Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said
Wednesday that people will no longer need to be vaccinated to visit places like
retail stores, restaurants and bars from April 4. Gone, too, will be a
requirement to scan QR barcodes at those venues.
A vaccine mandate will be scrapped for some
workers — including teachers, police officers and waiters — though it will
continue for health care and aged-care workers, border workers and corrections
officers.
Also gone from Friday is a limit on outdoor
crowds of 100. That will allow some concerts and big sporting events like
marathons to resume. An indoor limit of 100 people will be raised to 200
people, and could later be removed altogether.
Remaining in place is a requirement that
people wear masks in many enclosed spaces, including in stores, on public
transport and, for children aged 8 and over, in school classrooms.
Ardern said the government’s actions over
the past two years to limit the spread of the coronavirus had saved thousands
of lives and helped the economy.
“But while we’ve been successful, it’s also
been bloody hard,” Ardern said.
“Everyone has had to give up something to
make this work, and some more than others,” she said.
The changes mean that many restrictions
will be removed before tourists start arriving back in New Zealand.
Earlier this month, the government
announced that Australian tourists would be welcomed back from April 12 and
tourists from many other countries, including the U.S., Canada, and Britain,
from May 1.
International tourism used to account for
about 20% of New Zealand’s foreign income and more than 5% of GDP but
evaporated after the South Pacific nation imposed some of the world’s strictest
border controls after the pandemic began.
New Zealand continues to see some of its
highest rates of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations since the pandemic
began, with an average 17,000 new infections being reported each day.
But Ardern said modeling shows that the
biggest city of Auckland is already significantly past the peak of its omicron
outbreak and the rest of the country will soon follow.
Health experts warned that some countries
which had dropped restrictions as omicron faded were now experiencing another
surge of cases.
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