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While COVID-19 will continue to plague other nations for a year or two, Professor Baker says, New Zealand could return to normal by the end of 2020, relatively speaking.
“We could have reasonable volumes of trips to Australia and other countries that have almost the virus and also to the Pacific.
“The problems are, of course, that international tourism will remain in crisis for a long time. And, in fact, New Zealand has no control over that.”
A vaccine is not expected until next year, if there is one, despite a massive global effort to find it.
Despite the successes to date, with the number of new cases reported each day that can be counted on one hand, Professor Baker believes that the virus is still there, hoping to infect new victims, so we cannot let our guard down. .
Some have suggested that the strict blockade that New Zealand enacted was unnecessary, as Australia achieved similar results without going as far. Professor Baker says that Australia’s ability to control it is further reduced to its level of resources.
“Australia started with a lot more resources. New Zealand really had to catch up because we’ve really invested very little in our public health infrastructure for decades. And I think this really shows the problem if you don’t have those systems in your place.
“I mean, when we consider this, and I think we should postpone it until we go through this acute phase, we need to have prevention and preparedness at the center of our system. And this is just another example.
“We have received other warnings that our system was not really ready for this event. So I think it is a great message from this.”
