All of New Zealand except for Auckland will move to a tougher Delta version of Level 2 at 11:59pm on Tuesday.
Schools outside of Auckland will re-open on Thursday.
Auckland will remain at Level 4 until 11:59pm next Tuesday, September 14.
Cabinet will review these alert level settings on September 13.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said under a 'Delta Level 2', the number of people in indoor venues like restaurants, bars and churches will be capped at 50. The number of people at outdoor venues will be capped at 100.
People who visit the likes of gyms, libraries and museums will need to keep 2 metres distance between themselves, as they're required to do at supermarkets and retail stores. This might limit the number of people who enter certain public places.
Mask-wearing is mandatory in most public venues including malls, shops, libraries, etc. Masks can be removed when eating/drinking.
Mask-wearing won't be mandatory in schools and universities/polytechs, but is recommended for over-12s.
QR code scanning/record-keeping will also be mandatory at certain venues, including bars, restaurants, cinemas, churches and other places where there is close contact, including hairdressers.
Essential workers who cross the Auckland border will need to be tested every week. There will be spot checks at the border. Saliva testing will become available to these workers in coming weeks.
There are around 3000 workers crossing the Auckland border every day.
People who travel to or from Northland via Auckland aren't allowed to stop in Auckland, and need to carry evidence of the purpose of travel and the location they're travelling to.
There were 20 new cases of Covid-19 in the community reported on Monday - all in Auckland.
Testing numbers slumped to 4750 on Sunday. People are being urged to get tested if they feel unwell. See this story for Monday's case details.
108 Comments
Main thing I was looking forward to was getting back into the gym, but I'll skip on that if masks are mandatory. Everyone I know who has lived overseas where gyms were open with mask requirements has said it's miserable to work out with one on.
Guess the old dog will be getting a few more runs in the coming weeks!
Just take the dog for a run, then go to the pub. You only have to wear a mask in the pub if you are NOT drinking or eating. What brainless fool came up with a rule that is not a rule. Who goes to the pub to not have a drink....
Are there going to monitors timing the period between sips and telling you you must re-mask now because it has been x-seconds since the last sip. I think not. Just plain stupidity. I rule to be instantly ignored by almost everyone.
Are there going to monitors timing the period between sips and telling you you must re-mask now because it has been x-seconds since the last sip.
Yes. They're going to be everyone else in the bar who are observing you, and silently judging whether you're a socially-minded person who takes COVID seriously, or a dick who uses an excuse like "I had a beer 30 minutes ago" so you don't have to put on a mask.
Why would anybody bother opening a business in the future if the government can just shut you down (or remove/block your customer base) at the drop of a hat?
It's hardly a matter of 'equality of opportunity' if entire sectors are shut down at the whim of government officials, whose salaries are safe whatever happens.
Businesses aren't operating in a business environment any more.
Correct.
Furthermore, why bother working anymore if the government can just inflate the value of your salary to oblivion.
This is a clown country where those who own things (houses) are rewarded, and those who actually do things (workers, businesses) are punished.
Employment, wages and business profits/activity have just had a record year. Not much “punishment” going on for workers & businesses as far as I can see. Perhaps you would prefer to go to USA, UK, NSW etc where their respective governments screwed the pooch immensely at the cost of both human lives and economic activity for the sake of trying to be “business friendly” by not locking down when they should have.
You realise that other companies around the world have suffered massively due to a deadly virus that has kept a lot of their customers away, right?
And that companies in NZ are doing very well, comparatively?
Yes, it would be nice if COVID didn't exist. But that's not the reality we live in. It's not a choice between "government intervening and screwing businesses up" and "everything is exactly like it was in 2019". Obviously if the world could choose to live like it was 2019, everyone would. But we can't choose that, so we make the best of the bad situation we find ourselves in.
That’s not workable for gym workouts surely. Going hard at any cardio/aerobics wearing a mask would be positively dangerous, oxygen levels? Must be a personal trainer type somewhere here who can add expertise to that. If masks to be worn then it would be safer to keep the gyms shut, would suggest.
regret to say that I witness an unfortunate number of members at my gym who seem to be as clueless as they are unfit and overweight. Still at least they are there and trying to improve matters. But quite honestly I shudder to think about the rapid and dire consequences if they started up on the treadmill as usual, but wearing a mask.
not even a bit of Covid in South Island
Correction: we are not aware of any COVID spreading in the community in the south island.
Doesn't mean there isn't any. Also since there are active cases in CHCH MIQ, it could have started spreading last week and we may not know - although with L3 lockdown it shouldn't have gotten very far.
