New Zealand's prime minister is interrupted by her three-year-old as the leader takes to Facebook live to share a Covid update. ‘You're meant to be in bed, darling,’ Jacinda Ardern says, turning her head to speak to Neve. ‘It's bedtime, darling, pop back to bed, I'll come and see you in a second.' Ardern’s mother then ushers Neve back to her room and the PM turns back to camera to joke: ‘Well, that was a bedtime fail, wasn’t it?’
Continue reading...Category Archives: Jacinda Ardern
New Zealand hits Covid case record but Ardern says ‘better times coming’
200 daily cases for the first time as PM says it is on track to have ‘amongst the highest vaccination rates in the world’
New Zealand has passed 200 daily cases of Covid-19 for the first time in the pandemic, placing it on a worrying trajectory for the summer and raising expert concerns that the growing outbreak could overwhelm the health system.
On Saturday there were 206 cases announced – 200 based in Auckland, the city at the centre of the outbreak. There were 73 people in hospital with the virus, seven in intensive care.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern ends press conference after being heckled over Covid vaccines – video
The New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, abruptly halted a media conference after being heckled by at least two people who appeared to be anti-vaxxers. One man claiming to be a journalist continued interrupting, asking Ardern: 'Why is the vaccine not working in Israel? And you are still pushing it.' Ardern replied: 'Sir, I will shut down the press conference if this continues.'
For context, Israel is recording a seven-day average of about 600 new daily cases, compared with a peak of about 11,000 daily infections in September. No vaccine on the market claims to be 100% effective at preventing transmission
Covid ‘vaxathon’: over 2.5% of New Zealanders get jabbed in one day
Celebrities encourage turnout as response surpasses Jacinda Ardern’s call to administer 100,000 shots
New Zealand’s “Super Saturday” of Covid vaccinations has proved a hit, with more than 2.5% of the population responding to the call to get jabbed on a single day.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, set an ambitious goal of administering 100,000 shots on the day, aiming to push vaccination rates towards her 90% goal.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern facing biggest challenge yet as New Zealand switches to Covid suppression
The prime minister has enjoyed huge support during the pandemic – but the country’s new course may force unpopular trade-offs
This week, New Zealand’s locked-down cities woke to a brave new world of lifted restrictions: state-sanctioned picnics in parks, the prospect of reopening schools, a chance to reunite with friends and family. Infusing the visions of grass-stained blankets and beachside beers, however, is a strong dose of Covid anxiety. Cases continue to circulate in the community, and the country’s long-held commitment to elimination is being been cast off.
As New Zealand steps into the unknown with its Covid approach, so does its prime minister, Jacinda Ardern. Having brought the country through the pandemic largely unscathed so far, she was richly rewarded with political popularity and trust. Now the prime minister faces the difficult task of guiding it through a new era of Covid suppression – and it could be the most significant political challenge she has faced yet.
Continue reading...How New Zealand snookered itself by calling time on its Covid elimination strategy | Lew Stoddart
By granting freedom as case numbers rise, Jacinda Ardern has diverged from the nation’s understood strategy of aligning policy with expert consensus
The New Zealand government called time on its world-leading Covid-19 elimination strategy on Monday, announcing a suite of measures that grant Aucklanders greater freedom after seven weeks of community transmission, despite experts urging tighter restrictions. In doing so, the government has snookered itself in three mutually-reinforcing ways: on social license, on enforcement, and on the economy.
New Zealand’s strategy depends on social license, and people feeling like they understand and are part of the system, and can contribute to its success, knowing others will be prevented from undermining their efforts.
Continue reading...New Zealand widens Covid lockdown as Delta spreads outside Auckland
Jacinda Ardern puts parts of Waikato into five-day lockdown while country’s largest city records 32 new cases
New Zealand’s Delta Covid variant outbreak has spread beyond Auckland, prompting the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, to put additional regions into a snap lockdown.
There were 32 new coronavirus cases on Sunday in the country’s largest city, which has been in lockdown since mid-August, and two cases in the Waikato region, some 147km (91 miles) south of Auckland. Ardern announced on Sunday that parts of the region will go into a five-day lockdown.
