New Zealand Eliminates Coronavirus And Begins To Open Non-Essential Businesses As Malta’s Measures Expected To Ease Soon
New Zealand has all but won the battle against COVID-19 as the country begins a phased exit from lockdown.
As of tomorrow, the island-country will begin opening some non-essential businesses including healthcare and educational activities.
“There is no widespread, undetected community transmission in New Zealand,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at the daily government briefing.
“We are opening up the economy, but we’re not opening up people’s social lives.”
New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Source: Getty Images
Like Malta, New Zealand had been reporting single figure cases over the past few days, with only one case in the past 24 hours, taking the country’s grand total to 1,122 cases with 19 deaths.
The country’s success in eliminating the pandemic can be attributed to its very tough restrictions on travel and activity early on in the pandemic which prohibited gatherings on the beach and even hunting.
New Zealand will now move from Level Four lockdown to Level Three, meaning that most businesses will be able to reopen… but not those involving face-to-face contact.
Malta is following a similar trend in drastically decreased daily cases, with zero new cases being reported yesterday for the first time since the virus landed on our shores back on 7th March.
However the government has yet to reveal a lockdown exit strategy, but promised some announcements in the coming days.
In fact, sources revealed to the Times of Malta that, while probably only “minimal”, changes to the island’s containment measures are expected to be announced “sometimes this week”.
When should Malta reopen non-essential businesses? Let us know in the comments below
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