One year on from New Zealand's longest lockdown, a leading epidemiologist believes they're a thing of the past, and Kiwis won't have to experience another one.
Twelve months ago the Government announced a three-day lockdown after a Delta case was detected in Auckland, in the end, the heavy restrictions lasted well over three months.
As cases became rampant and Omicron emerged, the Government shifted its stance on COVID-19, announcing a new plan in October last year to move away from an "elimination" strategy, to instead co-exist with the virus.
Since then, New Zealand has been recording thousands of cases a day, with just under 5,000 recorded on Tuesday.
Epidemiologist Michael Baker believes it was the right decision to move New Zealand into lockdown.
"It was the right decision. I mean, you think of the benefits that flowed from that. The Delta outbreak was brought under control, obviously, it was very tough for Auckland, but by Christmas, the whole country was able to relax, enjoy that break," he told AM co-host Laura Tupou on Wednesday.
"Delta was on the run, it was being basically suppressed and heading towards elimination, so that saved many lives in New Zealand."
Baker had some good news for Kiwis, telling AM he doesn't believe New Zealand will need lockdowns again.
"I think the lesson is this virus may have surprises for us in the future, so we have to be on guard for that, but hopefully we'll never need a lockdown like that ever again," Baker said.
"But the good news for New Zealand is we know we can beat these viruses if we get a particularly dangerous, highly transmissible virus in the future.
"We know the risk from pandemic diseases unfortunately, is increasing at the moment, but I really hope we never have to go through that experience again."
Auckland was in lockdown for 107-days and it wasn't until December 2 when restrictions eased as all of New Zealand moved to the new COVID-19 Protect Framework (traffic light system).
Baker believes Auckland's 107-day sacrifice was worth it to help the country experience a festive season without restrictions.
"It meant that by the time we reached summer, the whole country had a high degree of freedom over that period and again, we had another Christmas New Year period, really largely free from the risk of getting this infection," he told AM.
"So not only did it give the whole country a high degree of freedom over that period, but also it would have saved many lives. The alternative would have been widespread transmission of the Delta variant, a bit like what we saw in Australia, and that would have resulted in many deaths over that period."
New Zealand still remains at orange in the COVID-19 Protection Framework, with the next update coming in September.
Watch the full interview with Michael Baker above.
