New Zealand will lift social distancing requirements at midnight, as the country has reported zero active coronavirus cases.
“While the job is not done, there is no denying this is a milestone. … Thank you, New Zealand,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday.
Ardern said the country has seen, after roughly seven weeks of a strict, nationwide lockdown during which most businesses were shuttered, 17 consecutive days without new coronavirus infections, 12 days since the last new coronavirus hospital admission, and 40 days since the last case of community transmission.
“Today I can announce that cabinet has agreed that we will now move to Level 1,” Ardern said of reopening the New Zealand economy. “We will start almost immediately.”
At midnight local time, the country will move into the lowest of a four-tier alert system. Schools and workplaces will reopen, and all restrictions on domestic travel and gatherings will be lifted. The country will keep in place its ban on international travelers, though, to prevent renewed outbreaks. Ardern did not offer an end date for the international travel ban.
“Our goal was to move out the other side as quickly and as safely as we could. We now have a head-start on our economic recovery,” Ardern said, adding later that she “did a little dance” when she found out that it was safe to reopen.
New Zealand was scheduled to move into Level 1 alert on June 22, having moved to Level 2 in mid-May. New Zealand is one of very few countries to have eradicated the virus so far. Ardern’s news boosted the country’s stock index, making it the first major benchmark in the Asia-Pacific region to wipe out the year’s losses.
