Coronavirus: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern reveals traffic light settings

Publish Date
Monday, 29 November 2021, 4:09PM

The Prime Minister has confirmed New Zealand will move to the new traffic light system at 11.59 on Thursday 2 December.

No region will be moving into the green setting.

Auckland, still the centre of the outbreak, will go straight to red.

Northland, Taupō and Rotorua Lakes Districts, Kawerau, Whakatane, Ōpōtiki Districts, Gisborne District, Wairoa District, Rangitikei, Whanganui and Ruapehu Districts will also move to red.

Meanwhile, the rest of the North Island and the whole of the South Island will go to orange.

Settings will be reviewed every two weeks.

Once in the traffic light system, lockdowns, if they happen at all, are expected to be rare and more localised.

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Under all traffic light settings, events, restaurants, bars, gyms and hairdressers are expected to be able to remain open.

That is, provided they use a vaccine pass to ensure only vaccinated people are using their services.

Only under the red setting do events and gyms become limited as they have to restrict the number of people in attendance to 100 or fewer.

For those not using vaccine passes, close-proximity businesses - such as hairdressers - are not able to operate. Gathering numbers are limited to 25.

For places at orange, there are no gathering limits if vaccine passes are used.

New Zealand has had 11,074 confirmed cases since the pandemic began last year and 43 deaths.

For more information visit covid19.govt.nz.

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