Covid 19 coronavirus: Jacinda Ardern’s big call: a week to takeout, maybe three weeks to socialize

LAST VIRUSES
* The closure will be lifted at 11.59 pm on Monday – PM says that extending the closure for five days will give greater certainty at a low economic cost
* The cabinet will discuss on May 11 whether the country is ready to go from alert level 3 to much less restrictive level 2
* Questions and Answers: What does Level 3 really mean?
* Shutdown Shutdown: Kids are less contagious, says Ashley Bloomfield, but childcare centers refuse to reopen
* New Zealand has 454 active cases and 12 deaths: nine new cases were reported yesterday, with a total of 974 recoveries
* Rich Americans flee to New Zealand to try to escape from Covid
* Latest developments and essential information

Kiwis will be able to pick up takeaways in one week and will be able to socialize more freely in three weeks after the Cabinet’s decision to extend the blockade until Monday and then spend at least two weeks at alert level 3.

But many retailers are unhappy because they cannot reopen physical stores with the same health and safety precautions as those followed by supermarkets in the past four weeks.

While Retail NZ CEO Greg Harford believes 75 percent of businesses will be able to trade online, the rest are still compromised.

It was disappointing, he said, that a wider range of stores could not reopen their physical outlets, following health and safety rules such as queue management. Many would go to the wall.

Under alert level three, there can be no contact between the public. That means that retail must be in touch with purchases and deliveries.

Storefronts cannot be open to customers, with the exception of supermarkets, dairies and service stations.

Executive President of the Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce, Leeann Watson, said it was “almost impossible” for the retail and hospitality sector to operate under these restrictions and that more government support was needed.

“This reinforces the need for some intervention for retail and hospitality because it is incredibly difficult for them to have normal trade below alert level three,” he said.

“Some companies will be able to operate online, but not all of them will be able to, and they certainly won’t be at full commercial capacity.”

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the highly anticipated decision after deciding that silent community broadcasting was unlikely in New Zealand.

“The effort of our five million team has broken the chain of transmission and made a quantum leap towards our goal of eliminating the virus,” he said.

It occurs when the number of cases worldwide approaches 2.5 million, with almost 170,000 deaths and 650,000 recoveries. The UK faces another four weeks of confinement, with 16,500 deaths but optimism that the infection rate is slowing down.

Australian state and territorial leaders will meet with Prime Minister Scott Morrison today to discuss a possible end to the blockade measures in the country. It comes after states have recorded fewer daily cases and reports that Australia has managed to contain the outbreak.

Australia has recorded 71 deaths from Covid-19 so far, with 6,617 confirmed cases across the country.

Back in New Zealand, Ardern decided to extend the lock for five days until the end of Monday to minimize the chances of returning to Alert Level 4 in the future.

It costs two business days instead of three due to the Anzac weekend, but Ardern said it was worth being more confident about removing Covid-19.

That added certainty will come from increased contact tracing capacity, and from tens of thousands of additional tests in remote communities or around cases where the source of infection remains a mystery.

The cabinet decision was well received by public health experts and companies seeking clarity on future operations, although the former had concerns about opening ECE schools and centers and some of the latter wanted the closure lifted earlier.

When alert level 4 rises at midnight on Monday, April 27, New Zealanders would have spent 33 days living with unprecedented restrictions on movement and activity.

Ardern asked New Zealanders to continue to meet the closure requirements, but now companies have been allowed to return to their facilities to prepare to reopen.

Schools and early childhood education centers were also allowed to return to the facility to prepare for a teachers-only day on April 28, the day after the closure ended.

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The police will continue to ask people to justify movements outside the home.

Alert level 3, Ardern warned, will see similar restrictions on people’s social lives, and schools will be open, but children were asked to stay home if possible.

But between 400,000 and 500,000 more workers will return to work.

On May 11, the Cabinet will assess whether the country is ready to go to Alert Level 2 on May 12.

Alert level 2 would see most companies open and some meetings and socializations allowed, as long as the physical distance of one meter can be maintained. The children would return to school.

• Covid19.govt.nz – The official government Covid-19 advisory website

Ardern said the Director-General for Health, Ashley Bloomfield, also recommended extending the blockade, despite strong confidence that there were no undetected outbreaks of coronavirus.

Several signs indicated this, including a low transmission rate of 0.48 (meaning that an infected person on average infects less than half a person), low cases per capita, and one of the lowest death rates in the world.

New Zealand now also had one of the highest per capita test rates in the world, and since April 1 there have only been eight cases in which the source of the infection is unknown.

Yesterday there were nine more cases of Covid-19, the same number as the previous day.

There are now 1,440 cases, 14 in the hospital and three in the ICU, two of which are in critical condition.

With a death toll of 12 and 974 people having recovered, the number of active cases has now dropped to 454.

Ardern said the removal did not mean there would be no more cases.

“It means zero tolerance for cases. It means when a case arises, and we will, test, contact, isolate, and do that every time.”

National Party leader Simon Bridges said the government was not ready to lift the blockade because it had not yet been tested, traced contacts and the availability of personal protective equipment.

Bloomfield defended the Ministry of Health’s contact tracing, adding that moving from manual local practice to a nationalized digital system had taken time.

Yesterday, the Cabinet approved another $ 55 million for personnel from public health units and the National Contact Search Center.

Up to 5000 contacts per day can be tracked right now, but the extra money is expected to increase that.

Ardern added that the Covid crisis had exposed deficiencies in the hidden nature of DHBs, and that the reforms will be considered once the pandemic ends.

University of Auckland epidemiologist Professor Rod Jackson said the cabinet decision was “very sensible.”

His research has suggested that there were 500 undetected but infectious cases in New Zealand, and the additional five-day window for further testing would allow a handful of those cases to be found.

“The more they test, the more confident we can be that the number of undetected cases is small.”

But he was still concerned about allowing schools and ECEs to open below alert level 3.

Bloomfield said the evidence here and abroad was that children had low rates of Covid-19 infection, did not feel as bad when infected, and did not tend to infect adults.

But that evidence was new and unclear, according to University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker, who shared concerns about schools and said children generally transmitted strong respiratory viruses.

Baker said the Cabinet decision had a good chance of success, although the modeling had suggested even more time in closing to provide even greater certainty.

He applauded the government for switching to a phase-out strategy four weeks ago.

“The decision was huge and the right one. No other country in the world has done that.”

Business NZ and the Association of Employers and Manufacturers welcomed Ardern’s announcement as it brought clarity to companies.

“The key point is that we have done a good job of blocking, but we must also continue to manage all of our activities safely to make sure we can get out of Level 3 as soon as possible,” said Business NZ CEO Kirk Hope. .

Ardern hoped that the hotel industry would understand extending the blockade.

“The best thing we can do for them is get back to normal life as soon as possible.”

She said extending the blockade was not a decision made lightly, but New Zealanders had done what few countries had been able to do.

“We have stopped a wave of devastation. You, all of you, have stopped the uncontrolled explosion of Covid-19 in New Zealand.”

But she said the fight was far from over.

“Stay strong, stay home, be nice. And let’s finish what we started.” – Additional reports, Allied Press