Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the decision for Auckland to rejoin the rest of the country at Level 1 at midday today was about "getting the balance right".
"Tamaki Makaurau will join the rest of New Zealand at Alert Level 1," she said in a press conference today.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told Cabinet he believes the Auckland community outbreak, which saw 15 people in the community infected with Covid-19, to be contained.
Ardern said Cabinet met last night to discuss the shift in alert levels, but withheld their decision until just before noon as they waited for the completion of 14 days — a full transmission cycle — since the last exposure event; and the results of day 12 testing for the last remaining close contacts of Case N, who are in isolation. Those tests all came back negative overnight.
Some cases are in managed isolation and are due to be tested today.
"I know everyone in our largest city will be looking forward to a weekend with fewer restrictions, with life feeling mostly back to normal, and Auckland deserves that," she said.
"Once again, the city has stepped up and did what it needed to do in the face of these new community cases and for that, we all say thank you.
"We always said we would announce before the weekend but wanted to take that time at Level 2 in order to feel assured that we are testing in the wider community as well to give us reassurance that we didn't have transmission that we had not picked up through contact tracing, so we got those tests in overnight."
She said the discussion with Cabinet "was a preliminary one".
"We said 'if tomorrow we have these additional pieces of information, including our wider community testing'. Now we've gone the 14 days, we'll feel confident to lift out [of alert levels].
"We're lifting at midday — we're not waiting 'til midnight because we've got those morning results in, so it wasn't just contacts, it was also the wider community testing.
The PM delivered the good news just minutes before the change in Covid-19 restrictions took effect. (Source: Other)
"Every day, when we stand up and say that today we have no new cases, at any point, someone will make an assumption about whether or not we're going to be in a position to move."
She said the Government made the "a little unusual" decision to shift the region to Level 1 at midday today due to the looser legal orders.
"When we move to Level 1, we don't have to worry so much about the legal orders and so we've actually taken the opportunity to lift as soon as we can now we've got the results through. But I wanted those results through before I made a decision.
"We have to make a decision at some point, so no matter what time we make the decision, someone will say, 'Why didn't you forewarn us and give us 48 hours notice?' For us, making the decision once we've got the full information — but doing it as soon as we can then give notice — is getting that balance right."
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