"I'm not confident the red settings give us enough protections to actually keep the numbers down because it does rely on people adopting the approaches of high levels of vaccinations and boosters and masking and all the usual things that we've been hearing about a lot."
Gray said she would prefer the Government to adopt the old alert system used prior, which was in place during last year's Delta lockdown and had much stricter limits on hospitality venues and social gatherings indoors.
"The traffic light system red and orange make little difference when there are high levels of transmission. I wonder if people are confusing the old red with the higher alert system which puts more stringent restrictions on numbers."
Covid-19 modeller Dr Michael Plank said New Zealand is "definitely in a second wave".
"It's got potential to be quite a serious one. Hospitalisations are rising sharply now and that's concerning because the health system was already stressed with winter illness and flu."
He said it's difficult to predict what the peak will be, but with the average age for hospitalisations climbing, it should be a concern for Kiwis.
"The increase in the average age is the biggest concern – that means even if cases don't get as high as they did in March, it's possible the number of hospitalisations will increase."
Plank maintains that mask-wearing will be important for flattening the wave.
"We are probably still better at using masks here than many places who I think have fallen out of the habit, that's not to say there isn't room for improvement because there is."