Continue reading...John Key calling New Zealand’s Covid response ‘North Korean’ isn’t just lazy rhetoric, it’s wrong | Brian Ng
Irresponsible statements are fuel for those who falsely believe their rights have been taken away
When former prime minister John Key referred to New Zealand as a “smug hermit kingdom” in his widely disseminated op-ed, I thought it was pushing it a bit, but not completely off the mark – we closed our borders to outsiders, after all. What I didn’t expect was for him to start calling the government’s response “North Korean”. This isn’t just lazy rhetoric, it’s obviously wrong.
This is what North Korea’s been through: it closed its borders at the beginning of 2020, before most of the world put itself into lockdown. It stopped all shipments in and out of the country, including China, which is its largest trading partner and aid donor. Fishing in its surrounding waters and even salt harvesting was halted, for fear Covid may be transmitted that way. Foreign diplomatic staff left on one-way tickets: one group of Russians took a hand-powered rail cart out of the country.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern needs to speak out on Aukus – her tacit approval allows a dangerous military build-up | Bryce Edwards
New Zealand’s prime minister has essentially turned a blind eye to the pact – she knows taking the moral high ground leads to punishment
New Zealand defence hawks reacted to the announcement of the anglophone security pact Aukus this month by complaining this country had been sidelined. In order to stay close to traditional allies, the hawks suggest New Zealand needs to either increase defence spending to compensate, or overturn New Zealand’s long-held ban on nuclear-powered vessels.
On the opposing side, there have been plenty of doves celebrating that New Zealand isn’t involved in Aukus. For example, editorials from the three biggest newspapers all took this stance, which probably reflects the general view of most New Zealanders.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern looks to life beyond lockdowns with 90% vaccination target
News that jabs may soon be approved for children could allow New Zealand to achieve milestone, experts say, but equality in access must be improved
Jacinda Ardern wants to make New Zealand a world leader in Covid vaccinations, inoculating 90% of the population, but experts warn there will be challenges ahead as the prime minister seeks to find a way to take the harshest lockdowns “out of the toolbox”.
Ardern’s aim to make the population one of the most vaccinated in the world may seem ambitious but it was made as Covid modellers warned that anything less could result in 7,000 deaths, and 60,000 hospitalisations in the event of a community outbreak. So far, New Zealand has recorded a total of just 27 deaths.
Continue reading...‘They couldn’t come into our internal waters’: Ardern responds to Aukus submarine deal – video
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says her country was ‘not approached’ to be part of a new security pact between Australia, the UK and US. ‘Nor would I expect us to be,’ she adds. ‘The anchor of this arrangement are nuclear-powered submarines and it will be very clear to all New Zealanders and to Australia why New Zealand would not wish to be a part of that project.' Since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has had a strict policy keeping its territorial sea, land and airspace as nuclear-free zones
- Aukus submarines banned from New Zealand as pact exposes divide with western allies
- Cold war echoes as Aukus alliance focuses on China deterrence
NZ prime minister Jacinda Ardern struggles with tough question during Covid press conference – video
At Thursday's daily Covid-19 briefing, the typically unflappable prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, could barely contain her expression when asked to respond to an allegation that a visitor and a patient had sex in a shared room at Auckland hospital. The allegation comes as the Auckland District Health Board faces criticism for allowing hundreds of visitors a day into hospitals, despite the strict lockdown measures in place to help the country stamp out an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant.
► Subscribe to Guardian Australia on YouTube
- ‘High-risk activity’: Ardern advises hospital visitors against sex with patients during Covid
- New Zealand Covid update: Ardern secures 250,000 Pfizer doses from Spain as 13 new cases recorded
New Zealand Covid update: Ardern secures 250,000 Pfizer doses from Spain as 13 new cases recorded
New Delta cases below 21 for sixth consecutive day, as Jacinda Ardern announces vaccine purchase from Spain
Daily cases in New Zealand’s coronavirus outbreak have continued to fall, with just 13 new infections recorded on Thursday, the sixth day in a row that numbers have been below 21. The downward trend is an encouraging sign the tough lockdown measures are working and that the country is making progress towards stamping out the virus.
