Pressure mounts for move to Alert Level 1

The Cabinet will today considers whether to drop New Zealand’s Covid-19 alert level status to 1, as a 16th day in a row with no new cases of the pandemic disease was recorded yesterday.

More than 2000 tests were performed on Saturday and 3007 on Friday, but none returned a positive result.

Politicians will decide on the possible further relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions, knowing that officially there is just one active case of the disease in the country.

More than half a million people have subscribed to the Ministry of Health’s Covid-19 tracing app, and the Ministry has also simplified the process for businesses to create their own unique QR code for contract tracing purposes.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last week said that despite the lack of new cases of Covid-19, the Government would not rapidly move to Level 1 as an increase in numbers of people allowed to gather together had only just been implemented.

The lack of new cases since crowds of more than 100 were permitted will fuel calls for the Cabinet to agree to further loosening of rules implemented to preserve public health.

Several businesses, especially retailers and hospitality providers, are eagerly awaiting a shift to Level 1, which would result in all regulations about how many people can meet being scrapped.

Workplaces, schools and medical facilities will all operate as normal, but physical distancing will still be encouraged and people who are unwell urged to stay at home.

Border restrictions will remain in place, but New Zealanders will be able to travel domestically at their liberty.

Since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in New Zealand, on February 28, 1154 people have been confirmed as having had the disease.

Of those, 22 people have died from Covid-19; worldwide, more than 6.6million cases have been diagnosed and almost 400,000 deaths linked to the disease.

If the country moved to Alert Level 1, it would be "very close to business as usual" for skifield operators, Cardrona Alpine Resort and Treble Cone skifield general manager Bridget Legnavsky said.

However, one of the key considerations would be requirements for staff to stay home from work if they were sick this winter.

"That’s really big because in the winter people get sick and troop along and come to work — we all know that, that’s just realistic.

"We will be putting in quite a lot of process to ensure they don’t come to work when they’re sick, which does include a larger pool of part-time staff as back-up.

"That’s quite significant — it’s really good — but the reality of that is quite significant."

 - Additional reporting Tracey Roxburgh