Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has outlined tougher measures for public venues at Alert Level 2.
Everywhere outside of Auckland will move to alert level 2 from 11.59pm Tuesday
Auckland is set to remain at level 4 for at least another week
At Alert Level two, there will now be a limit of 50 people for indoor gatherings hospitality settings and event venues.
“This, coupled with the rules around customers being seated and tables being separated reduces down the risk of super spreader events.”
If you’re an outdoor venue, or you have an outdoor space, you can have up to 100 people in that space. All gatherings must record attendees to help with contact tracing.
All staff will be required to wear a mask.
The second change relates to indoor public facilities like gyms museums and libraries.
“Previously these venues have had no hard limit on how many people were allowed to be in a space but instead a one-metre distancing role as a proxy for how many people could be inside.”
“We’re now bringing these venues into alignment with the rules that exist for retail and supermarkets, which is two metres. That again will just mean we have fewer people in a venue with the number being dependent on the size of that venue.”
Ardern said “ I acknowledge that this will be tough. And I think the best thing that we can do for those individuals is to keep up the support that they’re able to access and we’ll keep sharing any changes as we go through the lower levels, but also try and get back to as much normality, as quickly as possible and that’s certainly our goal. There will be some out there who may have been questioning, is it that we’re going to stay in a Delta for prolonged periods of time? That is not what we’re anticipating. We want to keep moving, but it all depends on how successful we are.