[ad_1]
7 OF MARCH: Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, emerged on Sunday from a strict week-long lockdown imposed after a community group of the UK’s most contagious variant of the coronavirus.
No new local Covid-19 cases were recorded on Sunday, health officials said, allowing restrictions to be eased. If no community cases are confirmed for the remainder of Sunday, it would be a full seven days from the last community case.
However, there are still limits for public gatherings in the city of nearly two million, and masks are mandatory on public transportation.
Images on TVNZ, New Zealand’s state television network, showed people lining up at coffee shops on Sunday morning and many said they were relieved.
The government said it could ease restrictions further in Auckland on Friday, bringing them to the same level as in the rest of New Zealand.
In neighboring Australia, the state of Victoria, which was under a five-day lockdown in mid-February after a small Covid-19 outbreak, saw nine days in a row with no local broadcasts on Sunday.
Swift public health measures combined with aggressive contact tracing, border closures and mandatory quarantine for travelers have been credited with making both New Zealand and Australia highly successful in preventing the pandemic from spreading.
Both countries saw their economies rebound rapidly in the second half of 2020. Australia’s economy expanded at a much faster rate than expected in the last quarter of last year and all signs were that 2021 had also started with a firm foundation, aided by monetary and fiscal stimulus.
Both countries have started vaccination programs against the coronavirus, and the vaccination rollout in Australia is complicated after Italy blocked a shipment of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to the country. – Reuters
[ad_2]
