AUCKLAND, New Zealand — When New Zealand, for the first time in months, reported a case of community spread of the coronavirus on Aug. 17, residents sprang into action. They stripped supermarket shelves of pasta and toilet paper, dug socked-away masks out of drawers and fled to vacation homes in the mountains or at the beach.

Hours later came the expected announcement: The country, after that single case of the Delta variant, would plunge into a highly restrictive three-day lockdown. New Zealand, one of the last countries to still pursue “Covid zero,” would aim to eliminate the virus once again, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference that day.

“While we know that Delta is a more dangerous enemy to combat,” she said, “the same actions that overcame the virus last year can be applied to beat it.”

Two weeks later, New Zealand is still in lockdown, one that will last at least another 14 days. One case has become nearly 700, with almost three dozen requiring hospitalization. And the familiar playbook that has made New Zealand an envied model throughout the pandemic is struggling to contain a much more contagious variant of the virus.

“The challenge is eliminating Delta,” said Rodney Jones, an adviser to the New Zealand government on the pandemic. “No country has eliminated Delta.”

For now, New Zealand appears nearly unified behind the effort to try, with lockdown compliance high and faith in public health officials strong. But Ms. Ardern and other leaders have begun to acknowledge that New Zealand may eventually have to change course as the virus continues to spread — 75 new cases were reported on Wednesday, up from around 50 each of the two previous days — and its vaccination campaign lags. That would mean tolerating some spread of the virus to keep society more open, a strategy pursued to varying degrees in almost every developed country.

While China has signaled a long-term commitment to a Covid-zero approach, the Delta variant has already felled such virus elimination blueprints in Singapore, Hong Kong and several other places in the Asia-Pacific region. New Zealand’s leaders are most intently watching neighboring Australia, where, after almost two months of lockdown, the state of New South Wales is now reporting more than 1,000 cases a day.

Until July, Australia had not recorded a single Covid death in 2021, and it had snuffed out every small flare-up in infections. Now, its prime minister, Scott Morrison, has disavowed the virus elimination approach altogether.

“Any state and territory that thinks that somehow they can protect themselves from Covid with the Delta strain forever, that’s just absurd,” he said last week. “New Zealand can’t do that. They were following an elimination strategy. They’re in lockdown.”

Australia is seeking to vaccinate its way to relative safety, focusing on areas hit hard by the Delta variant. That option is unavailable to New Zealand, which has administered the fewest doses per capita of any developed nation.

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The country did not place its first vaccine order until the end of January, when it purchased 65,520 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, the only inoculation it is using. By that point, the United States had administered about 50 million vaccine doses.

New Zealand, a country of nearly five million people, has given first shots to about 45 percent of the population, and fewer than 25 percent of residents are fully vaccinated. The country has increased vaccine distribution since the new outbreak began, but Ms. Ardern warned this week that the effort might have to be slowed once again without more supplies from Pfizer.

The government has said it did not have to rush the vaccine approval and procurement process because of its success in containing the virus. With a combination of closed borders and quick lockdowns, it has kept the total caseload to fewer than 3,500 and the death toll to 26. And for most of the past 18 months, residents have lived with few restrictions.

But members of the political opposition argued that the government had left the population vulnerable as the Delta variant started to circulate around the world. New Zealand had been at risk of an outbreak for some time, with Delta making up a majority of cases in its border-hotel quarantine facilities for months. The current outbreak has been linked to a New Zealander who flew from Sydney, Australia, and was put in isolation after testing positive for the variant.

“We have been sitting ducks for Delta,” said Christopher Bishop, a lawmaker for the National Party who speaks for the opposition on Covid-19 policy. “We knew it was going to turn up here and it would cause havoc when it eventually made its way into the community, and that’s exactly what’s happened.”

Still, critical voices like Mr. Bishop’s remain a minority in New Zealand. Ms. Ardern’s Labour government is among the most popular ever in New Zealand, winning a huge majority in the country’s general election last year. And New Zealand’s top health official, Dr. Ashley Bloomfield, has attained rock star status and has been widely credited with keeping “the team of five million” safe.

Understand Vaccine and Mask Mandates in the U.S.

• • Vaccine rules. On Aug. 23, the Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and up, paving the way for an increase in mandates in both the public and private sectors. Private companies have been increasingly mandating vaccines for employees. Such mandates are legally allowed and have been upheld in court challenges.
  • Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in indoor public places within areas experiencing outbreaks, a reversal of the guidance it offered in May. See where the C.D.C. guidance would apply, and where states have instituted their own mask policies. The battle over masks has become contentious in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.
  • College and universities. More than 400 colleges and universities are requiring students to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Almost all are in states that voted for President Biden.
  • Schools. Both California and New York City have introduced vaccine mandates for education staff. A survey released in August found that many American parents of school-age children are opposed to mandated vaccines for students, but were more supportive of mask mandates for students, teachers and staff members who do not have their shots.  
  • Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and major health systems are requiring employees to get a Covid-19 vaccine, citing rising caseloads fueled by the Delta variant and stubbornly low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their work force.
  • New York City. Proof of vaccination is required of workers and customers for indoor dining, gyms, performances and other indoor situations, although enforcement does not begin until Sept. 13. Teachers and other education workers in the city’s vast school system will need to have at least one vaccine dose by Sept. 27, without the option of weekly testing. City hospital workers must also get a vaccine or be subjected to weekly testing. Similar rules are in place for New York State employees.
  • At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would seek to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for the country’s 1.3 million active-duty troops “no later” than the middle of September. President Biden announced that all civilian federal employees would have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel.

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