New Zealand has finally acknowledged what most other countries realised long ago, that it cannot completely eradicate Covid.
Jacinda Ardern is abandoning her draconian 'Zero Covid' strategy after admitting she cannot stop the spread of the Delta variant with harsh lockdown measures and aggressive contact tracing.
The Pacific nation, which has been slow to move on vaccines with only 40 per cent of the population fully jabbed, managed to eliminate the virus last year and stayed largely free until an outbreak of the Delta variant in August after a traveller returned from Australia.
The restrictions have been in place despite only a total of 27 deaths recorded throughout the pandemic.
The prime minister enforced what was meant to be a 'short and sharp' nationwide lockdown in response to the Auckland outbreak of the 'game changer' variant, which now stands at 1,357 cases.
Jacinda Ardern is abandoning her draconian 'Zero Covid' strategy after admitting she cannot stop the spread of the Delta variant
But the harsh measures persisted in an effort to rid the country of the contagious strain, which have so far failed as an additional 29 infections were announced today.
Ardern told a news conference: 'With this outbreak and Delta the return to zero is incredibly difficult.
'This is a change in approach we were always going to make over time. Our Delta outbreak has accelerated this transition. Vaccines will support it.'
Ardern said a lockdown affecting 1.7million people in the biggest city Auckland will be scaled back in phases, with some freedoms introduced from Wednesday.
Amid mounting pressure, Ardern has said her strategy was never to have zero cases, but to aggressively stamp out the virus.
She said strict lockdowns will end once 90 per cent of the eligible population is vaccinated.
About two million New Zealanders have so far been fully vaccinated, or about 48 per cent of
