{"id":1258,"date":"2021-09-13T08:24:22","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T08:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=1258"},"modified":"2021-09-13T08:24:22","modified_gmt":"2021-09-13T08:24:22","slug":"prime-minister-jacinda-ardern-says-auckland-to-stay-in-lockdown-for-another-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=1258","title":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says Auckland to stay in lockdown for another week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Auckland will stay in Covid-19 alert level 4 for another week until 11.59pm next Tuesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.<\/p>\n

Cabinet has made an in principle decision that T\u0101maki Makaurau will then move to alert level 3.<\/p>\n

The rest of New Zealand will remain in alert level 2 until Tuesday next week.<\/p>\n

Alert level settings will be reviewed next Monday.<\/p>\n

Ardern says Cabinet has made an indicative decision about Auckland, but has not made one about the rest of New Zealand moving to alert level 1.<\/p>\n

While there is nothing to indicate there is Covid-19 outside of Auckland, lower restrictions in the rest of the country would mean a far greater risk of spread if it did escape, she says.<\/p>\n

Having the rest of the country at alert level 2 gives a greater chance of stamping the virus out if it does get out of Auckland, she says.<\/p>\n

Auckland has been at alert level 4 since\u00a0midnight on 17 August<\/a>\u00a0after an outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19.<\/p>\n

Cabinet has seen evidence and advice that alert level 4 is working, saying it has consistently reduced the R value below 1, and it is now about 0.6, Ardern says.<\/p>\n

“On that basis and on the advice of the Director-General of Health, Auckland will remain at alert level 4 until 11.59pm next Tuesday, the 21st of September.”<\/p>\n

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield says the “lockdown is working” and it is only a small number of cases that the ministry is focused on.<\/p>\n

“The testing is at a good level … so our view and our advice is that another week in lockdown in alert level 4 in Auckland gives us our best chance to really finish the job off here.<\/p>\n

“Our view is we are doing everything right. It is paying off and we need to see this through and there is good reason to want to eliminate the virus again,” Bloomfield says.<\/p>\n

“It does allow us to enjoy a full range of activities and for the economy to really crank back up again.”<\/p>\n

He says the focus for the next week is finding cases.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Auckland will stay in Covid-19 alert level 4 for another week until 11.59pm next Tuesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. Cabinet has made an in principle decision that T\u0101maki Makaurau will then move to alert level 3. The rest of New Zealand will remain in alert level 2 until Tuesday next week. Alert level settings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,222,174],"tags":[198,59,223],"class_list":["post-1258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19","category-latest-news","category-nz-news","tag-covid-19","tag-featured","tag-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1261,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1258\/revisions\/1261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}