New Zealand’s ministry of health originally recommended a complete shutdown of the country’s borders – including banning citizens from re-entering – in an effort to stem the spread of Covid-19.
The drastic measure would have rendered New Zealanders overseas “stateless”, said the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and was rejected by cabinet wholesale as an “extraordinary measure no government in the world would allow”.
“It would have been extraordinary for the government to make a decision to strand New Zealanders overseas … we couldn’t entertain that. It is an extraordinary thing to deem someone stateless, we have international obligations to consider.”
The revelation comes as the number or coronavirus cases continues to fall with just two registered on Wednesday and six people being treated in hospital. There have been no additional deaths.
Ardern said the lower numbers did not mean “New Zealand was out of the woods” but the country’s progress was positive, and compliance with level 3 measures had generally been good, with just over 100 violations on day one, 21 of which eventuated in prosecutions and 70 in warnings.
On Wednesday schools around the country reopened but following government advice to keep children home if possible only 1% of students returned to classrooms, Ardern said, and 4% of children went back to early childhood centres.
Nationwide there were 750 complaints of businesses not following level 3 guidelines, with most complaints relating to a failure to institute social distancing between customers.
Earlier on Wednesday the foreign minister, Winston Peters, said 80,000 New Zealanders had returned home since 14 March.
“The ministry of health recommended a total shutdown of the border, including to returning New Zealanders. From its health perspective, this was understandable and appropriate advice,” he said.
“But the Coalition cabinet rejected that advice because it was and is inconceivable that we will ever turn our backs on our own.”
As New Zealand moved from level 4 lockdown to level 3, a photo of people clustered outside a burger bar on the first evening takeaway food shops were allowed to reopen has caused a scandal that drew a response from the prime minister.
“I’m worried for us,” one Twitter user said of the cluster of about 30 people outside an Auckland outlet of the fast food chain Burger Fuel (the name of the store was one of the top trending topics on Twitter in New Zealand).
Oh man. I’m worried for us. pic.twitter.com/wvcnopbTMt
— Richard Hills (@richardhills777) April 28, 2020
“This shit was insane!!” said Dan Arakawa, who took the photo, on Facebook. Police said they had visited the store to provide “education” about physical distancing. Burger Fuel would begin to deploy “crowd controllers” outside its stores, according to the New Zealand Herald.
Ardern said: “We have had confirmation from officials this morning they have been directly in contact with the head office of that operation.”
The gathering was perhaps a sign of New Zealanders’ joy at being reunited with takeaway food. Stores, restaurants, cafes, and meal delivery services had all been closed under the strictest lockdown measures, which were eased in New Zealand on Tuesday.
The measures have been only slightly relaxed, however, meaning takeaway meals were one of few new activities people could enjoy – leading to a flood of pictures of burgers, fries, and fillets of battered fish on social media, delivery apps overloaded or crashing, and police managing traffic outside some stores.
Clarke Gayford, the PM’s partner, summed up the frenzy in a video he posted on Twitter with the caption “NZ anticipating takeaways starting again like …” that showed a jaguar dragging an alligator out of a river.
NZ anticipating takeaways starting again like... pic.twitter.com/562CLyv8DH
— Clarke Gayford (@NZClarke) April 27, 2020
“Nature is healing,” said another Twitter user, posting a photo of cars queued outside a McDonald’s drive-through lane.
