Comfort level rises for most
Auckland hopes to find it has lockdown change coming too
Level 2 kicks in today for most of the country with businesses and schools testdriving the new “Delta 2” rules, with some claiming they were blindsided by them.
Auckland waits and watches to see when it too might be able to drop down from level 4, with new modelling seen as a cause for optimism and director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield saying daily case numbers and a drop in unlinked cases are encouraging signs.
There were 21 new cases announced yesterday, taking the outbreak total to 841 — 824 in Auckland and 17 Wellington. The total of unlinked cases dropped from 33 to 24 since Monday and a peak of about 60 some days ago. Just four of the new cases had been infected outside known contacts and were not already isolating.
“Clearly, all the numbers are moving in the right direction,” Bloomfield said when asked about the prospects of an Auckland alert level change next Monday.
The positive trends also accompanied new modelling from Te Pu¯naha Matatini, which said due to alert level 4 restrictions and contact tracing, the effective reproductive number of the Delta variant had likely been below 1 since August 23, and was now down to 0.4. This meant, if all restrictions were adhered to, numbers should continue to fall and reach single digits next week.
Provided there were no new mystery cases by then, and all were linked to known contacts, the modellers said Auckland could potentially safely move to alert level 3 then.
However, Bloomfield reiterated more testing was needed to be sure there were no undetected strands.
On Monday, just over 7000 swabs were processed, including about 5800 in Auckland. This was way up from just 2088 in Auckland on Sunday, but far below the peaks of about 20,000 earlier in the outbreak.
Health workers had moved to trying to top up the testing numbers including going into the workplaces of essential workers.
Bloomfield said while there were still unlinked cases in the outbreak, it was not necessarily the case they would wait until that number was zero before it was safe to drop levels.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern also confirmed she had secured deals to buy Pfizer vaccines off other countries to help meet the higher demand since the outbreak. Ardern said she would not and could not reveal the amount of money paid for the new vaccines.
She said 682,000 vaccines were in stock, mostly at sites nationwide. Details about the purchases were being finalised and would be revealed in coming days.
Just over 60 per cent of eligible people in New Zealand have had at least one dose, and nearly a third are fully vaccinated.
In the rest of the country, businesses are wrestling with new rules for level 2 — which include far more extensive mask use, and limits of 50 people in indoor venues and 100 in outdoor venues. Places such as gyms and museums must have 2m spacing of people, similar to the rules for supermarkets at level 3.
There is also a new requirement for essential workers crossing Auckland’s boundaries to get weekly tests.
The new rules were only revealed
on Monday, when Ardern said the rest of New Zealand would move to level 2 from 11.59pm yesterday. She said they were necessary because Delta was more transmissible, prompting the need for a “Delta level 2”.
However, the last-minute notice blindsided some businesses — including hospitality venues which said the 50-person max rule makes it difficult for them to reopen. Businesses anywhere in New Zealand will be able to claim the wage subsidy scheme as long as Auckland remains at level 4 or 3 — but that will stop when Auckland too drops to level 2. National Party leader Judith Collins said the late announcement of new rules for level 2 had “blindsided businesses”. Collins said those rules should have been made clear in advance, to give businesses time to prepare.
She said the new testing requirements for truck drivers and other workers travelling from Auckland to other regions had also taken that industry by surprise — and questioned why the Government had dragged its heels on using saliva testing more or introducing rapid antigen testing.
Police commissioner Andrew Coster said they would continue to be out and about ensuring people were complying with alert level restrictions, even at level 2. Officers would take a “graduated and “education-first” approach but use enforcement where necessary, he said.