National leader Judith Collins wants the Government to explain why the South Island should not immediately drop to alert level 2.

 She said “there hasn’t been a positive case of Covid in the South Island for almost a year. “

“None have been reported from the latest Delta outbreak and, as of yesterday afternoon, just 22 contacts were awaiting or overdue their day 12 test, out of more than 37,000 total contacts in this outbreak.”

 “It doesn’t make sense, then, that the South Island, despite being Covid-free, should be subject to level 3 restrictions – effectively the same as level 4, but with takeaways.”

Ms Collins said South Island people and businesses are being put under unnecessary stress for no good reason.

 “If Wellington, which has had a number of positive cases during the current outbreak, can be at level 3, it seems a major overreaction to have the same alert level in the south, where there have been none.”

Jacinda Ardern said “we want to bring all of the review for all of New Zealand through till Monday and one of the reasons for that is of course, while we have several hundred contacts that have been in the South Island, those are the ones we know,” said told media at Thursday’s briefing.

 “And while those have been contact traced, they’ve been tested, they are the ones known to us and our Ministry team – there may well be others connected to these cases that we don’t know about so Level 3 provides an extra layer of caution.”

 “Our goal is to keep Covid out of the South Island” the Prime Minister said.

 “Stepping down cautiously is the best way that we can assure that when we do left restrictions it stays that way in those businesses can remain free of some of the challenges we’re facing elsewhere.”