What public health measures did New Zealand implement to completely eliminate community spread of Covid-19?

 New Zealand (NZ) is globally known for its effective efforts that completely eliminated Covid-19 for several months.  While most countries in Europe and North America in early March sought to mitigate the virus (prevent a large and rapid uptick in cases and overwhelm the healthcare system), NZ sought to completely eliminate it which means zero community transmission. The decision to do so was partly due to their concern of how the virus could devastate the Maori indigenous population which accounts for 17% of the population. NZ was also concerned about how their response would affect the Pacific Islands as these island nations are poorer and have less infrastructure to control outbreaks of diseases. Between September to December 2019 an outbreak of measles occurred on the island nation of Samoa due to an infected New Zealander traveling to the island. The outbreak resulted in over 5000 cases and 83 deaths.  

Despite NZ only having 100 active cases, in mid-March they implemented the strictest lockdown (level 4) where ground travel between areas was severely restricted and boarders were closed to all non-nationals. People were told to only leave their homes for essential purposes like buying groceries. The stay at home order remained in place for a total of 7 weeks until late May, and by late July 2020, they had had several months of zero Covid-19 cases. It’s clear that the lockdown greatly helped stop community spread because by late May when the lockdown was being lifted 72% of the total Covid-19 cases were linked to international travel. Today New Zealanders have almost completely returned to how life was like before the pandemic. They are able to attend mass gatherings, such as weddings, without having to socially distance or wear masks. 

References:

Baker, Michael G, et al. “New Zealand's COVID-19 Elimination Strategy.” The Medical Journal of Australia, John Wiley and Sons Inc., Sept. 2020, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7436486/

L. J. Abu-Raddad and Others, et al. “Successful Elimination of Covid-19 Transmission in New Zealand: NEJM.” New England Journal of Medicine, 5 May 2021, www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2025203  

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2516602620932558