New Zealand on Wednesday discharged its last coronavirus patient from the hospital, reports CBS News.
Additionally, there are no new COVID-19 cases in the country and just 21 remaining active cases among New Zealand’s 4.8 million population.
“We are really well placed and we’re making good progress,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said during a Facebook live stream. “
New Zealand has been praised for its response to the coronavirus pandemic. The government closed its borders on March 19 and implemented a strict stay-at-home order the same week. The nation has also carried out 267,435 tests and the U.S. Ministry of Health is monitoring the remaining positive cases through contact tracing.
"You actually throw everything at the pandemic early on," Michael Baker, professor of public health at New Zealand’s University of Otago, told Democracy Now. "So at the point that we had 100 cases, no fatalities, around the 23rd of March, a decision was made to go for this elimination approach, and that meant putting the whole country into this very intense lockdown for the best part of six weeks."
"It's a pretty harsh approach, but at the end of that, there was very little virus being transmitted," he said.
New Zealand has just 1,504 confirmed cases and only 21 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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