The New Zealand government proclaimed on Monday that the country has reached its goal of eliminating the coronavirus after reporting just four new “probable cases” of COVID-19 and one death over the weekend.
“There is no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference, according to reports. “We have won that battle. But we must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way.”
Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director general of health, said that the small number of cases gave health officials “confidence that we’ve achieved our goal of elimination.” She added that elimination never meant complete “eradication” of the disease, but rather a point where health care workers felt confident about where infections were emerging. Continue reading.