Covirus 19 coronavirus: level 2 presented – cafes open from Thursday, schools from Monday

Shopping malls, cafes and restaurants reopen from Thursday and schools resume next Monday, but bars must wait 10 days as the country goes to alert level 2 in 48 hours.

On Thursday, retail stores, shopping malls, cafes, restaurants, movie theaters, and other public spaces may reopen. They all require physical distancing. Health services will also be restarted.

The deadline was Wednesday at 11.59 p.m., meaning that Level 2 Alert indeed began on Thursday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

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She didn’t think level 2 would “necessarily” be in place any longer than level 3, but it depended on factors like the number of new Covid-19 cases.

Border restrictions would remain for a long time, as would the expectation that the public would respect hand hygiene practices.

“If we slack off, we could go in the wrong direction,” said Ardern.

Friends and family can also get together starting Thursday. Sports teams can play, but the subsequent social gathering should not have more than 10 people.

“This is a transition out of our bubbles,” said Ardern.

Starting Monday, May 18, all ECE schools and centers will open.

When asked about schools, Ardern said parents must feel confident that they will be in safe environments.

However, the bars will have to wait 10 days, until Thursday, May 21, before they can open.

Restaurants may serve alcohol, he said.

Bars and restaurants will be closed if they violate the rules, Ardern said.

Health Ministry officials recommended keeping the bars closed for two weeks, but the cabinet decided on 10 days.

Closing bars longer was rejected was a “balanced” decision, Ardern said, given the safeguards, including all who must sit, separate, and the requirement for a single server.

Level 2 “safe and normal” will be reviewed in two weeks and, if progress is made, it will be allowed to expand the group size.

The bars posed the greatest risk, and Ardern noted that South Korea had opened bars, but then closed them again after there was a new outbreak.

She said that these few additional days allowed the country to secure the gains that had been made so far.

‘Breaking our bubbles’

Director-General for Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said Australia had gone from 10 to 20 to 50 to 100 people due to meeting restrictions, and New Zealand’s next limit would depend on what happens in the coming weeks.

Bloomfield said that people over the age of 70 or with serious health conditions should be encouraged to get out and do things safely, and it is up to them and all of us to keep them safe.

But there is an upper limit of 100 at level 2.

The policy around nursing homes and hospital visits was being updated, he said, noting that they are high-risk environments and that any visit will have strict safety rules.

Masks were not recommended, but people could wear them if they wanted to wear them.

“It is not a supply problem. It is an evidence problem and the evidence is in the balance,” said Bloomfield.

There was a feeling that many people were not complying with alert level rules, but their feeling was that most people were.

Bloomfield said a trigger back to level 3 could be related to the number of cases and where they were occurring, and the ability to control the outbreaks “very quickly.”

He said regional measures could be implemented to prevent an outbreak, and those measures could be more restrictive than the rest of the country.

Bloomfield said there were no Covid-19 cases inside the jails.

A confirmed case is someone who worked at Corrections but had no contact with prisoners, and the transmission was within the family.

He said that visits to prisoners had to be done safely.

Ardern clarified that the 10 person limit was consistent. “If you are socializing with a group of your friends, you should keep it at 10.”

In 10 days, most companies would reopen, much earlier than most other countries in the world.

“There has to be a new normal,” he said.

“We will come out of our bubbles. We will be around more people.”

Ardern said he had no plans to resume travel around the country immediately, and that he would act in the same way that he encouraged New Zealanders to act.

But he wanted to hug his sister: “That will be good.”

Social gatherings should be kept small for now, he said.

He noted that the groups had emerged from social gatherings, even in bars, and reducing socialization was the best way to reduce risk for now.

“Parties, big social events, anything designed to mix or mingle for crowds over the age of 10 will not be allowed.”

Bars will not be able to take group bookings for groups over 10.

Ardern said the size of a group meant that contact tracing would be much easier.

Larger gatherings of people will be in the cinema, but will be spaced out. Sports crowds can also be separated.

Those companies will have to operate differently for the “next day.”

Ardern added that a family older than 10 did not mean kicking someone out of the house.

Moving around the country is not a big problem, so “go see your mother” and maybe visit a local tourism business.

The alert level will be reviewed in two weeks, and if the numbers still look good, larger meetings will be allowed.

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Ardern said level 4 and level 3 had broken the chain of transmission, but level 2 meant that people were out of the game. “Almost all parts of the economy” will be open again, so he called on New Zealanders to be “incredibly careful” in the “new, safer normalcy.”

