Always wondered what it looks like to win against Covid-19?
Well, you can now look at what’s going on in New Zealand to get a better idea of what awaits us.
It Was Never About Eradication
On 27 Apr 2020, the New Zealand government announced that they’ve “won” the battle against Covid-19.
New Zealand health authorities reported only one Covid-19 case in the previous 24 hours.
And Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reportedly said:
“There is no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand.”
Reader Bao: Wait, they’ve “won” but there are still new cases?
Yes, because according to New Zealand’s director-general of health, complete eradication of the coronavirus was never the goal.
Instead, they’re looking to get the number of cases down to a “very small number”, so small that they are able to stamp out any outbreak or cases that might emerge “quickly”.
Restrictions Will Be Lifted Gradually
If you think that life will go back to normal, complete with unicorns and bubble tea queues after winning, you’re never more wrong.
New Zealand isn’t lifting its restrictions all at once.
“We have won that battle. But we must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way.”
Instead, it’ll go from Level Four to Level Three where businesses will partially reopen with some restrictions.
People are still required to practise social distancing when out and about.
Schools will also be allowed to reopen with modified conditions but public venues, like gyms and libraries, will remain closed.
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And It’ll Likely Be The Same In S’pore
A minister previously shared that in order to start reopening Singapore’s economy progressively, these must be achieved:
- The number of deaths remains low.
- The community spread goes down to as low as a single-digit number of daily cases.
- The situation in foreign workers’ dorms gets under control, with the workers getting the quality of care that we should provide for them.
And if we were to achieve that by 1 June 2020, chances are we won’t see us regaining 100% of our freedom all in one go.
Instead, we’ll see life gradually come back to normal as the situation changes.
And, of course, if things were to take a downturn again, we could all go back to the lives we’re living now because CB was said to be a “brake“, something that can be used to significantly reduce infection rates from time to time.
So let’s all tahan a bit longer and obey all the measures during this Tightened Circuit Breaker (TCB), okay?
5 May seems to be the next big date to look out for, according to this handsome minister.