MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, emerged on Sunday from a strict week-long closure imposed on a community group of the more contagious British coronavirus variant.
No new local COVID-19 cases were recorded on Sunday, health officials said. It’s a full week of no community broadcasts across the country.
Footage on TVNZ, the state-run television network in New Zealand, showed people queuing at coffee shops on Sunday morning, and many said they felt relieved.
Auckland, a city of nearly two million, will still restrict public meetings and masks are mandatory for public transportation. Restrictions can be further eased on Friday.
In neighboring Australia, Sunday also had no local COVID-19 cases, making it the 37th day of no infections. There were no related deaths in 2021.
Rapid public health measures combined with aggressive contact detection, border closure and mandatory quarantine for travelers are attributed to the fact that New Zealand and Australia were highly successful in spreading the pandemic.
Both countries recovered rapidly in the second half of 2020. The Australian economy expanded at a much faster pace than expected in the last quarter of last year, and all signs were that 2021 was also starting on a solid footing has.
Vaccination of the coronavirus has begun in both countries, and vaccination in Australia has become somewhat complicated after Italy blocked a load of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt received the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine among the first on Sunday after the earlier shipment and said the rollout was underway.
Vaccination with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine began in February, but most Australians will be vaccinated with the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine.
The weekly number of doses administered is expected to reach 1 million by the end of March when CSL Ltd starts producing 50 million of the AstraZeneca doses locally.
The government spends more than AUD6 billion ($ 4.6 billion) to support vaccine vaccination with contracts for more than 150 million doses of different COVID-19 vaccines.
($ 1 = 1.3011 Australian dollars)
Written by Lidia Kelly; Edited by Daniel Wallis