After a single new case of COVID-19 was reported in New Zealand earlier this week, the entire country shut down for at least three whole days.
While extreme, the country’s protocols are being looked at by experts as the best reaction to new COVID-19 cases that are popping up worldwide as the delta variant continues to grow.
"They haven't had a case there for six months," said Dr. Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute on KCBS Radio's "Ask an Expert" on Wednesday. "They had a plan, which we’re not very good at here, that if they get a new case...they have to pull out all the stops."
Although only 20% of the country is vaccinated, they've managed to keep their COVID-19 positive cases down to almost zero, said Topol. If the U.S. had enacted similar protocols from the start, it's likely the country wouldn't have fared as well as New Zealand, but better than where things are at now.
"We're out of control here," said Topol. "We're generating more COVID-19 cases by far than any other place in the world."
Booster shots might be the best course of action to get things under control in the U.S., said Topol. Although there are a few other strains being monitored, none are as troubling as delta. "It’s going to be very hard for another strain to overtake the world the way delta did," he said. "It's nothing like beta, gamma, any other variants we’ve seen before."
"It's not helping us break the chain, these new infections," said Topol.
