Level 1 move: life as ‘normal’ as it can be

New Zealand has moved to coronavirus alert level 1 as of midnight last night.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the decision yesterday, telling the country that after 75 days of New Zealand being in a Covid-19 alert, the country was ready to move to the most relaxed alert level.

‘‘Today we are ready,’’ she said. It was also revealed yesterday that the country’s last ‘‘active’’ case of the illness had recovered.

Ardern described level 1 as being ‘‘where life feels as normal as it can in the time of a global pandemic’’.

This means life returning to something approximating a precoronavirus normal. Social distancing measures and restrictions on mass gatherings have disappeared, although strict border controls are still in force, as is contact tracing.

Ardern said while the threat of Covid-19 remained in the world, New Zealand had to remain vigilant to ensure we did not move back up the alert scale. ‘‘With over 100,000 new cases being reported each day, the challenge of Covid remains around the globe, and so it remains here,’’ Ardern said.

She said the Government would continue to work with businesses to improve the QR codes that help people keep a digital diary of their movements.

Ardern said the Government had also been working with the events sector on a voluntary code that would help capture a record of people’s details when they go to large events. These events have in the past led to the formation of large Covid-19 clusters.

‘‘The reason for that is simple: If we get one or two cases in the future – which will remain possible for some time to come due to the global situation and nature of the virus – we need to shut down those cases fast,’’ Ardern said.

‘‘The last thing we want is to move back up the alert system again,’’ she said.

ACT leader David Seymour was quick to welcome the news, but said the prime minister was wrong to claim credit for the ‘‘go hard, go early’’ strategy.

‘‘Jacinda Ardern says her Government acted quickly after our first case of Covid-19, but New Zea

land was the 60th country to get a Covid-19 case. We were given advance warning,’’ he said.

‘‘Despite calls from ACT and others in January and February to consider closing the border, the Government dithered and then had to implement one of the most severe lockdowns in the world,’’ he said.

‘‘Now the focus must be on rebuilding the economy, restoring confidence of small businesses, and repaying the debt,’’ he said.

Ardern faced pressure from within her own Government to move the decision to drop alert levels forward to this week.

She had previously said only the ‘‘settings’’ of alert level 2 were to be reviewed yesterday, with a decision moving levels due to be made before June 22.

But persistently low case numbers as well as political pressure from coalition partner NZ First meant Ardern brought the decision forward.

New National leader Todd Muller called on Ardern to act even earlier, saying last week that there was no need to wait for Cabinet to meet to make a decision on level 1.

‘‘Every day the Government waits to make this shift is another day that businesses sink deeper into debt and the economic crisis in this country worsens.’’

A Cabinet committee paper leaked to the National Party appeared to show that New Zealand could have moved to level 1 much earlier. It says that a move to Covid-19 alert level 1 was ‘‘predicated upon having eliminated chains of transmission and there having been no new cases from community transmission for at least 28 days’’.

Ardern said last Wednesday that the last case of community transmission was at the beginning of May – more than 28 days ago.

But a spokesman for the prime minister said the paper referred to a different definition for community transmission, meaning there were still several days to go.

‘‘The challenge of Covid remains around the globe, and so it remains here.’’

Jacinda Ardern