The Government has removed the last remaining Covid-19 restrictions as the risk posed by the virus has diminished to a manageable level.
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said public health officials had advised it was safe to scrap the final Covid restrictions: a week of isolation and wearing face masks in health facilities.
“While our case numbers will continue to fluctuate, we have not seen the dramatic peaks that characterised Covid-19 rates last year,” she said in a statement.
“This, paired with the population’s immunity levels, means Cabinet and I am advised we’re positioned to safely remove the remaining Covid-19 requirements”.
While it is no longer mandatory, people who are unwell with any type of infectious virus are encouraged to stay at home for five days.
Mask wearing will also still be encouraged, particularly in hospitals and medical centres, as they help to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses.
Verrall said NZ management of the pandemic has moved from an emergency response to sustainable long-term management.
Michael Baker, an epidemiologist, said Covid-19 had become more predictable and was transitioning into what the industry calls an endemic threat.
“Generally, we’d say something moves from a pandemic to an epidemic when it becomes a stable threat,” he said.
The World Health Organisation said Covid was no longer a global health emergency in May earlier this year.
However, it still remains a problem in New Zealand. About 140 people are hospitalised every week and roughly 10 die.
Baker said hospitals should maintain the mask-wearing rule, even after it stops being mandatory, and people who are sick should stay home.
But vaccination and herd immunity, from the outbreak in 2022, means the virus no longer poses the serious risk that it did when it first arrived in New Zealand.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins thanked Aucklanders for “doing the heavy lifting” in delaying big outbreaks of Covid until most of the population could be vaccinated.
“While there were no doubt fractures in our collective sense of unity, I believe that New Zealanders can be enormously proud of what we achieved together,” he said.
“We stayed home, we made sacrifices, we got vaccinated, and there is absolutely no question that we saved lives”
Lifting these last restrictions was the “formal end” of a challenging few years.
“There were times during the peak of our Covid response when I longed for this particular day. The weight of the enormous decisions we took sat heavily,” he said.
“I have to confess that as I’m announcing it today, it seems like a bit of an anti-climax”.
25 Comments
Can somebody please explain to me the appeal of going on a cruise?
Everything you can do on a cruise - boozing up and eating buffet food, gambling, putting your keys in the bowl - you can do on terra firma for far less cost and far less risk of spending the week spraying out of both ends once the inevitable norovirus outbreak occurs.
I'd like to hear from an enthusiast, please.
On a side note, imagine still caring about somebody else's vaccination status (to be honest, imagine having cared in the first place - and I'm fully up-to-date with mine before anyone asks if I'm running as an NZ First candidate).
I did a cruise in the Carribean in May, I visited 7 different countries/islands in 10 days. We arrived every most morning into a different port being very refreshed and ready to visit a new place. I did a 7 day cruise in the Mediterranean before Covid and docked in 7 different ports. Imagine waking in a standard hotel, (very early) rushing down for breakfast, then packing your suitcase, taxiing to the airport, checking in, going through immigration, baggage security, flying for say 2 hours, collecting your suitcase, going through immigration again, finding a taxi to take you to your new hotel, checking in, unpacking your suitcase, by that time it's time to eat dinner and go to bed and you saw…exactly nothing, but you stressed hell of a lot.
Our local rural supply store lost almost all knowledgeable staff when they refused to have the jab, and were subsequently dismissed. None of them returned when the mandate was lifted, and now there's maybe one or two staff who I would trust to give advice in there given the consequences of making the wrong call with soil health and animal welfare.
Vaccinations and work | Unite against COVID-19 (covid19.govt.nz)
Apparently, they have based on the above.
The reality is that many organisations still require vaccine passes for their staff and contractors.
Therefore, NZF might still have a selling point: Mandate the removal of mandates.
Vaccine passes are no longer issued. You can get a vaccination record or International Travel Vaccination Certificate.
Organisations need to be careful re their requirements for requiring vaccination records:
For most workplaces, COVID-19 is not a risk arising from their work that needs to be managed from a health and safety perspective. It is now like other community-based infectious illnesses that can impact workers and their work.
However, if you are one of the few workplaces where COVID-19 is a risk directly related to your work or if you and your workers are particularly concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on your business or people, then you will want to put some policies or other measures in place to manage the risk.
https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/managing-health-and-safety/novel-coronavir…
Re vaccine passes, you're likely correct (I never had one to know).
The wording I've seen recently (last month) was along the lines of the applicant had to be 'up to date with boosters'.
I have noticed some employer adds that used to mention covid-19 in the add text no longer do now. Although some jobs have it in their application process as a requirement rather than on the advert itself.
It's definitely still out there in some numbers but few seem to care anymore, let alone test for it, so who knows the full extent. Over half my son's class were off sick last week, all at the same time, and none had been checked for COVID. My daughter shared a school van with a COVID-positive child earlier this week.
Parents are sending kids to school, and going to work themselves, with COVID because it's become "just another cold" that can be managed if you're not feeling too sick. Maybe Chippy was hoping his poll numbers would get a booster shot from the announcement.
Why would you get a poll boost from reminding people how useless you were at managing the situation to begin with? I'm glad he did remind us though, there are still a lot of angry people out there.
I see the pink haired one is in a state of shock. She says she will still wear her mask because she wants to 'save' people. Lol, what an idiot.
So Covid is still with us, people are still dying from it, most people are no longer updating their vaccinations but it's now, finally OK to accept to live with Covid.
What has changed? Certainly not the virus! No it's the hype that is gone, the fear mongering, the daily shows on TV with Ardern or Bloomfield, the deaths and cases counters, the setting up of massive vaccination centres, the lockdowns, etc...
It was all an overreaction, but if someone dared to say so at the time, they (I) got accused of being a terrible person wanting others to die...
And we are now all paying the price for such an overreaction!
Because if we didn't lockdown the country we wouldn't have had the massive stimulus from both the government and the RBNZ, dropping interest rates almost nothing and engaging in QE, and the government spending money it doesn't have.
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