New Zealand is now free of coronavirus as there are no active cases in the country for the first time since February.

New Zealand had struggled with 1,504 confirmed cases of coronavirus out of which 22 people have died whereas the rest of the patients have recovered. Around 294,800 tests had been conducted. The country has reported no new cases for 17 days.

Shaun Hendy, who heads Te Pūnaha Matatini, a scientific body advising the government on COVID-19, said that enforcing some of the toughest lockdown measures early was “crucial” to the country’s success, as other countries experienced slow virus spread and increasing death tolls. 

Hendy told to the international news source, “This arrested the virus before it was widespread amongst essential service workers and meant that our contact tracers had fewer people to trace when new cases were found,”

“We ramped up testing early which led to very effective case isolation.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Arden announced that the country will be reopened with the lowest restriction level. She had earlier announced that most of the restrictions would be lifted under alert level 1. But the borders will not be reopened. 

New Zealand’s health ministry said that the last case was declared as recovered after remaining symptom-free for 48 hours. New Zealand is all set to declare the elimination of coronavirus on June 15. 

New Zealand’s Prime Minister was turned away from cafe to maintain coronavirus restrictions