The Prime Minister has updated rules on mask-wearing, following earlier conflicting advice from the Ministry of Health.

In this afternoon’s press conference Jacinda Ardern said the public is required to wear a face-covering when using public transport airoplanes taxis or ride-share or visiting a healthcare or aged care facility.

“You must wear a mask if you are inside any retail businesses including supermarkets, which again, people have been practising recently, but also now that you’re able to direct travel and visit malls, takeaway, food stores, or shops.”

Public venues

She said “you must also wear a mask in public venues such as museums and libraries but obviously not swimming pools, even if you’re a spectator.”

Masks not required at hospitality venues

The Prime Minister said “we know there are places where it would be impractical for customers or visitors to wear face coverings, such as hospitality venues like bars and restaurants where you eat and drink so it’s not a requirement there.”

Masks not required at gyms

“And also exercising with a mask can obviously be challenging, so the face-covering requirement does not apply to clients in gyms, either. In general though, if you’re around people you don’t know it is a good idea to wear a mask, as much as possible.”

“Another change to keep people safe at level two is limiting the number of people who can travel on a bus, train or ferry.”

“Delta and indeed COVID Unfortunately loves a packed bus and we’ve seen it in the past with some of our cases. So we need to try and ensure we have appropriate spacing to do that.”

She said “these services won’t be able to carry standing passengers, this new rule won’t apply to dedicated school transport services, so it’s important you think ahead and plan your journey there may not be enough seats available on the trip you would normally take, meaning that you may need to wait for the next service instead.”

“We accept on hospitality venues for the primary purposes eating and drinking that people will not have face coverings on at all times and so people are not required to.”

If a person refuses to sign up in at a business, the business can’t refuse the service.

The Prime Minister said “one of the things that we really debated was the degree to which we wanted to create those situations for a business owner to end up feeling like they had to be the enforcer and that is one of the difficulties with mandatory record keeping.”

“However, you see the places that were doing it, are those places that we consider it the most appropriate because it’s harder to do things like wear masks and have other mitigations, but they also happen to be places that by and large, people already often keep records. So when you’re going into hospitality, often people are keeping records for reservation purposes or for hairdressers or beauty salons, places that actually record keeping as part of what they do. “