Updated April 20, 2020 16:01:00

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced New Zealand will start to wind back its coronavirus restrictions a week from today.

In a press conference this afternoon, Ms Ardern said the country would stay at alert level four — the highest restriction — for another week before easing to level three for two weeks from 11:59pm on Monday, April 27.

After that, the Government will review the measures and make further decisions on May 11.

New Zealand introduced level four restrictions on March 25, which involved shutting down offices, schools and all non-essential services including bars, restaurants, cafes and playgrounds.

"We looked at the gains we have made in our results, but also our systems," Ms Ardern said.

"We consider the longer we are in lockdown the less likely it is we will need to go back."

Ms Ardern said the country considered lowering alert levels on April 23, which is in 48 hours, but decided against the move to "ensure gains made against the virus aren't lost".

Photo: New Zealand offered random COVID-19 testing in several cities for anyone who wanted a swab, regardless of whether they had symptoms or contact with a confirmed case. (AP: Mark Baker)

On Monday, only nine new cases of COVID-19 were recorded and no new deaths, taking the total to 1,440 cases with 12 fatalities, reported Reuters.

According to Ms Ardern, the country's COVID-19 transmission rate — the number of times each person with the virus passes it on to another — is now less than 0.5. Overseas, the average is 2.5 people.

"We have a relatively low proportion of serious cases, and according to the Oxford University coronavirus government response tracker, one of the lowest mortality rates of the world," Ms Ardern said.

The country has also scaled up testing, with the Government now having tested more than 85,000 New Zealanders.

As a result, the Prime Minister said New Zealand, which has been much stricter than many other countries, including Australia, had done what very few others have been able to do.

"We have stopped a wave of devastation," she said.

Ardern outlines changes in restrictions

She said the Director-General of Health was confident there is currently no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand.

"In short, the effort of our team of 5 million has broken the chain of transmission and taken a quantum leap forward in our goal to eliminate the virus," she said.

Ms Ardern also outlined how restrictions will change once New Zealand moves to level three — more in line with the current measures in Australia. They include:

• People must remain at home unless they are going to work, school, exercising or getting essentials (the same as alert level four)
• People must continue to work and learn from home if they can
• Early learning centres and schools will be physically open up to Year 10
• Industries like construction, manufacturing, forestry and retail will be allowed to open as long as they are 'COVID safe'
• Parks and beaches are open to exercise but people are encouraged to 'stay local' and keep 2 metres away from one another
• People can expand their bubble of social contacts to include close family, isolated people, or caregivers
  

Overall, level three will allow more economic activity, such as construction, manufacturing and forestry, Ms Ardern said.

But she cautioned it does not allow for more social activity, adding the country "needed to get the next phase right" so they don't end up yo-yoing between levels.

Topics: disease-control, infectious-diseases-other, disease-outbreak, federal-government, politics-and-government, new-zealand

First posted April 20, 2020 15:03:18