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First detected in India, the Delta variant of COVID-19 is considered to be the most contagious strain of the virus. The delta variant was also the dominant strain of the ferocious second wave of coronavirus that swept the country leaving lakhs affected. Now, the virus is wrecking havoc worldwide. In the list, New Zealand has become the latest country that has abandoned the ‘zero Covid’ strategy, amid the massive spread of the highly infectious delta variant, which is now dominant in over 133 countries globally.

Amid a sudden spike in the daily cases, experts said that long periods of heavy restrictions have not taken the country to zero cases. However, they also asserted that vaccines may help in the elimination of the virus to a great level. Speaking to the media, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, “For this outbreak, it’s clear that long periods of heavy restrictions have not got us to zero cases. But that is OK. Elimination was important because we didn’t have vaccines. Now we do, so we can begin to change the way we do things.”

Meanwhile, India logged 18,346 new coronavirus infections, the lowest in 209 days, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,38,53,048. Follow TheHealthSite.com for all the latest updates on COVID-19 from in and around the world.