New National leader Judith Collins says she sees no issue with the idea of putting regions into lockdown should Covid-19 cases re-emerge in the community.
It comes as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today New Zealand would move to regionalised lockdowns, rather than the whole country, in the first instance in the event Covid-19 cases appear in the community.
Ms Collins said she thought “most New Zealanders would think that was a good idea”.
“I would say, they have enough trouble keeping quarantine tight as they do now.
“The devil, in this case, is the execution. So, I don’t see there’s a problem with the idea.”
Ms Ardern said she was "setting out our plan in the event we have a new case of community transmission of Covid-19 in New Zealand".
She said alert level increases could be applied locally, regionally and then nationally. Ms Ardern said the alert level system and framework would remain in place.
"The first step, if possible, is locally,” Ms Ardern said.
"Covid is now exploding outside our borders and every country we have sought to replicate or have drawn from in the fight against Covid has now experienced further community outbreaks.
"Victoria in particular is a cautionary tale for New Zealand that we must learn from. It appears their current outbreak is linked to a managed isolation facility similar to the ones we run here and that the entire outbreak was seeded by just two cases."
SHARE ME