New Zealand PM Ardern vows to stamp out the delta variant as the country's covid outbreak widens.
"We have been here before...we know the elimination strategy works," Ardern told a news conference."Cases rise and then they fall until we have none. It's tried and true...we just need to stick it out."Ardern extended the lockdown for the population of 5.1 million until midnight on Tuesday as the outbreak widened beyond the country's largest city, Auckland, to the capital Wellington.
"We just don't quite know the full scale of this delta outbreak," Ardern added."We want the whole country on high alert right now."New Zealanders had been living virus-free and without curbs until Ardern on Tuesday ordered a snap 3-day nationwide lockdown, with a seven-day shutdown for Auckland, after the discovery of the first case since February.
Health chief Ashley Bloomfield warned that the lockdown in outbreak epicenter Auckland could be widened further. Ardern's tough lockdowns and international border closure in March 2020 helped rein in Covid-19, but the government now faces questions over a delayed vaccine rollout, as well as rising costs in a country heavily reliant on an immigrant workforce.
Just about 19 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, the slowest pace among the wealthy nations of the OECD grouping.
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