After meeting with Cabinet, Jacinda Ardern has announced that Northland will move to Alert Level 2 at 11.59pm tomorrow, Tuesday 19 October. Waikato will remain at Level 3, with any changes to be decided on Friday.
Auckland will remain at Alert Level 3 under it’s current level of restrictions for the next two weeks. While a move to Alert Level 4 for Auckland was considered, because of the nature of the outbreak, as well as levels of compliance, it has been ruled out.
Cabinet considered evidence that showed a move to greater restrictions wouldn’t make enough of a difference for it to be viable.
There will be no interim changes to Auckland’s Level 3 restrictions during these two weeks. The rest of county will remain at its current Alert Level 2 status.
“In the future we cannot ask people to live week to week, we know that has to change,” said Ardern, adding that a new system for dealing with the virus will be revealed on Friday.
There are 60 new community cases - 57 are in Auckland, three in Waikato. Of today's new cases, 24 are yet to be linked to the existing outbreak.
