could hit 1000 in a worst-case scenario.

Of particular concern is a Sunday service at South Auckland’s Samoan Assembly of God Church on August 15, ahead of the lockdown, that turned into a super-spreading event. It has been linked to 105 cases.

Director-general of Health Ashley Bloomfield hit back at reports of racial vilification of the Pasifika community as a “gutless” response.

If Australia’s vaccine rollout has been slow to ramp up, New Zealand’s effort is positively plodding. More than 11.2 million Australians have now received their first dose, approaching 55 per cent of the adult population and 6.5 million – 31.6 per cent – are fully immunised, according to federal Health Department data.

By contrast, 1.6 million or 38.9 per cent of Kiwis have had the opening jab while 954,000 are double-dosed, accounting for 22.4 per cent of those eligible.