How did New Zealand effectively handle the Covid-19 crisis?
Recently, the New Zealand High Commission in India was in the news for seeking the help of the IYC(Indian Youth Congress), the youth wing of the main opposition party, in obtaining an oxygen cylinder for one of their staff members, causing the Indian Ministry of External Affairs some major embarrassment. However, while India continues to reel under the onslaught of the second Covid-19 wave, one of the countries that were least affected by Covid-19 is New Zealand; with only 26 deaths(till date) in a population of 49.2 lakhs.
So how did New Zealand effectively manage this crisis that gripped the world?
Effective pandemic management strategy of the Government:
1. Lockdown Implementation
Initially, a mitigation policy was being followed. Disease models had shown that wide pandemic spread with the capacity to overwhelm the health system could take place. It was also known that Covid-19’s introduction to New Zealand would be imminent, considering the number of foreign tourists entering the nation. Therefore they started preparing their hospitals and also took steps to initiate border control policies.
On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared Covid-19 a global Health emergency. Soon after, New Zealand imposed a travel ban on entry of foreigners from, or who had travelled through mainland China. On 28 February, when New Zealand’s first Covid case was reported, the entry ban was extended to Iran as well. Testing was also ramped up.
On March 14, 2020, the government announced a mandatory self-isolation period of 2 weeks for people entering NZ, with the exception of those coming from the Pacific. By March 19, the borders were closed to everyone except citizens and permanent residents. On March 21, a four-tier alert system was announced with Level 4 being the highest level. New Zealand was placed on level 2.
On March 23, 2020, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern announced a nationwide lockdown which came into effect on March 26. This pushed New Zealand to alert level 4.
This marked a change in strategy, from mitigating the disease to trying to eliminate it.
“After 5 weeks, and with the number of new cases declining rapidly, New Zealand moved to Alert Level 3 for an additional 2 weeks, resulting in a total of 7 weeks of what was essentially a national stay-at-home order”-The New England Journal of Medicine
Unlike countries like India, where there were limitations in enforcing proper lockdown; by and large, the New Zealand lockdown in 2020 was rather well implemented. The laws were applied equally to politicians as well as the common man, thereby strengthening the government’s resolve on the same.
Lockdowns that applied on non-essential activity, domestic travel and gatherings as well as border restrictions did have a negative effect on the economy. However, to counter these negative effects, government spending was increased on wage subsidies for affected businesses, along with an NZD 2.8 billion income support package for the most vulnerable, including a permanent $25 per week benefit increase; among other measures.
As a result, while the economy had a decline overall in 2020, it also had one of the strongest recoveries. In the words of S&P Asia-Pacific chief economist Shaun Roache:
“New Zealand definitely is one of those economies that has exited the most severe periods of the pandemic first, and that clearly was just because what that allows the economy to do is reopen those face-to-face service activities that are so important for the labour market, and that hopefully should get jobs restarted people can go back to work.”
This put New Zealand on the path of both economic and medical recovery.
2. Effective Top-Down Communication in Medical Resource Management
New Zealand’s education system focuses more on cooperation and interpersonal skills, rather than the strict adherence to competition and mark based grading followed by most countries. The same was to be found in their pandemic management policy, with the government adopting a hard and fast approach in combating the spread of the virus.
New Zealand’s policies worked only because they listened to the scientists. The Ministry of Health had 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) under it, with each DHB having their own infectious disease experts to help them create policies suitable for their individual hospital/clinic departments, with effective communication from top to bottom and vice versa.
The scientists were allowed to make their own schedules and policies regarding distributing medical resources including personnel, medication, lab supplies, PPEs, etc, with attention being paid to make sure that it was done ethically as well as equitably. This ensured that doctors did not have to undergo additional stress and were able to avoid burnout faced by their counterparts in less equipped countries.
Thus empathy, communication, and cooperation instead of a market-based competition for supplies was also an important factor in the fight against the pandemic and New Zealand’s leadership had a huge role to play in the same.
3. Effective Communication between the government and the people
Prime Minister Ardern spoke directly with the people during the crisis. After the lockdown began, she addressed the nation via an FB Live Session while putting her toddler to bed, empathizing with citizen’s anxieties and offering apologies to anyone who was startled or alarmed by the emergency alert that announced the lockdown order.
The lockdown was also a period that saw increased contact tracing and testing. This showed that at its peak, New Zealand had only 89 daily new cases; showcasing the effective lockdown policy. This helped boost citizen’s morale and trust in the government.
Current status(2021)
As of May 6, 2021, there is only 1 new case in New Zealand. All the cities in New Zealand are currently maintained at an Alert Level 1. The government has rolled out a vaccine policy involving the Pfizer vaccine, for all people aged 16 and above in New Zealand, irrespective of their visa or citizenship status.
They enforced a travel ban for people coming from India, including their own citizens from April 11–28. New Zealand has currently paused the travel bubble with New South Wales(Australia), ending quarantine free travel from that region due to the rising Covid cases in Sydney.
Thus the key to New Zealand’s proper handling of the pandemic has involved following the WHO guidelines effectively, by reducing contact and hence the spread of the pandemic, along with the government instilling confidence in the citizens(as seen by Ardern’s party’s decisive victory in the 2020 general elections); along with strict travel and border policies (which some might have termed overreactive) and above all placing the country’s needs above any other; to keep the citizens safe. Let us hope that other world leaders also follow in New Zealand’s footsteps and better their pandemic response; for the sake of the world’s health and well-being.
REFERENCES
- https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53274085
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7436486/
- https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/working-stiff/89867
- https://www.contagionlive.com/view/how-did-new-zealand-control-covid19
- https://www.brookings.edu/research/policy-and-institutional-responses-to-covid-19-new-zealand/
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