WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – New Zealand this year kicked off a lunar coup that remains the envy of most other nations: it eliminated the coronavirus.
But the goal was motivated by both fear and ambition, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed on Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. He said the goal grew from an initial realization that the nation’s health care system simply could not cope with a major outbreak.
And there have been many blows along the way. When a handful of unexplained cases began to pile up in August, Ardern found himself defending exaggeratedly exaggerated claims by President Donald Trump, who told crowds at rallies that there was a massive resurgence and ” finished by New Zealand. It’s all gone. “
“Was the word angry?” Ardern said, reflecting on Trump’s comments. He said that while the new cases were deeply troubling, “being described in this way was a distortion of New Zealand’s position”.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New Zealand’s response to the virus has been one of the most successful, along with actions by China, Taiwan and Thailand in the early moments of the pandemic. The country of 5 million has counted only 25 deaths and has managed to erase the spread of COVID-19, allowing people to return to workplaces, schools and crowded sports stadiums without restrictions.
When the virus began hitting Europe earlier this year, Ardern said, the only two options countries were considering were herd immunity or flattening the curve. She opted for the latter.
“Originally, this is where we started, because there just wasn’t much vision that elimination was possible,” he said.
But his thinking changed quickly.
“I remember my senior scientific adviser bringing me a chart that showed me what the flattening of the curve would be like in New Zealand. And where was our hospital and health capacity. And the curve was not sitting below that line. So we knew that flattening the curve was not enough for us.
Ardern said he does not worry that elimination may prove impossible, because even if New Zealand did not get there, the approach would still have saved lives.
“The alternative is to set a smaller goal and then keep losing,” he said.
Border closures and a strict closure in March got rid of the disease and New Zealand spent 102 days without any community spreading. But then came the August outbreak in Auckland, which remains unexplained but probably originated abroad.
“We thought we were going through the worst. And so it was a real psychological blow to people. And I felt it too. So it was very, very hard, ”Ardern said.
He said they had modeled different outbreak scenarios, but what happened “was the worst you could even imagine.”
This is because the outbreak had spread to several groups in densely populated areas, he said, and some of those who caught it had attended large church meetings. But after a second closure in Auckland, New Zealand again eliminated the disease.
Ardern said she felt confident in her answers despite sometimes feeling a touch of imposter syndrome in her leadership role.
“It simply came to our notice then. There is work to be done, ”he said. “Any doubt about myself, as a human being, does not mean that this always translates into doubts about what needs to be done.”
Two months after the second outbreak, Ardern faced an election campaign. He won a second term by landslide, with his Liberal Labor Party winning the majority of all votes, the last time he passed into the New Zealand multiparty system in 1951.
After seeing President-elect Joe Biden win the U.S. election shortly after, Ardern said he hopes relations between the two nations will improve.
He said his job is to establish good relationships with all leaders.
“But there’s no doubt that when some of your ideas and values are similar, it’s an easier job to do,” he said. “And so that’s the basis, I think, on which to build the relationship with the new president.”
Ardern said he is not afraid to take a stand against a more aggressive China despite New Zealand’s confidence in Beijing as its largest trading partner.
“My personal opinion is that we are at a point where we can pose problems,” Ardern said. “We are quite predictable because we do. And I think it’s an important part of our independent foreign policy. ”
For the world to begin to return to normal, Ardern said, thorough work needs to be done to ensure that everyone can be vaccinated against COVID-19 and launch a vaccine certification process that allows people to travel.
She is concerned about the economic impact of the virus that increases the wealth disparity and that New Zealanders have challenged previous predictions by sending house prices to new all-time highs.
He said there is a psychology behind New Zealand’s financial obsession with housing that needs to be examined, otherwise “we will not figure out how to move people to other parts of the economy”.
Ardern said he plans to take some free time during the southern hemisphere summer to spend it with his fiancée, Clarke Gayford, and his 2-year-old daughter Neve.
“I don’t do anything,” he said with a laugh. “But I will be by the sea. It will be great “.