Many believe that the personal merit of New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, has played a significant role in the success of the epidemic. New Zealand is a country of nearly five million people. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been 1,476 reported cases of infection and 19 deaths (according to Johns Hopkins University). This is the lowest mortality rate of any Western country with a developed healthcare system. To what or to whom do New Zealanders owe such a favorable outcome for themselves? And what should the rest of the world take note of for the future?
Many specialists today like to recall the story that marked the beginning of modern epidemiology. When a serious cholera outbreak occurred in the Soho district of London in 1854, the British physician John Snow decided to focus not on treating the sick, as everyone else was doing, but on finding the cause of the epidemic. The reason turned out to be contaminated water in the local water well, and Snow convinced the authorities to remove the pump handle so that people would stop using it. It is not known for certain whether this was the main reason for the decline of the epidemic, but Dr. Snow’s principle spurred the development of a new direction in science, the elimination of the root cause.
New Zealand was one of the first countries to introduce social distancing and mandatory quarantine for all new arrivals. According to virologists, there are two strategies that can be followed in the event of an epidemic. The first is well known and tried: containment and mitigation. The second is a more radical and risky strategy of eliminating the virus. While many countries were leaning toward the first strategy, New Zealand decided to take the path of elimination, and already in early February, the authorities advised citizens to minimize social contacts. On March 14, it imposed a mandatory quarantine on all new arrivals, and on March 19, it closed the borders to foreigners.
We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what happens next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. The end of the story: Promotional Podcasts Then, for several days, the authorities introduced a four-level response system, of which the second level can be conditionally called “gathering of no more than three people,” and the fourth level implies almost a complete shutdown of the country’s life. The country moved from the second to the fourth level in just four days. By comparison, on March 20, children in the United Kingdom were still in school. “It is a pity that humanity did not learn any lessons from the situation with the atypical pneumonia epidemic. It was necessary to break the chain of the epidemic’s spread as soon as possible, to put all efforts into it – that’s what should have been done universally. At the same time, many countries began to think about how to prolong the peak of infectiousness and reduce the burden on hospitals. Time was lost,” says Alexander Movila, a microbiologist and professor at Nova University in Florida. “In addition, in many countries and major cities, authorities and people were clinging to businesses for fear of damaging the economy,” adds Movila. A state of emergency was also declared in New Zealand, giving the authorities additional leverage to make tough decisions.
According to experts, one of the success factors was also the discipline of the country’s population in following all government directives. According to the scientific publication New Zealand Medical Journal, if not for the government’s determination and speed in decision-making, the statistics of deaths in the country could have been around 14,400 cases. “Our authorities have done an excellent job, but compliance with quarantine rules is primarily the responsibility of the population. I have worked in Yemen, Israel, Poland and Ecuador at different times, and I can compare the social environments of different countries, and not everywhere people are willing to accept the circumstances offered to them,” says New Zealand sociologist Sean Adams. “Trust or mistrust in authorities becomes an important condition in such moments of crisis. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is very popular in the country. Her popularity among New Zealanders even has a name – “Jacindamania”. In October 2017, at the age of 37, she became the youngest prime minister in New Zealand’s history. In 2018, she became the first prime minister to speak at a gay parade and advocated for the legalization of abortion and marijuana. In March 2019, Ardern wore a hijab and stood with New Zealand’s Muslim community after a radical killed more than 50 people and injured 49 during Friday prayers at two Christchurch mosques. She supports protectionist measures in the economy and is committed to social justice policies, including raising the minimum wage and providing economic assistance to the disadvantaged.
Jacinda Ardern wore a hijab to meet with relatives of Muslims killed in the terrorist attacks. “Not many places can introduce a state of emergency with the full understanding and support of society,” says Sean Adams. “The main reason I got into politics was because I felt a calling to look after other people,” Ardern said in an interview with the BBC a year ago. “Mentality also plays a very important role,” says Professor Movila. “And Western discipline plays only a partial role. The Chinese also followed all the instructions of the authorities. It is a very interesting scientific phenomenon. For comparison – in Romania, for the incomplete month of April, the police fined about 200 thousand violators of the isolation regime for a total of 78 million euros. “I don’t want to bother you with the details of molecular mechanisms right now, but there is such a concept as the genome of a nation. Just as individual people are more or less predisposed to certain diseases, the same is true for entire nations,” says microbiologist Movila.
Professor Alexander Movila begins research into the problem of the effects of the coronavirus on the oral cavity of those who have recovered. In 1989, the International Human Genome Organization (HUGO) was established, which became the basis for hundreds of developments, particularly in the field of studying the genetic characteristics of different populations. Since then, many scientists have tended to believe that the characteristics of the genome influence how different peoples respond to disease and natural phenomena. “For example, Japanese people age more slowly than Europeans. It’s simply a different rate of accumulation of senescent cells. And Latin Americans, especially Mexicans, are much more prone to type 2 diabetes,” explains the scientist. According to him, New Zealand’s experience in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic can be an important guide for the future, as humanity is likely to encounter mutated viruses again. “Sooner or later, all countries will have to deal with the situation, but what nobody knows yet is the true extent of the damage that Covid-19 will do to the mental state of the Earth’s population, including New Zealanders. Scientists in various countries around the world are beginning to look at this issue, and it may be comparable to the physical damage caused by the coronavirus,” warns Professor Alexander Movila. As New Zealand returns to normal life, strict quarantine measures are gradually lifted.