While prime minister Jacinda Ardern congratulates nation with the good work, the scientists express the concern on such a fast ending of the lockdown in New Zeland. It is too early, say the experts.
NZ’s PM Minister Jacinda Ardern was recently hailed in The Atlantic as “the most effective leader on the planet.” Amid the global frightening coronacrisis, Australia and New Zealand are “restoring trust in democracy” with their strategy to combat the virus, in fact.
However, scientists warn that people should be fooled by this propaganda campaign. New Zealand has 1,479 confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 19 deaths. While this is fewer than in many other countries, the infection has not been eliminated and new cases are reported every day.
According to Ardern’s strategy, extending the lockdown might help eliminate the novel infection, but such considerations had to be “traded against the huge economic impact”. In NZ, a nation of five million people, more than 600,000 live in poverty and the number is increasing fast.
The Ardern government, a coalition between Labour, the Greens and the anti-immigrant New Zealand First Party, has no solution except mass unemployment, poverty, nationalism and militarism—including a stronger alliance with US imperialism.
The left-wing politicians insist that only solution to the present crisis is the fight to unify working people in New Zealand—including Maori, Europeans, Pacific and Asian immigrants—with workers internationally, to abolish the profit system.
To sum it up, a week from today, on 11 May, Jacinda Ardern’s Cabinet will decide whether the country will move down from level 3 or continue on. The first minister said New Zealand needed every day between now and then to be sure there was no widespread transmission of the virus under level 3.
