Pooja Luthra
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced June 8 the country’s move to reopen as it reported no new cases of COVID-19.
“At level one, we’ve become one of the most open economies in the world, and now we must seize our advantage of going hard and early to beat COVID-19,” she said in a press conference.
Ardern said the country needs to be prepared and practice self-isolation and quarantine even though the virus has eliminated.
“We are confident we have eliminated the transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now, but elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort,” she said.
The government has removed movement restrictions, making everything entirely accessible to the general public. It was part of a four-level alert system introduced by New Zealand as the pandemic spread to the island nation.
Under the alert level-one, public and private events can take place without any restrictions, and travel will be barrier-free.
The four-level alert system introduced by the New Zealand government is outlined below: