Auckland and other regions could move down to Orange ahead of other areas, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, should hospitalisation levels normalise.
"We've always kept open the fact that different regions may be at different levels in the traffic light system," she said from Auckland on Thursday.
"It's all about the pressure on the health system, we want to make sure everyone gets the care they need."
Ardern revealed incoming changes to mandates, vaccine passes and restrictions on Wednesday. Ardern said there was an expectation New Zealand could move to Orange in the traffic light setting in the near future, but while hospitalisation are at the current rate, New Zealand would stay at Red.
"It's less about cases, more about what we see in our hospitalisations and we'll be undertaking a review in that first week of April," she said, when asked what it would take for a move down to Orange.
"If we're hearing from primary care and our hospital network that what they're seeing is a bit more normalisation, then that'll be a big factor for us in considering what we'll do with those levels."
She said it was possible that New Zealand could be in a position where Auckland moves to Orange and the rest of the country stayed at Red.
"The traffic light system does have the flexibility to have different regions at different levels without having any of those old difficulties of borders and element like that no longer necessary. We will consider whether some regions are in a position to move earlier than others."
Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said on Tuesday that Covid-19 cases numbers have passed the peak in Auckland city and are on their way down in all three Auckland DHBs.
He said the increase in case numbers across the rest of the country is also slowing, adding there is "encouraging signs" the case numbers are peaking in the Midlands region and the Wellington region, "but case numbers are still very much on the increase in the South Island".
"Hospitalisation numbers will likely peak in the next week or so and then trend downward during April, but likely relatively slowly."
"It is important to remember the number of deaths each day is likely to increase and will take longer to decline. There is a delay between case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths," he said.
Midlands is the area below Auckland to Taranaki and across to Bay of Plenty area, down to Turangi.
National's Christopher Luxon said the traffic light system should be abolished.
"I don't think the system should exist, we've caught ourselves up in a system that doesn't make sense."
Read more: Covid-19 mandates, QR codes and passes: What you need to know
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