New Zealand will adopt a new system of living with the coronavirus from 3 December, which will end tough restrictions and allow businesses to operate in its biggest city, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said.
New Zealand remained largely Covid-19 free until August but has been unable to beat an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant, forcing Ms Ardern to abandon an elimination strategy and switch to treating the virus as endemic.
Its biggest city Auckland has been in lockdown for over 90 days, although some measures were eased recently. "The hard truth is that Delta is here and not going away, but New Zealand is well set to tackle it because of our high vaccination rates and our latest safety measures including the traffic light