Thread by @Telegraph

🇳🇿The Kiwi prime minister's lockdown policy started well, but with vaccine take-up low, New Zealand could be facing a delayed health disaster.

Is it all going south for Jacinda Ardern?

Thread ~👇
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🦠The delta variant has found its way into Auckland, and is spreading faster than the government can track - despite a fresh lockdown.

50 new cases were reported over the weekend and 31 more on Monday.

📈Bringing the total number to 287 – including a newborn baby

💉80% of NZ's population remain unprotected from Covid.

This has made the country the perfect host for delta, with no background immunity through exposure to Covid.

"She threw a belt around her country, but did not bother with the braces" writes @gordonrayner

Now, NZ is abandoning the “elimination” strategy in favour of a 3-stage roadmap, taking into account vaccination rates.

❌There are fears that NZ could experience similar levels of deaths to other countries as it goes through a delayed health disaster
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🗣️“New Zealand could find all the sacrifices of the past year wasted if it doesn’t get its population immunised quickly enough” says Paul Hunter, professor of health protection at the University of East Anglia

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🇦🇺Ardern’s policy of never-ending lockdowns and isolation has been described as “absurd” by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who added that no country can “stay in the cave” forever

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Opposition parties in New Zealand are also on the attack

➡️David Seymour, leader of the Right-wing ACT party said that while the rest of the world was moving forward by vaccinating its way out of lockdowns and border controls, “we are starting to go backwards”

💸The nation had run a budget surplus for five years before the pandemic

“But with a budget deficit of 7.5% of GDP in the past financial year, New Zealand must repair its economy, which it will struggle to do if it remains in isolation” writes @gordonrayner

🇳🇿New Zealand’s tiny death toll could yet end up in the thousands because of its over-reliance on isolation and slow take-up of vaccines.

“For Jacinda Ardern’s New Zealand, the worst may be yet to come” writes @GordonRayner

Read more ⬇️
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