New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, on Monday, announced that government will ease lockdown restrictions periodically, ensuring citizens to travel for work and enabling takeaway services at restaurants.
The New Zealand government has decided to move from level 4 directives to level 3 as the country observed drastic fall in new COVID-19 cases.
According to a government notification, under level 3 alert, people are instructed to work from home ‘unless that is not possible’ with the exception of essential workers . The public is permitted to expand their interactions slightly from just their ‘household bubble’ to include close family, caregivers or provide support to isolated individuals in their local area.
The country will remain at alert level 3 for further two weeks, after which the government will again re-assess the situation.
Addressing the press conference, Prime Minister Jacinda Arden stated, “There is no widespread, undetected community transmission in New Zealand. We have won that battle. But we must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way.”
Explaining her decision to ease lockdown directives, Prime Minister said that over the past several days, new cases of coronavirus in the country have been ‘in the single digits’.
“We haven’t eradicated the virus. But we have achieved what we wanted to achieve in our ongoing goal of elimination,” said Ashley Bloomfield – New Zealand’s Director General of Health.
Schools are scheduled to re-open from Wednesday, however, very few students are expected to attend as the government has urged anyone who could work from home or study from home to do so.
A total of 1,112 confirmed coronavirus cases have been reported in the country with 19 deaths so far. Around 82 per cent of the patients have fully recovered whereas nine people are currently under treatment, with one patient in the ICU.
