It is just over a week until the traffic lights come on and Aotearoa moves into a new way of managing Covid in the community.
In a few days the government is set to lay out which area moves into what level of the protection framework – red, orange or green. Low-vaccinated areas are expected to start in the red zone.
That is also where Auckland will start. Even though it is about 90 percent double dosed, the majority of the country's Covid cases are there.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was in Auckland on Thursday. She told Checkpoint the government wants to make sure restrictions are being eased carefully so Covid case numbers do not "balloon out".
"Once we see the impact of the easing of restrictions, that'll give us a better sense of what we're able to do in terms of reducing them again.
"It will matter for Auckland, what is happening with the outbreak and the impact of eased restrictions on the outbreak's growth.
"What we also will consider is the pressure on our health system, that includes both hospitalisations and whether they are manageable."
Regarding the calls from some regions for travellers to stay away over the holidays, Ardern said the move to the new protection framework would not be happening if it was not safe to do so.
"My message to every part of the country is that actually the framework we're moving into on 3 December offers greater protections and what we have been living under for the better part of … four months.
"So that is a big shift. But it is a more protective framework than what we have now.
"The other point I'd make is we are a highly vaccinated country, first doses now I believe we've hit 92 percent.
"That high vaccination rate does offer the ability to come into managing Covid with the best possible position that we could."
