AMN/ WEB DESK
In New Zealand, 206 new daily community infections on Saturday carried it past the double-hundred mark for the first time during the Corona virus pandemic. The nation scrambled to vaccinate its population of five million.
The most populous city of Auckland, which reported 200 of the new cases, has lived under COVID-19 curbs for nearly three months as it battles an outbreak of the infectious Delta variant, although restrictions are expected to ease on Monday.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, she wanted Auckland residents to be able to travel for the southern hemisphere summer and Christmas.
Saturday’s cases served to remind people of the importance of vaccination as the number one protection against the virus, the Health Ministry said in a statement. It said, 78 per cent of New Zealanders aged 12 years and above had been fully vaccinated, while 89 per cent had a first dose till yesterday.
Once praised globally for stamping out COVID-19, New Zealand has been unable to vanquish the Delta outbreak in Auckland, forcing Ms Ardern to abandon a strategy of eliminating the virus in favour of efforts to live with it.