September 21 2021
There are 14 Covid cases in the community as Auckland prepares to shift down to alert level 3 tomorrow.
An Aucklander has been caught after allegedly using a Covid-19 work exemption to travel to Christchurch to pick up a caravan.
The 53-year-old man had crossed the Cook Strait with the caravan he'd bought in Christchurch when he was arrested leaving a ferry terminal in Wellington last night.
"He was allegedly en-route back to Auckland where he resides," said a police spokeswoman.
"Police had received information the man had travelled from Auckland to Christchurch between 19 and 20 September, by vehicle, using a work-related exemption, however was allegedly not completing essential work."
The pair apologised and have since returned to Auckland.
Police checkpoint north of Auckland. Photo / Brett Phibbs
On Saturday, a 24-year-old woman and a 41-year-old man were arrested in Wellington after allegedly travelling from Auckland and were charged with failing to comply with Covid-19 orders.
On Friday, two Aucklanders were arrested after allegedly using false documents to visit Taupō.
And also last week, three Auckland students were caught travelling from Auckland to Tauranga.
Aucklanders can finally smell the freedom in terms of takeaways and contactless shopping as the city emerges from its longest stint in level 4 tonight.
Numerous cases of Covid-19 continue to emerge in the community each day, with 22 reported yesterday.
Covid modeller Professor Michael Plank told TVNZ moving to level 3 was a calculated risk by the Government and it was important people didn't take it as a signal the virus has passed.
Plank said it was hard to ringfence the virus and stop it jumping into a new household and spreading. He believed the Government could still eliminate the virus providing everyone did the right thing.
Senior Māori health researcher Dr Sue Crengle said there was a risk that with moving down level the virus would get away on New Zealand and it would find itself in a similar situation as New South Wales.
"They had a long tail, they had less restrictions than we have and the virus got away on them."
Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield told Newstalk ZB Hosking it would have been nice for the case numbers to be lower, but all were connected to current cases or were in managed isolation, which is why the Government was comfortable announcing the alert level change for Auckland.
Despite that, he said of the alert level change: "You lose a bit of sleep over them."
He also stood by the Government's elimination strategy and said the aim was still to get the number of cases back down to zero.
