New Zealand abandons COVID removal strategies under pressure from Delta

New Zealand on Monday abandoned its long-standing strategy of eliminating coronavirus amid a persistent Delta outbreak, and will instead look to live with the virus and control its spread as its vaccination rate rises. 

The Pacific nation was among just a handful of countries to bring COVID-19 cases down to zero last year and largely stayed virus-free until an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant in mid-August frustrated efforts to stamp out transmission. 

"With this outbreak and Delta the return to zero is incredibly difficult," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a news conference in a major policy shift. Ardern said a lockdown affecting 1.7 million people in the biggest city Auckland will be scaled back in phases, with some freedoms introduced from Wednesday. 

The change of direction came as the country recorded 29 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, taking the total number in the current outbreak to 1,357. Amid mounting pressure, Ardern has said her strategy was never to have zero cases, but to aggressively stamp out the virus.