Auckland to gradually relax restrictions

Auckland, Oct 4 A roadmap was announced by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday for the country's largest city to carefully move out of the current Covid-19 restrictions.

New Zealand reported 29 new Covid Delta variant cases in the community on Monday, bringing the total number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the country's community outbreak to 1,357, reports Xinhua news agency.

Twenty-eight of the new infections were recorded in the largest city Auckland and one case in nearby Waikato, according to the Ministry of Health.

Ardern said Alert Level 3 and 4 restrictions in Auckland have helped curb the Delta outbreak in the past seven weeks and provide time for New Zealanders to get their vaccinations.

Based on public health advice, the Cabinet confirmed its three-step plan to transition Auckland out of current restrictions "carefully and methodically" with regular check-ins, Ardern said.

Schools are advised to be able to return after the current school holidays on October 18, with the final decision to be made on that closer to the time, she said.

The "careful and methodical transition plan" for Auckland will see a more highly vaccinated population at the end of the three steps, with the use of vaccine certificates in the pipeline to deal with riskier settings such as large-scale events, Ardern said.

The country reached a milestone on Monday after seeing more than 2 million people fully vaccinated against Covid-19, representing 48 per cent of Kiwis aged 12 and over, said Minister for Covid-19 Response Chris Hipkins.

About 79 per cent of people aged 12 and over have had at least one dose of the vaccine, Hipkins said.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor