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Home / New Zealand

Covid 19 coronavirus: What needs to happen before alert level 1 as Kiwis back Labour in the polls

Amelia Wade
By Amelia Wade
Political reporter·NZ Herald·
18 May, 2020 09:18 PM5 mins to read

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After one of the National Party’s worst poll results, leader Simon Bridges talks to Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking. Audio / Newstalk ZB

VIRUS LATEST
* 4.7 million cases worldwide, 317,000 deaths; NZ has just 45 active cases
* The poll that's raised questions about Simon Bridges' future
* China backs virus proble: Xi Jinping wants one condition
* Is NZ ready for a second Covid wave?
* Essential information
and latest developments

Tomorrow, Kiwis will get a better sense of what needs to happen before New Zealand moves to alert level 1 after just 15 Covid-19 cases were reported in as many days.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will set out how Cabinet will make decisions to further lift restrictions ahead of their meeting on Monday.

A critical piece of that decision is the confidence that there is no risk of community transmission, with every single case being linked to a source. Yesterday marked 46 days since an infection could not be traced.

"I remain hopeful that if we all remain on the track that we are, that we continue to see those zero-case days, we will see an increase in the number of mass gatherings we'll have for New Zealanders as well," Ardern said.

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LISTEN LIVE TO NEWSTALK ZB
7.05am: Simon Bridges

A poll last night revealed 91.6 per cent of Kiwis supported the lockdown restrictions, as Labour's popularity soared - at every other parties' expense.

In the latest Newshub-Reid Research Poll, Labour came in at 56.5 per cent while National dropped to 30.6 per cent, the Green Party sunk to 5.5 per cent and NZ First slumped to 2.7 per cent.

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The numbers show Labour could comfortably govern alone with 72 seats, with the Opposition parties winning a combined 41 seats and the Greens taking seven.

Ardern's popularity also skyrocketed with a 59.5 per cent rating for her as the preferred Prime Minister, with just 4.5 per cent backing National leader Simon Bridges.

But while polling numbers soared and sunk, New Zealand again steadily reported another day of zero cases of Covid-19.

There were also just 45 active cases, with 96 per cent of the 1499 confirmed and probable cases recovered.

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New Zealand's leading contact-tracing expert, Dr Ayesha Verrall of the University of Otago, warned a second wave of the deadly virus couldn't be ruled out.

With community transmission likely ruled out, the risk was a new intrusion through the border if there were any gaps in the control or a problem with contact isolation, she said.

Now was the time to "check, check and double-check" and ensure New Zealand had a long-term plan for testing and contact tracing, she said.

The warning comes as the Ministry of Health prepares to launch a "digital diary" app to help Kiwis log where they've been without handing over their personal details to businesses.

READ MORE:
• Covid 19 coronavirus: No new cases today, 250 complaints a day to police about level 2 breaches
• Covid 19 coronavirus: Worrying aspect of new Australian coronavirus outbreak
• Covid 19 coronavirus: NZ's latest case is a preschooler from Canterbury
• Covid-19 coronavirus: What we know about New Zealand's cases

The app will be launched tomorrow and Ardern promised users' data will stay with them and won't be shared with third parties or the Government.

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And as most of the now five million Kiwis headed back to work and school yesterday, the report card for behaviour at alert level 2 was encouraging.

Since regaining new freedoms on Thursday, there'd been 983 reports of breaches with about 700 relating to businesses and 250 to gatherings, police commissioner Andrew Coster said.

Police took action on 30 breaches - 29 resulted in warnings and one person was being prosecuted.

Coster said police had had a number of complaints about shops not having means to sign in, despite it not being a requirement.

Only hospitality operations, where people are sat for up to two hours, need a register of their customers for contact tracing purposes. But all businesses need records of staff on each day.

Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield, who will provide ministers with advice, said yesterday a key part of that decision would be confidence there was still no community transmission by knowing the source of every case.

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Last night, Bloomfield led New Zealand's delegation at the virtual World Health Assembly - a job usually reserved for the Health Minister. Instead David Clark will present the country statement.

New Zealand co-sponsored a resolution on Covid-19 to agree, at the high level, to review the pandemic.

Bloomfield said the intention of the resolution was to see "the right sort of review" was undertaken of the pandemic, the WHO and how member states responded.

"We're only really at the end of the beginning of this outbreak and there's still a lot we need to do."

Ardern said she didn't think supporting the review would damage New Zealand's relationship with China and made an effort to make it clear a "large number of countries" were backing it.

"To be clear, what we're supporting is an independent look at what we can learn from this global pandemic and that includes different countries' responses as it entered within their borders as well."

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The review, Ardern said, didn't seek to lay blame but learn from experience.

"I think it's natural that after such a significant event we would want to take a look at what we should have all learnt from this experience."

New Zealand Customs is investigating the Ruby Princess cruise ship to establish whether any offences were committed.

In March, people were allowed off the ship in Hawke's Bay and 16 cases have since been linked back to that visit.

Ardern said there was no timeline for the Customs investigation.

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