New Zealand’s government announced Wednesday it is set to shelve most of its remaining coronavirus restrictions on the 4th of April as omicron begins to fizzle out.
The hard-left Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, declared vaccine requirements will be removed from public venues such as retail stores, restaurants and bars, meaning the unvaccinated will once again be allowed out.
Some professions will also be dropping the mandate – including waiters, police officers and teachers – however, those working as corrections officers, border force officials, health care and aged-care workers, will still require a vaccine.
Crowd restrictions have also been removed from outside venues and increased from 100-200 at indoor events from Friday, but while masks mandates for outside areas will be scrapped, they will still be required in most enclosed areas, including on public transport, stores and for those aged 8 and over at schools, the New Zealand Herald reports.
Britain’s government has previously warned against having mask mandates in schools, with Education Secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, insisting they make it “much harder to communicate” and “much more difficult for children to learn”.
Ardern, a former president of the International Union of Socialist Youth, has said while she believes her mandates had been “successful, it´s also been bloody hard”, and that “everyone has had to give up something to make this work, and some more than others”.
This is a possible reference to the freedom convoy protests that took place outside of the Parliament in the capital Wellington in February where an estimated peak of 1,500 demonstrators rallied outside the Parliament and demanded an end to vaccine pass requirements for a number of public activities such as religious services, as well as calling for the end of vaccine mandates for certain jobs such as for health professionals or police officers.
While Ardern at the time announced she wouldn’t lift coronavirus restrictions until they are “well beyond” the peak of the virus, which she claimed in February would be around mid-late March, it appears she has given into calls from those pushing to relax restrictions, ahead of her initial schedule.
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