Well that’s the thing isn’t it. Can’t recall anytime that Delta or previous strain(s) has not been in MIQ. So on that basis it could have started spreading not just last week. In other words that has been an ever present risk, the government weighed up the security of that being sufficient to keep running below level 3, ie level 1.So if potential carriers in the SI ex this Auckland outbreak have all tested out negative, then apart from the risk of an infected essential worker travelling in, status has simply reverted to what it was a month ago with the extra caution of level 2 rather than1.
Yeah, and I think this outbreak has shown that the government has been too lax with their surveillance measures. I was surprised to learn they only did waste water sampling at like 1 location per city, apparently only twice a week. Crap.
Should be sampling every day, and something like 3-5 locations in a city like Christchurch. They needn't take a sample from each location every day, but alternating sites around the city would be sensible.
We're also extremely overdue for saliva testing, and rapid / antigen tests being available also.
Just give them a whole lot of support, add it to the debt.
I am only being half sarc. If we accept lockdown, then we should all accept the handouts that need to go with it.
It's not fair to run companies into the ground with lockdowns. I suspect many who comment here, including myself, are lucky to be insulated. But if you support lockdowns, you must accept the handouts.
Yes, up to a point. Some businesses will simply no longer be viable. We don't have universal basic income in this country for humans, so I don't think we should have one for businesses either.
Of course if we did have a UBI for humans, business owners themselves would likely not be under quite so much pressure (and employees would be more likely to survive on reduced wages, for example).
Nup, we are all in this together or not. I support liberalising things, but if we instead keep reverting to level 4 lockdowns the price we need to pay is propping up businesses.
It's very well for people in comfy jobs and comfy livelihoods to say 'oh well, some businesses will just have to go under' . That's bullshit.
I am sorry, and sorry to.my children, but there's no other fair option.
So keep racking up that debt baby!
Or, no longer revert to level 4 lockdowns...
So you think travel agents should be sitting at home on full government wage since the first lockdown till whenever international travel goes back to 2019 levels? Maybe the government should pay the rent for their empty shop too?
It is pretty obvious that there will be businesses that have to close because of Covid's effects. Bringing Hitler into the discussion doesn't help your argument.
Equally obvious is the enthusiasm with which some here and elsewhere argue for solutions that are eerily reminiscent to those times. Those so concerned with the “real” effects of Covid are those who never have come even close to feeling the real effects of such enthusiasm in a historical context. Your reply is just deflection from a very valid point I made that had nothing to do with travel agent’s business demise.
"Some businesses will simply no longer be viable" - some businesses which were otherwise perfectly viable might be closed due to being forced to shut by order of the State. This is an important distinction. Not to say it's the wrong thing to do, but there's a moral obligation of the state to not bankrupt the very people it relies on to keep people employed and earning taxable wages.
The whole mask wearing is a joke as its been turned right around. Mask wearing was for people who had the virus so they would not spread it by coughing etc. Now the government has turned mask wearing into a mandatory requirement to brainwash people into believing that wearing one is going to protect them what a joke. You go to the pub wearing a mask then you have to take it off to have a drink or a feed so each time you sip your drink you have to remove your mask . Which half wit came up with that one same as on the plane you have to wear a mask then cabin crew serve you water and coffee so you have to remove it to have your drink.
Really is stupid.
No, the reasons are the same as always - people can be infected with COVID and not know it. Thus if everyone is wearing a mask, and happens to be infected and not know it, they won't pass it on to as many others.
There is also some benefit in that those who are wearing masks are less likely to become infected from breathing in other's infected exhalations (or if they do become infected, they get a smaller viral load to start with, and the infection is slower to progress or does not become as bad in total).
A very large study has just concluded that masks are very effective at slowing COVID transmission in a population: https://www.poverty-action.org/news/new-study-first-randomized-trial-sh…
Surgical masks were particularly effective in reducing COVID-19, preventing 1 in 3 symptomatic infections among community members 60 years and older.
33% reduction in symptomatic disease is great, and coupled with vaccinations is a very effective measure against COVID.
It's actually difficult to find a mask that fits correctly. They used to do this exercise where they'd get people to put on masks and spray around it with a mist of artificial sweetener. If you could taste the sweetner the mask was not filtering air. For most people it took trying several different brands of mask to find one that fitted correctly.
If your asking me if a well fitting N95 mask or better would reduce the chances of contracting or transmitting I'd say it would but if you are just wearing an ill fitting cloth mask probably not.
