PM: A move to Level 2 could be phased in; Gatherings limited to 100 people; Domestic travel allowed; Retail, hospitality and beauty businesses can open under restrictions

The current low case numbers represent level 4 success, and not level 3 yet, because people who have been infected during level 3 may not get tested until next week. But it appears a few rouge cases are now appearing from peoples bubbles. Many have been shown to wait a week after showing symptoms, before bothering to get tested, as was discussed on Q&A a few nights ago, by one of the governments experts medical advisors, who also said that NZ contact tracing isn't yet up to what it needs to be yet. It appears a large reason why we went into level 4 and it got extended appears to have been because our contact tracing was overwhelmed . This all potentially could be a major problem. Will be interesting to see how the numbers work out in a few weeks time. Hope we don't end up getting cases back in double digits in 1-3 weeks. Resthomes, Schools, Bars, events and any other social areas like that can be breeding ground for this virus, creating big clusters for 100 people from just a single case.

Plus the ones not showing symptoms, all of who are capable of spreading it silently. Unless our contact tracing is Platinum level, if cases rise like they were, we could have trouble tracing all contacts quickly, espcailly with a manual system.

You got it. The commentators always omit to mention that tourism is a net amount, not just the imported foreign $ amount.
Of course we can’t just net off and pretend this is the actual effect, as internal air travel will skyrocket and the dollar in pocket smashed.

You're aware that the data the decision will be based on is still not available, right? People who catch the virus this week might not show symptoms and get tested before the end of next week. The goal now is to avoid a second wave of infections, and the likelihood of that (and thus the safety measures needed) depends on the number of people who are either currently infected, or will get infected in the coming days.

no please some, unless the message comes from a PM wearing a blue hat instead of a red one...

Precisely Fritz. Conservative and Labour are not words you'd expect to hear together.

Exactly.. walk around open eyes now even level3 is bit hit and Miss. How do you keep social distance with kids at pools etc..some of this is just nonsense.

A lot of the uncertainty in unavoidable though and I worry we are falling into the trap of projecting our fears and anxieties about the pandemic outward at easy targets (in this case Ardern). Isn't it the pandemic causing the majority of uncertainty everywhere in the world ultimately?

I agree, I was also disappointed to hear about this wishy washy staged progression down to level 2. And if they are going to do that, then I would have preferred the specifics upfront. And some kind of metric for the levels. For instance, Germany has a metric of restrictions that will come back into force if the infection rate goes above 50 per 1000 people. So yes, uncertainty is bad for business, more clarity on the specific metrics that government are using would be better. But ultimately, its the pandemic that is causing the mess and NZ is handling that better than many. Not perfectly by any means, but managing a pandemic is inherently difficult, especially now that it has become highly politicised and is coming at the end of the business and debt cycles.

Absolute rubbish and you are cherry picking numbers. Yes there is evidence that social distancing works. How did we do from nearly a hundred infections a do, to just a few?. Even in 1918, social distancing was known to slow down the spread of the flu. If we can't learn from history, we have no hope.

The term is 12 weeks now. It is currently week 4.
So they'll be at school for at least 6 weeks
They may push out the school holidays also.
Though teachers haven't had a break this entire lockdown. The one and a half weeks before distance learning started was spent setting up distance learning.

Bahahaa. No lattes for me anyway waymad, spending it all on box wine LOLOL

Thanks for your pointless links.
They change nothing about it's infectiousness or it's severity. The facts still show it's quite infectious and not particularly dangerous unless you are old and / or already sick. That is what affects decisions about something as massively disruptive to society as a lockdown. Not toe blemishes or whether you can catch it from semen. Who gives a crap if it's in semen it's plenty easy to catch from someone without having to have been showered in their semen. But whatever blows your hair back buddy.
Two more irrelevant facts what does that prove? That you like irrelevant facts? Congratulations you'll go far in trivial pursuit competitions with that.
Corona virus is one of the causes of the common cold. Most of us have had a Coronavirus, most likely many of them. Kids are crawling with them. https://journals.lww.com/pidj/fulltext/2005/11001/history_and_recent_ad…
I am certain coronavirus has killed many people before and the deaths have just been attributed to flu. Or pneumonia. But hey that dead person was already pretty old and pretty sick so no one really bothered looking into it, it's just something that happens all the time.
Has anyone ever looked at the toes of a person with a bad cold before? You think doctors check peoples toes or their semen when they come in showing cold symptoms? Jesus Christ man.
Just because we haven't been looking for something doesn't make it new.
You confuse having something made known to you with something having significance.
I'm glad to be Cartman. He is far and away the funniest character.

