Sold-out concert for over 50,000 shows New Zealand's Covid-19 success

More than 50,000 people attended a concert at New Zealand’s largest sports stadium on Saturday, in what organizers said was the largest live music event since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

 

New Zealand band Six60 performed at Eden Park in Auckland to a sold-out event that featured pyrotechnics and was live-streamed to nations across the South Pacific.

 

With no social-distancing or mask-wearing required, the concert was a demonstration of New Zealand’s success in controlling the coronavirus through closing its international border and rigorous testing and contact tracing. It’s a stark contrast to other countries across the world that are in lockdown amid surging infections.

 

New Zealand has recorded only about 2,600 cases of the virus and 26 deaths since the pandemic began and tops Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking. The border closure has badly hit the nation’s tourism industry, though it has now opened a quarantine-free travel bubble with Australia.

 

“Our city has shown the world this week that in the midst of a global pandemic, we can live close to normality in Auckland,” Mayor Phil Goff said in a statement.