Lockdown update: back to freedom after 56.5 days

I’m so glad that we as New Zealan­ders could con­tain the sec­ond wave of Covid-19 in 56.5 days since the last out­break. Auck­land will join the rest of New Zealand at Alert Lev­el 1 at 11:59pm today (Wednes­day, 7 Octo­ber).

While that’s great news, this time I am cau­tious­ly opti­mistic. There is still COVID-19 in New Zealand; as of today, there are 37 active cas­es, albeit in man­aged iso­la­tion and quar­an­tine facil­i­ties. That num­ber is much small­er than many oth­er coun­tries, but it only takes a lit­tle bit of com­pla­cen­cy to push us all into anoth­er lock­down. It may sound obvi­ous, but it is called a virus for a rea­son: it goes viral and we would­n’t know how!

Mean­while, I urge every­one, wher­ev­er you are in the world, to prac­tice three Ws:

  1. Wear a mask.
  2. Wash your hands.
  3. Watch your dis­tance.

And use what­ev­er COVID Trac­ing app your gov­ern­ment pre­scribes!

Here is the full NZ lock­down time­line:

  • 11:59pm, 25-March-2020 Wednes­day

    New Zealand moves to alert lev­el 4; the entire nation goes into self-iso­la­tion.

  • 33 days

  • 11:59 pm, 27-Apr-2020 Mon­day

    NZ goes down to lock­down alert lev­el 3.

  • 16 days

  • 11:59 pm, 13-May-2020 Wednes­day

    NZ goes down to lock­down alert lev­el 2.

  • 26 days

  • 11:59 pm, 08-Jun-2020 Mon­day

    NZ will move to alert lev­el 1 — and a return to most­ly nor­mal lives — from mid­night tonight.

  • 64.5 days

  • 12:00 pm, 12-Aug-2020 Wednes­day

    Auck­land returns to lock­down alert lev­el 3.

    Rest of NZ returns to lock­down alert lev­el 2.

  • 42.5 days

  • 11:59 pm, 23-Sep­tem­ber-2020 Wednes­day

    Auck­land goes down to lock­down alert lev­el 2.

    Rest of NZ goes down to lock­down alert lev­el 1.

  • 14 days

  • 11:59 pm, 07-Octo­ber-2020 Wednes­day

    Auck­land joins rest of NZ at alert lev­el 1 — and a return to most­ly nor­mal lives — from mid­night tonight.

  • Hop­ing this is the end of it! Knocks wood.

    A third, but luck­i­ly short­er wave time­line here.

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