New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said Covid-19 restrictions, including mandates and vaccine passes, will begin to lift once the country gets “well beyond” the Omicron outbreak’s peak.
At a post-cabinet press conference on Monday, Ardern said case numbers were likely to peak in mid-to-late March, or three to six weeks away. Case numbers were expected to double every three to four days.
“It’s likely then, that very soon, we will all know people who have Covid or we will potentially get it ourselves,” she said.
Ardern said at an earlier stage of the pandemic, this prospect would have been “scary”, but now there are three main reasons why it is less so: the highly vaccinated population; Omicron being a mild to moderate illness due to high vaccination rates and boosters making hospitalisation 10 times less likely; and public health measures like masks, gathering limits and vaccine passes slowing down the spread to ensure everyone who needs a hospital bed can get it.
“So far, that plan is working. We had 46 cases per 100,000 people compared to 367 in New South Wales, and 660 in Victoria, at the same point in the outbreak.”
The country recorded 2,365 new cases of the virus in the community on Monday, 116 people in hospital and two further deaths, bringing the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic to 55.
After the Omicron wave peaks, there will probably be a rapid decline, followed by cases stabilising at a lower level, Arden said. It is then that government can consider easing public health measures, beginning with loosening restrictions on gathering sizes, and later, moving on from using vaccine passes and mandates where vulnerable people are less likely to be affected.
“If we hadn’t had vaccine passes, as we managed Delta, we would have had to instead use more general restrictions across the whole population. They have always been the least bad option. But while they have been necessary, as I’ve always said, they have also been temporary.”
“They will remain important in some areas though, for some time,” she said.
Arden said it is difficult to set an exact date for easing mandates, but indicated the government needs to be confident New Zealand is “well beyond the peak” and that the pressure on the health system is manageable.
The announcement comes as hundreds of anti-mandate protesters enter their 14th day of occupying parliament’s grounds. The protest has also operated as a vehicle for anti-vaccine sentiment, QAnon-style conspiracy theories, antisemitic views, and calls for the execution of journalists, politicians and health officials.
Ardern directed a message to the protesters: “Everyone is over Covid. No one wants to live with rules or restrictions. But had we not all been willing to work together to protect one another, then we all would have been worse off as individuals, including losing people we love.
“That hasn’t happened here for the most part and that is a fact worth celebrating, rather than protesting.”
Restrictions will ease when doing so would not compromise the lives of thousands of people, and not because the protesters demanded it, Ardern said.
“Now is not the time to dismantle our hard work and preparation, to remove our armour just as the battle begins.”