Chart of the Month: Buckle up, New Zealand’s not far behind
Comparing the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in New Zealand to some of our key international partner economies can help us to understand how we’re tracking and what might be ahead for us. There’s no one correct chart to show how COVID-19 is affecting the world, but we hope this chart provides a different way of looking at the numbers.
The number of COVID-19 cases is continuing to rise for each country shown in our chart. New Zealand is likely to continue seeing growth in our confirmed cases for the next two weeks at least as many people will have contracted the virus but are not yet showing symptoms. If New Zealand were to follow the same path as the United States, we may not even be a week behind the situation they find themselves in now (see Chart).
Of the five countries charted, New Zealand was the last country to have a case confirmed, with our first case being identified on 28 February. The United States was the first, with their original case being confirmed on 21 January, and all remaining countries charted had confirmed cases by the end of January.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that New Zealand is performing fewer tests comparatively, and so could well have more cases than our chart may suggest. However, mitigation strategies have been implemented relatively early in New Zealand which should give us a better ability to slow the spread, and our testing numbers have increased rapidly.
From now on, we will continue to update this chart with the number of cases in New Zealand to provide some understanding of what is happening during these uncertain times.