Did you know CPR only improves chance of person without a pulse surviving by 10%? Might not seem like much, but for the 10% saved by it, it is still very much worth doing.
I just hope you don't show up at any accidents any time soon - nah, don't worry about CPR mate, it it a pointless exercise, you are very unlikely to save them, lets just wait for the body bag.
Actually hanging your mask on the rear vision mirror is a good idea. If the car is in the full sunlight then the UV light kills Covid. Effectively Covid is dead anyway after a few days of not touching or using the mask so you can rotate your masks and no need to throw them away.
Masks, pointless theater as the government have said in their own words:
Compliance outside the main urban centres for this rule will be zero.
The big covid game in town hasn't started yet.
When everyone in NZ over 12 has been offered a vaccine and has chosen to either have it or not we will reach a plateau of % population vaccinated. Modelling suggests around 75% uptake. At that point we will need to make a decision. Do we protect the 25% by keeping the borders almost closed indefinitely and limit movement with lockdowns to prevent large outbreaks. Or, do we open up and allow C-19 to pass through the population and take its toll on those who chose to not vaccinate.
In this NZ delta outbreak 6 out of 729 were ventilated with one death and around 40 admissions. Scale that up to 1 250 000 non vaccinated (25%) if they all developed covid at some point. 1714 Deaths. 10 288 ventilated patients. 68 000 admissions. Even if only half of the unvaccinated population don't get infected the stats are beyond horrendous. Every hospital will be over whelmed for months and this will strangle all diagnostics, elective and semi urgent treatments.
Some very big questions to answer for this sitting parliament.
That's total bollocks.
The hospitalizations are bad this time, because the demographic that needs to avoid this the most is 80-90% of the cases, since all the churchgoers got infected with it, and yet none of them are dead.
The coronavirus is coming, like it or not. If you are that scared go hide under your bed....or get prepared, like the government hasn't (and the sole reason we are where we are, once again).
The R value will be a lot lower at that vaccination level, buying a lot more time as not everyone will get it at once. The issue is communities with low collective stats getting hit at once.
Also those hospitalization stats probably overstate the average severity, this outbreak has been mainly Pasifika who tend to have the toxic combo of underlying conditions which have been shown to make the virus much worse - obesity, heart disease, diabetes and respiratory issues.
But yes, this thing will always be with us, slowly culling the herd. The workings of nature...
That is the approaching reality afraid to say. One day inevitably Covid will present itself spread throughout our nation, our community, like it or lump it. For my part at an age and with more than suspect lung capacity I have no idea how much protection Mr Pfizer has afforded me against Mr Delta, the hot one in town for the moment. There it is, complaining about it makes absolutely no remedy. Whatever my personal outcome might be I cannot exactly blame government, even though their appalling failure to provide the protection of vaccine in good order and time, left far far too many New Zealanders unprotected . Because subjectively, for my status the timing makes no difference. I have had the two jabs, before any infection might take hold. What I do blame though, is the environment in China that spawned this pandemic, the outbound international jets fully loaded even after Wuhan and surrounds had been isolated domestically. And I also blame the never will be disclosed clandestine elements in the USA and elsewhere, that supported and dibble and dabbled with research that cannot be explained as being actually necessary in the first place. There it is, again.
Not exactly. Israel whilst pretty much leading the world in rollout and population fully vaccinated have recently experienced a rather large resurgence of case numbers with delta. They have now begun a third shot booster rollout which is already starting to pare the infection rate in the initial demographics that have been given it. From a brief reading of latest scientific scrutiny the reason for the surge is that the vax they are using, the same as us, wanes in effectiveness at around 5-6 months post vaccination to somewhere in the region of 30-40%. If this is accurate, and if there were no further mutations then it looks like we will be facing, at best, a covid booster every 12 months although as what they are now doing in Israel is making it every 6 months dependent of course on availabilty of vax supply. Interesting because if this is where we are going then we are going to require heaps of it and be in competition with global demand. It is indeed going to be a long game.
Too early to tell if further booster shots after the 3d one will be required.
It is optimistic to think that the 3d dose will give lasting protection - but it is far from impossible ; there are examples of existing vaccines requiring 3 doses.
Only time will tell ; we will all get the benifit of Israeli data.
I know that only a quarter of the population are fully vaccinated, so we are only in the very early stages of the vaccination program, but it'll be interesting to see governments approach when the vaccination program is eventually completed. Will they really still do a lock down a fully vaccinated population? My guess is not.
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