By RNZ.co.nz. Republished with permission.
Cabinet met today to review alert levels in Auckland and parts of Waikato, which are currently at alert level 3, step 1.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says Cabinet has decided in principle to move Auckland to alert level 3 step 2 next Tuesday at 11.59pm.
Parts of Waikato will move down to step 2 of alert level 3 from tomorrow 11.59pm.
Watch the announcement here:
Ardern says the Director-General of Health recommended Waikato can move to the second step down in level 3.
This means retail can open their doors with face masks and physical distancing; the number of people meeting outside can increase to 25; while the two-household restriction is also removed.
In Auckland, fewer than 5000 first doses remain before reaching 90 percent single-dose vaccination, and for Auckland as a whole 80 percent has had two doses.
“And that’s incredible,” Ardern says. “Case numbers, while growing, remain within some of our expectations as modelled and the public health assessment of the impact of changes like opening up retail include that this activity is generally not responsible for marked increases of new cases.”
Cabinet has decided in principle to move Auckland to the second step down of level 3 from next Tuesday, 9 November, at 11.59pm.
Ardern says the approach is to take a “steady and conscious change” in restrictions.
“For those who have concerns about any easing, I would say that because of high vaccination rates in Auckland we can move forward with greater confidence and we will continue to have very strong and clear public health guidance on how businesses that are eligible to reopen, do so.”
Vaccination rates
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says as of yesterday 75 percent of eligible New Zealanders are now fully vaccinated, and 80 percent can be expected to reach that milestone next week. Auckland is already at 80 percent.
He says 70 percent was a figure that was being bandied about internationally, so to reach that is fantastic.
Pointing to several slides showing the outbreak in Auckland, Bloomfield says whilst case numbers are increasing, “we can see the hospitalisation numbers are not increasing at the same rate, and in fact a number of those people in hospital are in hospital for reasons other than Covid-19”.
He says of concern in the current cases is a large proportion of Māori. “It was less than 10 percent of cases initially in August but is … between 40 and 50 percent of cases each day now.”
He says the number of Pasifika cases has dropped from the high proportion seen at the beginning of the outbreak.
Bloomfield says testing for Māori is still high, however, with about 12 percent of Māori in Auckland having been tested in the past 14 days. “This is very important for us being able to identify cases there.”
He says there has also been a slight increase in the positivity rate, but it remains one of the lowest, if not the lowest, in the OECD.
Modelling of the R-value shows projections for where case numbers are expected to go. Bloomfield says vaccination rates can be expected to have an impact on the R-value.
He says hospitalisations last week were higher than what was expected, but ICU rates remained low.
Most cases are among the unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, he says, and the impact of vaccination on hospitalisations “is even more profound”, as can be seen from the data.
Ardern says daily case numbers do not say much about how the Covid-19 response is going.
She says she will travel to support Northland’s vaccination efforts tomorrow, and on Wednesday will be in Whanganui to support the vaccination teams there.
Parts of the Waikato will move to the next stage within alert level 3 would be which isstep 2 where retail can operate and public facilities like pools, libraries and museums reopen, subject to mask-wearing and social distancing.
There were 162 new community cases of Covid-19 reported today, 156 in Auckland and five in Waikato.
More than 3.1 million New Zealanders are now fully vaccinated.
