Cabinet has made an in-principle decision to ease Covid-19 restrictions in Auckland from early next week. The Government is also looking at vaccine certificates for travel between the North and South Islands.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the announcements after a Cabinet meeting this afternoon.
Auckland is at the centre of the Delta outbreak and has been at level 4 and 3 restrictions since mid-August. Ardern said the city would move to level three, step two from Tuesday next week at 11.59pm.
There have been cases in neighbouring region and Waikato, which would see an easing of restrictions from tomorrow at 11.59pm. Retail and public facilities can re-open and the number of people who could meet outside increase to 25.
Ardern said late this afternoon that the Government's approach was necessarily careful. Senior students had only just been allowed to return, and changes such as that needed to be bedded in before a move.
The move to step two next week would remove "some of the pressure and fatigue that we know exists in Auckland."
Vaccination certificates were not part of the current alert levels, so will not apply once retailers re-open, she said.
Work on the certificates was due by the end of the month, but other forms of proof could be used if needed earlier.
Ardern was reluctant to bring in the traffic light and vaccinations certificates system earlier, saying that health advice was to wait until vaccination levels were high enough first.
PM on vaccine certificates for travel to South Island
Ardern said the Government was looking at ways to stop the Covid-19 virus moving between the North and South Islands.
"We discussed ways today that we can further add protections, including off the back of calls for the South Island to use vaccine certificates more readily to try and prevent cases moving from north to the south.
"While we have no further announcements today, it is something that we are looking into further."
However, she was keen to reiterate it would not be possible to contain Covid to one part of the country.
"I don't want anyone to be left with the belief that we can keep Delta in one place and one place only for good."
Update on outbreak
Ardern started by saying daily case numbers did not give a full picture of how New Zealand was doing with its fight against Covid-19. They would continue to climb, but the level of vaccinated people would limit the number of cases ending up in hospital.
Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said the low number of deaths in this outbreak was because of vaccinations, and the young age of those admitted - only 22 had been older than 65.
He highlighted the importance of New Zealand reaching the milestones of 75% of the eligible population having received two doses of the vaccine and Auckland reaching 80%.
It was expected the whole of New Zealand would cross the 80% threshold next week.
While case numbers had climbed, hospitalisations had not climbed at the same rate. It was of concern the proportion of Māori new cases had climbed, he said.
Bloomfield said the initial written advice to Cabinet had been to hold Auckland at the same levels without any set time to change it. However, after further discussions with public health workers in Auckland, and Cabinet discussion, Cabinet decided to set out the provisional easing of restrictions next week.
In a week's time, Bloomfield said he would be asked again whether there was anything that warranted not moving ahead with that easing before it became final.
Ardern said she did have to take into account the length of time restrictions were in place and the ability of people to comply with them. She said the restrictions had made a difference, compared to the overseas experience Auckland had fared much better than other cities.
She rejected comparisons with Australia, which is re-opening its borders, saying New Zealand had always carved its own path.
Record number of community cases
Today's announcements come as Auckland enters its 12th week in lockdown in a bid to contain the Delta outbreak that began in mid-August and has now reached 3510 cases.
There were 162 new cases reported on Monday - a new daily record.
There was one new case in Northland, bringing the total number of cases for the region to 13. All of the cases were isolating at home with public health oversight.
Of the other new cases, 156 were in Auckland and five in Waikato.
Meanwhile, 53 people are in hospital and three in ICU.
These numbers have remained relatively steady since the outbreak began despite a dramatic rise in daily case numbers, indicating a drop in the hospitalisation rate.
This has accompanied an increasing proportion of those infected being vaccinated.
As of today just over 75% of the eligible population - aged over 12 - have had two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and just over 88% received at least one dose.
Of those infected in this outbreak, the proportion without a single dose has dropped from 82% on September 9 to 72%.
Meanwhile, the hospitalisation rate has dropped from 9.7% to 7.4% over the same period.
Ardern revealed this morning that current modelling showed there could be a peak of up to 200 community cases per day this month. That modelling was part of the focus for ministers meeting today around any changes to alert levels.