Keep your distance, stay home if you’re sick – “there should be a very low bar” – and wash your hands were the key Tier 2 alert messages, as well as tracking where you’ve been and who you’ve seen.

“We are looking to provide more support to the most affected companies,” he said, and Thursday’s budget will be called “rebuild together.”

Addressing inequality and deteriorating infrastructure, as well as environmental challenges, would be in the budget.

“Keep it small, keep your distance and be nice,” Ardern told all New Zealanders once level 2 alert begins.

“Please be on the lookout at level 2.”

Breaking the rules will take New Zealand back, the prime minister said.

When asked about Level 2 surveillance, especially for large gatherings, he said that the police can enforce the rules on a large group of partiers, but said that it also depended on New Zealanders and “personal responsibility.”

She said that restaurants could serve more than 10 people, but that there should only be 10 people in a group.

“Wait,” he said when asked about people’s wedding plans.

That 10 person limit will be reviewed in two weeks. She said a limit of 10 people received “harsh consideration” in light of the difficulties people have had with funerals and tangi, but it was a balanced decision with safety in mind.

Ardern said a shameful email from his office on Friday saying ministers had no comment on the closing documents that were released was not a “gag order.” But she took note of the comments and would try to give notice about the publication and publication of such documents in the morning in the future.

She said the language in the email was not the language that she would use.

Ardern said the government was still working on a way to ease commercial rents and rejected the suggestion that NZ First was blocking progress.

All issues were resolved by consensus, he said, when asked if NZ First was blocking the opening of access to social assistance benefits for migrant workers.

Sacrifices for the past six and a half weeks.

Ardern recognized the sacrifices of the past six and a half weeks, such as people who had lost loved ones who couldn’t get a chance to cry properly, or people who had lost their jobs.

She said New Zealanders were determined to win the “war” against Covid-19 by forming a protective wall.

Ardern shared a letter from a mother whose son had a compromised health system, who told her that every person who stayed home had done it for her son.

The wall meant the virus could not reach those it would easily take, Ardern said.

Covid-19 cases are still low, he said, and the R-value remained low at level 3.

There are only 90 active cases and only two in the hospital. “None of that has been by luck, but by hard work.”

Ardern said that up to 12,000 tests can be performed per day, and that 3.5% of the population has now been tested.

Contact tracking has also been improved to track 185 cases per day, including making 10,000 phone calls per day.

Ardern said tests and rapid contact tracing, if efficient, could be 90 percent as effective as a vaccine.

But speed was essential, and Ardern said that everyone with a cold or sore throat needed to get tested: “Please don’t be a stoic Kiwi.”

“We all know there is more to do. We may have won some battles, but we have not won the war. We are still recording cases most of the day.”

Level 3 alert for the last 14 days

New Zealand has been at Alert Level 3 for 14 days, after 33 days at Alert Level 4, and many companies will be eager to know what may be opened and what the restrictions might be.

Ardern has already established the rules for alert level 2, but it is possible that some aspects may be gradually applied over a longer period.

Three new cases today

The number of Covid-19 cases has been zero or nearly zero for nine days, and in single digits for more than three weeks.

Today there were three new cases of Covid-19, including one imported case quarantined near the airport, and two nurses at Waitakere Hospital linked to St Margaret’s & Rest Home Hospital in Auckland.

Both nurses had remained asymptomatic during a period of inactivity that they spent in preventive self-isolation at home.

They were tested as part of the routine requirements for their safe return to work and the results were positive. They remain isolated awaiting further evidence.

The total number of confirmed and probable cases in New Zealand is now 1,497, and with the majority of people having recovered, there are now only 90 active cases in New Zealand.

Ardern has previously said that some of the riskier aspects of Tier 2 could be phased in, depending on the latest public health advice.

She has not articulated what those might be, but indoor and outdoor gatherings of up to 100 people, hospitality businesses, and domestic travel are considered to be of higher risk.

This is because many of the country’s cases come from social gatherings, such as a wedding or a bachelor party.

Being in close contact with strangers also poses greater contact tracking challenges, while allowing interregional travel opens up the possibility of location-to-location transmission.

Ardern has been in contact with his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison, they both closed their respective borders to non-citizens at the same time, and Morrison has chosen to ease restrictions on Australia in stages.