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The prime minister is announcing Cabinet’s decision on possible changes to alert levels for Auckland, Northland and parts of Waikato. Rest of New Zealand stays stuck in level 2.
Covid 19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and the Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield will also be part of the live-streamed briefing.
Watch the live stream video:
The government will announce a new Covid protection framework on Friday for when the country is at a higher vaccination rate.
On Wednesday, Hipkins will provide up-to-date advice on schools reopening.
“We know that, in the future, we cannot ask people to live week by week not knowing when things will change,” Ardern says.
Ardern says it appears the people who travelled in Northland have not spread Covid-19 further
Northland will move to level 2 at 11.59pm on 19 October.
For Waikato, “the situation is different”.
“While the cases remain broadly linked, this linking is often occurring after the positive results are being returned.”
She says there is a need to act with caution in the Waikato after positive cases and wastewater testing came back positive.
There were 60 new community cases of Covid-19 announced today – 57 in Auckland and three in Waikato.
RNZ understands ministers were also due to consider a traffic light-like system New Zealand could move to once the population is highly vaccinated.
It could mark the next phase, away from using alert level restrictions, to a mix of protective measures in the event of outbreaks.
That could include mask use, gathering limits, social distancing, proof of vaccination and scanning.
It could be some months before it would be ready to be implemented.
The government’s repeatedly said high vaccination and testing rates will help towards easing restrictions.
National leader Judith Collins said that Ardern “must today tell the country the conditions and timeframe for ending the lockdown in Auckland and then she needs to get up there and see for herself the fallout from nine weeks of lockdown”.
If it was true restrictions in Auckland wouldn’t be eased until there was 90 percent double vaccination, which could take another month, the prime minister “must say so today and give Aucklanders and the rest of the country some certainty”, she said.
Source: rnz.co.nz Republished by arrangement.