New Zealand lifts lockdown as last coronavirus patient recovers:
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced New Zealand will lift its coronavirus lockdown allowing a return to a nearly normal life for the country's five million people, as health officials reported that the final person known to have contracted the infection had recovered.
Making the announcement at a news conference on Monday, Ardern said the government would not let down its guard over the virus and promised to rebuild an economy that has slowed because of the global pandemic.
[...] It has been 17 days since the last new case was reported in New Zealand, and Monday also marked the first time since late February that there have been no active cases.
[...] Officials were eager to stress that the coronavirus remained a concern given the growth of cases elsewhere in the world. Borders would remain closed, Ardern said, describing them as the "first line of defence". Only citizens and residents, with some exceptions, are currently allowed into the country.
[...] Elimination did not mean eradicating the virus permanently from New Zealand, but eliminating "chains of transmission" for at least 28 consecutive days after the last infected person left isolation, which would be on June 15, the ministry said.
[...] Experts say a number of factors have helped the nation wipe out the disease, including its isolated location, along with leadership shown by the prime minister, who imposed a strict lockdown early on during the outbreak.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Captival on Thursday June 11 2020, @01:27AM (5 children)
The NASDAQ just hit a record high, over 10,000 yesterday. The DOW is doing great too and largely recovered. Employment is doing way better than anyone predicted, given the circumstances:
As someone so eager to call out fools, you might want to look in the mirror.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @01:50AM
The job numbers are all fake and have been for years. It's time for universal basic income.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday June 11 2020, @02:38AM (1 child)
NASDAQ and, in general, stockmarket is a poor metric for the health of economy.
It's irrational - too much based on the feelz of people with money wanting even more money now, everything be damn'd, including long term prospects - this is how US got to depend on China beyond a healthy level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @07:11AM
Well that, and the ungodly amount of money the Fed poured into it to keeps losses at a minimum.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 11 2020, @02:44AM
The sharemarket is where it is right now because of the huge amount of taxpayers money governments around the world have been pouring into it in various ways.
C0lo makes good points, as usual, as well.
As he notes, pretending a healthy sharemarket is somehow an indication the economy is doing well is wrong.
It's a weird world when a pandemic has been politicised, but here we are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 11 2020, @02:45AM
While he may be a fool, I would not say everything here in the US is hunky-dory.
The wounds from our imprisonment are deep, very many people are out of a job (indications are that the most recent figures have serious discrepancies), schools and social life disrupted to a degree that will take months to recover from.
And to see the stock market "recovered" under these conditions, that points to piles and piles of government money injected into the market to shore up prices. Not to mention that the five stocks of FAAMG make up 18% of the SP500, the top 20 stocks make up ~50%: the "market" is strongly skewed to companies that can make shiny things in China, operate a wasteland of social, work online - and get special government dispensation to operate as an "essential" business while small business couldn't get access to the same.
As an aside, was that the states' gift to Amazon for being a major trailblazer in allowing them to collect sales tax on online orders?