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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
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Morgan Godfery

Jacinda Ardern united New Zealanders when Covid hit. Then a long second lockdown split ‘the team of 5 million’

New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern
In March 2020 Jacinda Ardern made the case to ‘go hard and go early’, introducing a term that would unite New Zealand for the next year and a half. Photograph: Robert Kitchin/AAP

Today marks two years to the day that the call went out for New Zealanders who were travelling or living overseas to “return home”.

In those strange, dangerous days the pandemic was threatening to unleash so many unknowns: how short was the transmission window? How effective were masks and ventilation? And what did hospitalisation and death look like in a first world country?

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