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New Zealand’s Covid-19 elimination strategy and “bubbles” have been praised by international experts who have implored other countries to follow suit.
In the report, published in The lancet, Scholars from the National University of Singapore and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as former Prime Minister Helen Clark, compared the strategies of nine high-income countries and regions to alleviate Covid-19 blockages at the same time as health, social and economic considerations are balanced.
The authors analyzed each country’s knowledge about infection levels, community participation, public health capacity, health system capacity, and border control measures.
Countries examined included Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s communication style has been praised by international experts.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Chief Health Officer Ashley Bloomfield were especially praised for communicating “strongly but empathetically” during televised briefings and on social media.
The report described the concept of social bubbles as “pioneering” and said there was a “strong case” for adopting an elimination strategy.
Lead author Dr Helena Legido-Quigley said countries should look for successful strategies, such as New Zealand’s, and adapt them.
The bubbles were sustainable and stopped the rapid growth of the virus when the closures were lifted, he said.
“There is a growing awareness that alleviating confinement is not about returning to normality before the pandemic, and governments must find strategies that prevent the rapid growth of infections in ways that are sustainable and acceptable to the public for many months. “, He said. .
New Zealand took an approach that allows people to expand their household bubble to include broader household groups when the country went from alert level 4 to 3 on April 27 as part of a gradual relaxation of restrictions.
They found that New Zealand’s political leaders secured public trust, ensuring there was support for the restrictions.
The report also noted that countries with female leaders, such as New Zealand, appeared to be more successful in gaining the trust of their populations to respond to the pandemic.
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Alert level restrictions were followed in New Zealand because the public trusted the government, international experts have found.
Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Otago, Patricia Priest, He said the document was useful, but that the analysis was “high-level” and did not look at how different responses impacted inequality.
“We need to continuously monitor the impact of the pandemic on health and social inequities, ensure that our response does not exacerbate them, and work to address their structural causes, which predate the pandemic,” he said.
Meanwhile, two new cases of coronavirus were reported in New Zealand on Friday: one in controlled isolation and a community case linked to the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship church bereavement subgroup.
The case related to the Auckland subgroup is a woman in her teens who was already isolating herself and is a family contact.
So far there have been 1,829 cases of the virus and 25 deaths.
The report was supported by the Helen Clark Foundation and received funding from the Singapore Ministry of Health.