the popo have proven how useless they have been with not only the roadblocks, but they were supposed to keep track on the returning people early on and did not
hand it over to the army to run the road blocks

DHB's are politically infested organisations. Set up to provide a gateway for wannabe politicians to move through the ranks.
FFS DR Ayesha Verral was selected to the Capital and Coast DHB as a Labour Party candidate. Why do you think she was initially put into the public arena as the contact tracing doubting Thomas. They knew it was a cluster fail. Then they gave her the job of writing the report which had to be somewhat critical. But you could trust the report writer not to put the information into the public domain while they suppressed the findings and tried to fix the problems with the system that they knew where there right from the start. Still not clear that those problems are fixed and still no sign of a contract tracing app. But no way is the MOH controlling the flow of information like Simon had the temerity to suggest.

Will be interesting to see. On the one hand, if the malls are full, at least it might keep retailers from going to the wall.

Exactly.
I am obviously in the minority of people whose esteem for the PM has dropped significantly during lockdown, if we go by polls and general chatter.
I have some rather strong but latent libertarian tendencies.

That's commitment getting to day 10. I got to about day 5 and that was it for me.

After paying for a meal in drink in NZ, you're bloody lucky if you've got enough to pay for a car park, let alone pay directly into a system that enables wage suppression in the first place.

I didn't say it was,just a comparison for people saying the "no lock down" approach of Germany necessarily has the same outcome....there are so many variations of what nations have done & just as many outcomes...I feel we should stop focussing on "what ifs", because no one really knows & there is probably even some plain luck at times...just be thankful we are on the right side of the ledger and stop argueing about what may or may not have happened...fantasy vs reality.

It's Swiss isn't it?

Recent data shows vitamin D deficiency is strongly linked to bad outcomes from wuflu. That's is easily remedied for a few cents a day. Also reports now that hydroxychloroquine is producing measurably better outcomes if taken early (ideally before even infected). And lastly: (new to me), when getting infected a smaller exposure will slow initial rate of growth in virus giving more time for your immune system to gear up. Passing contact is better than being in full time contact with a sick person in the same house or hospital. Ie isolate infected from co-inhabitants even if they are already infected.

It's not surprising it is the common cold after all.
Most of us have had a coronavirus before. So it's would be unsurprising if this one hung around season after season.
Makes the idea of lockdown even more stupid and short sighted.

In a war people die.
Media and politicians keep saying we’re at war... thus death is inevitable.
Question is, do we minimise destruction with the action/s to combat perceived threat or does the action generate more destruction vs another action? HOW DO WE KNOW the action our great esteemed leaders have put upon us was the best action.... they have not divulged any analysis or critical thinking.
What price does a nation pay to preserve what they think is worth preserving?
The other day the spokesman for Cancer Society said up to 400 people will likely die due to lack of diagnosis while in lockdown.
I’ve read elsewhere that for every 10% drop in GDP a multiple of 3 is applied to suicide. 685 people topped themselves last year... that’s another 1370 people just from suicide.
Other stats show lower life expectancy correlated to lower GDP.
Operations of 30,000 plus were put on hold. DHB capacity was already under before covid. What will be the effects from further delay of ops... not-critical to critical etc..

Almost as many contradicting opinions as in here...who knew NZ had so many epidemiologists,political scientists & public healthcare experts with years of experience dealing with global pandemics...all signed up to Interest.co.nz