Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield is positive about New Zealand's chances of eliminating Covid-19 in the next few weeks, but has urged Kiwis to stay vigilant as the country moves to Alert Level 3 next week.
The country will move out of Level 4 at 11.59pm on Monday night, which will allow some businesses to re-open with contactless delivery methods, but people will largely still be required to stay at home if they are able.
Speaking this morning to TVNZ 1's Breakfast, Mr Bloomfield said it would almost be better to treat Level 3 with more caution than Level 4, because the safeguards of Level 4 will not be present.
"The key to Alert Level 3, the same as Alert Level 4, is how every New Zealander behaves," he said.
"It's, in a sense, being even more vigilant - we haven't got all the protections that Alert Level 4 provides us with, so we need to just be really maintaining that physical distancing, the hygiene, and really thoughtful about reducing the likelihood that either we could get infected or that we could infect someone else."
Mr Bloomfield said the Ministry of Health and Government are continuing to improve their contact tracing and testing regimes, with more funding announced for public health services yesterday, and Ministry staff assessing communities this week to see where additional capacity is needed.
The Prime Minister and the Director-General of Health praise workers who have been giving everything 24/7 for weeks during the Covid-19 crisis. (Source: Other)
The goal is elimination of the virus, he said, rather than eradication - the latter being what the world has done with smallpox.
Elimination, Dr Bloomfield said, is defined as "being down to a really small number of cases and knowing where they're coming from - so they're not surprising us.
"Being able, if there is a case pops up, being able to really get in there and really stamp it out with our case finding and our contact tracing.
"We're really close to being in that position - these extra few days [at Level 4] will give us increasing confidence about that - but elimination is not a point in time - it's an ongoing effort and it's going to require again, as we have in Alert Level 4, all our efforts."
His message for the public is simple: "keep doing what you're doing - it's paying off.
"As we move into Alert Level 3, stay very vigilant, don't burst your bubbles, don't do anything that could compromise the gains we've made."
Professor Michael Baker says other countries could be facing repeated lockdowns, but New Zealand has done well. (Source: Other)
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