(16 Dec 2020) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4301993

New Zealand this year pulled off a moonshot that remains the envy of most other nations: It eliminated the coronavirus.
But the goal was driven as much by fear as it was ambition, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press.
She said the target grew from an early realization the nation's health system simply couldn't cope with a big outbreak.
And there have been plenty of bumps along the way.
When a handful of unexplained cases began cropping up in August, Ardern found herself defending wildly exaggerated claims from President Donald Trump, who told crowds at rallies there was a massive resurgence and "It's over for New Zealand. Everything's gone."
"Was angry the word?" Ardern said, reflecting on Trump's comments.
She said while the new cases were deeply concerning, "to be described in that way was a misrepresentation of New Zealand's position."
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  
New Zealand's response to the virus has been among the most successful, together with actions taken by China, Taiwan and Thailand early on in the pandemic.
The country of 5 million has counted just 25 deaths and managed to stamp out the spread of COVID-19, allowing people to return to workplaces, schools and packed sports stadiums without restrictions.
When the virus began hitting Europe early in the year, Ardern said, the only two options countries were considering were herd immunity or flattening the curve.
She opted for the latter.
Ardern said she didn't worry that elimination might prove impossible, because even if New Zealand didn't get there, the approach still would have saved lives.
"The idea that we needed to go into a full lockdown, that was clear, I didn't question that at all," she said.
Border closures and a strict lockdown in March got rid of the disease, and New Zealand went 102 days without any community spread.
But then came the August outbreak in Auckland, which remains unexplained but likely originated abroad.  
She said they'd modeled different outbreak scenarios but the one that eventuated "was about the worst that you could even possibly imagine."
That's because the outbreak had spread across multiple groups in densely populated areas, she said, and some who caught it had been attending large church gatherings.
But after a second lockdown in Auckland, New Zealand again stamped out the disease.  
Two months after the second outbreak, Ardern faced an election campaign.
She won a second term in an landslide, with her liberal Labour Party winning a majority of all votes, something that last happened in New Zealand's multiparty system in 1951.
For the world to begin to return to normal, Ardern said, there needs to be comprehensive work around ensuring that everybody can get vaccinated against COVID-19 and putting in place a vaccine certification process that would allow people to travel.
She does worry the economic impact of the virus is increasing wealth disparity, and that New Zealanders have defied earlier predictions by sending house prices to new all-time highs.  
She said there is a psychology behind New Zealand's financial obsession with housing that needs to be examined, otherwise "we won't figure out how to move people back into other parts of the economy."
Ardern said she plans to take some time off over the Southern Hemisphere summer to spend with her fiance, Clarke Gayford, and their 2-year-old daughter, Neve.

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