It came as the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced the government had secured another 250,000 Pfizer vaccines from Spain to enable the vaccine rollout to continue at pace.
Continue reading...New Zealand stabbings: officials tried for years to deport terrorist prior to Auckland attack, Jacinda Ardern says
Jacinda Ardern says ‘every legal avenue’ was used to detain Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen until his refugee status was resolved
New Zealand had tried for years to deport the terrorist who stabbed shoppers in an Auckland supermarket on Friday before being shot dead by the police officers tasked with watching him, the country’s prime minister has said.
Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, a 32-year-old Sri Lankan man, was fighting to keep his refugee status in New Zealand when he carried out the attack, which Jacinda Ardern said was inspired by the Islamic State.
Continue reading...Even as New Zealand battles Covid, trust in government bucks global trend
With a nationwide lockdown and some of the world’s strictest restrictions, Jacinda Ardern is counting on her people’s goodwill again
In locked-down New Zealand, life orbits around the 1pm briefing. As the home-bound nation digests its lunch, the director general of health, Ashley Bloomfield – frequently alongside prime minister Jacinda Ardern – takes the stage behind a socially distanced podium and updates the country.
In the midst of a Covid outbreak, those briefings occur almost every weekday. They are so clockwork-regular, so predictable in their essential structure, that certain sentences became memes: “Kia ora koutou katoa. There are X cases of Covid-19 in the community,” each begins. After the last outbreak, media outlet The Spinoff spliced together Bloomfield saying it 44 times.
Continue reading...New Zealand Covid update: Ardern rejects criticism of elimination strategy after 68 new cases
Prime minister says she is achieving her goals of saving lives and jobs, and giving people as much normalcy as possible
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has dismissed criticism of her ambitious elimination strategy to stamp out Covid, as the country’s outbreak grows, saying the approach has saved lives and will continue to do so.
On Thursday, the coronavirus outbreak grew by 68 cases, taking the total number of cases to 277. One previously reported case has been reclassified after being confirmed as a false positive.
Continue reading...‘This isn’t surprising’: Jacinda Ardern warns New Zealanders to remain calm as Covid cases rise
Country records 21 new cases, its worst single day for transmission since April last year
Jacinda Ardern has warned New Zealanders the worst of the Delta outbreak of Covid-19 is yet to come after another jump in cases.
New Zealand recorded 21 fresh community cases on Saturday, the country’s worst single day for transmission since April last year.
Continue reading...New Zealand national lockdown extended as Covid outbreak spreads to Wellington
Total case numbers grow to 31, including three in Wellington, as Jacinda Ardern urges public to stay vigilant
The whole of New Zealand will remain in lockdown until midnight Tuesday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern has announced, as the country’s coronavirus outbreak grew to 31 people and spread to Wellington.
The first case in the outbreak emerged in Auckland on Tuesday, prompting the government to put the entire country into a level-4 lockdown – the highest level of restrictions. Genome sequencing has linked the cluster to a returnee from Australia.
Continue reading...Ardern’s Covid lockdown finds favour as New Zealand watches Sydney’s Delta disaster
Asked what she would say to people who questioned the need for a level 4 lockdown, the prime minister responded with one word: ‘Australia’
To overseas eyes, going into national lockdown over a single case should have been a hard sell, even for an extraordinarily popular prime minister such as Jacinda Ardern.
But a disastrous outbreak of the Delta variant in Sydney has helped galvanise New Zealand’s “team of 5 million” – and across the country, the government’s tough strategy on Covid-19 has enjoyed widespread popular support.
Continue reading...Growing New Zealand Covid cluster linked to Sydney Delta outbreak
Jacinda Ardern warns of more cases as Auckland cluster grows to seven, marking New Zealand’s first local transmissions of Delta variant
New Zealand’s coronavirus cluster has grown to seven, with genomic sequencing linking it to the Delta outbreak that began in Sydney, as the country woke up to day one of a snap lockdown stemming from just one case.
The country went into a snap level four lockdown – the highest level of restrictions – on Tuesday night, after detecting one case with no obvious links to the border. New Zealand has not had a level 4 lockdown in more than a year, and the case is the country’s first instance of Delta transmission in the community.
Continue reading...