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Mulligan said that while many people are tired of not being at level 1, New Zealand is “barely holding on” to the low daily case numbers under current restrictions.
Only one new case was announced on Monday and there are 96 active cases currently. Of these, 57 were found in the community. The Auckland August group has seen 177 cases so far.
“Honestly, I don’t know what kind of person is watching contagious people go to funerals, church services and aerobics classes and say ‘well this is going great, let’s relax things a bit,'” he said Monday during The Project.
The Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship Church subgroup and a grieving subgroup have been at the center of the cases, and a quarantine worker who attended Les Mills fitness classes was recently discovered to be infected.
“For the people who claim Auckland needs to move levels, what’s wrong with them? Honestly why, because they’re sick of it? I’m sick of level 2.5 too,” Mulligan said.
“If you think the government is making a mistake, tell me what other country you want New Zealand to look more like right now.”
Ardern said that although the cases are contained in Auckland, interregional travel represents a risk of spreading the virus throughout the rest of the country and that is why alert levels were increased.
“We haven’t had many days without new cases showing up in Auckland and only one person is required to travel to and attend a super spreader event elsewhere in the country and we may be considering more restrictions elsewhere,” he said Monday.
“Therefore, the level 2 precautions that we have continue to act as a safety barrier for outbreaks in the rest of New Zealand.”
The last time the country went from level 2 to level 1, New Zealanders had spent 26 days at level 2 and there had not been 17 days without new cases, Ardern said.
“So far we have spent 14 days in what we call [level] 2.5 in Auckland and they have had cases in the community that continue to crop up every day except one, “he said.
“While no new community case is not itself a measure to lower levels, as we know that more cases will emerge from the tail of this group, these cases may continue to present risks.
“So while our goal is to quickly lower alert levels safely, we must also focus going forward, on getting back to level 1, but steadily and without rushing there only to have to bounce back soon after.”
