Jacinda Ardern’s cabinet announces the end of lockdown outside Auckland

After noticing a decrease in cases of COVID-19, Jacinda Ardern’s cabinet has announced to lift the lockdown outside of Auckland.

New Zealand has been in lockdown for 20 days to combat a Delta variant outbreak that began with a single case on August 17.

From a peak of 83 cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, August 29, the number of cases has dropped to 20 in the last three days. As a result of this success, about 3.4 million New Zealanders will be freed from lockdown on Wednesday.

While Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s cabinet has decided to keep Auckland, in a level four lockdown for at least another week, the rest of the people in New Zealand will return to normality.

“We’re within sight of elimination but we cannot drop the ball.”

Australia’s politicians, notably Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, have criticized New Zealand’s elimination strategy.

Ms. Ardern warned against complacency, encouraging compliance with COVID-19 standards and enhanced community testing.

“If we continue to make progress we will get back to a level one environment,” Ms Ardern said.

“I would rather get (to zero cases) and declare that’s what we’ve achieved than get too far ahead of ourselves.”

“There is work to be done.”

“Today, we’ve got one case … they’re in a large household so almost inevitably you’ll see extra cases come through from that.”

“So it’s day by day. But day by day we are making very good progress.”

In a likely reference to Australia, she said “what I don’t want to do is make the mistake of moving too quickly and then seeing a resurgence because that has happened with Delta before.”

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