Will India Follow New Zealand Model To Contain Coronavirus Infections?

When the COVID19 pandemic had just entered India and the cases had just begun to show, India harped on how the government had done an early intervention to contain the spread of infection. Politicians even went to the extent of patting themselves on their back for doing a great job of having the lowest COVID numbers in their respective states. But now in a matter of a few months, the scenario has completely changed. As per the union health ministry, India's overall infection figures reached 22, 15, 074 with 62, 064 fresh cases detected on Monday alone. India also recorded 1007 fatalities in a single day pushing the COVID toll to 44,386.

The overall corona tally in the country was close to 22.5 lakh and nearly 45,000 deaths as per COVID19India.org figures. All eyes are now on India as no state is able to bring the growing infections under control. Moreover, months of lockdown has done little to improve the situation.

Now, with most states in the unlock mode, there is no way people are going to stay indoor. Restaurants across most parts of India have already opened up and home delivery of foods has started. The government has given its green signal to soon throw open theatres too and we know what the consequence would be.

While all you hear is bad news every day, there is one country from where we are getting to hear something to cheer about. If you open social media channels, New Zealand is trending at No.1, reason being the tiny island nation has recorded only a handful (24) of COVID cases over the last one week. The best part is that the country went for an entire month without reporting a single case of COVID19 infection.

So what worked for New Zealand?

Well, experts and observers credit this phenomenal progress to stringent government policies as also travel embargo which blocked people, who could be potential carriers of the virus, from coming to New Zealand.

So, is there a lesson we can learn from New Zealand?

Most certainly, yes! A study team from University of Otago, has published in The New England Journal of Medicine about how New Zealand contained the infection and almost brought down the numbers to zero. Experts say public health policies of the government went a long way in bringing the virus infections under control.

It is a known fact that the country has a good number of students from China and Europe, where COVID infection reached an all-time high. Besides, New Zealand always witnesses a huge influx of tourists from other countries. Border control policies and preparation to deal with a huge number of infected patients, observers say, helped the country bring down the COVID numbers. The country first put in place its pandemic influenza plan in Feb 2020. However, when New Zealand realised the infection was more than just a SARS around early March, it changed the plan to eliminate COVID altogether rather than just reducing the infection.

Even though India too implemented the same lockdown strategy, what worked for New Zealand was a 7-week strict stay at home order, which if violated could invite severe punishment.

Also, we all know how much we love to break rules in India. Even to this day, people are seen roaming around without masks, queuing up before restaurants without following even the basic social distancing rules which have watered down government's virus containment measures.

With a model country to look up to, it would be interesting to watch what would be Indian government's approach to bring down the COVID numbers which are going through the roof.