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NEW ZEALAND’S PRIME Minister Jacinda Ardern has been forced to postpone her own wedding due to the introduction of new Covid-19 restrictions.
Ardern said tighter rules were needed after nine cases of the Omicron variant were detected in a single family that flew to Auckland for a wedding earlier this month.
The prime minister was planning to get married next weekend but the celebration has been postponed.
“I just join many other New Zealanders who have had an experience like that as a result of the pandemic and to anyone who’s caught up in that scenario, I am so sorry,” she said.
The so-called “red setting” of the country’s pandemic response includes heightened measures such as required mask wearing and limits on gatherings, and the restrictions will go into effect on Monday.
Ardern stressed that “red is not lockdown”, noting that businesses can remain open and people can still visit family and friends and move freely around the country.
“Our plan for managing Omicron cases in the early stage remains the same as Delta, where we will rapidly test, contact trace and isolate cases and contacts in order to slow the spread,” she told reporters in Wellington on Sunday.
New Zealand had been among the few remaining countries to have avoided any Omicron outbreaks, but Ardern acknowledged last week an outbreak was inevitable given the high transmissibility of the variant.
The country has managed to contain the spread of the Delta variant, with an average of about 20 new cases each day. But it has seen an increasing number of people arriving into the country and going into mandatory quarantine who are infected with Omicron.
That has put strain on the quarantine system and prompted the government to limit access for returning citizens while it decides what to do about reopening its borders, angering many people who want to return to New Zealand.
About 93% of New Zealanders aged 12 and over are fully vaccinated and 52% have had a booster shot. The country has just begun vaccinating children aged between 5 and 11.
The family from the Nelson-Marlborough region attended a wedding and other events while in Auckland, with estimates suggesting they came into contact with “well over 100 people at these events”, Ardern said.
“That means that Omicron is now circulating in Auckland and possibly the Nelson-Marlborough region if not elsewhere,” she added.
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With the hippin and a hoppin and a bippin and a boppin
And she wud put in in ‘da bowel’ and she be mixin and da cookin and da zubidedoobopp!!
Don’t know what the Jazz, is all about!
Saville, Glitter, Crosy, who’s next? The royal family?
Um – pay attention…
Saville and Glitter are not the same as Cosby. Cosby’s accusers are adults, looking for money, and mostly messed up. Cosby just pissed someone off that was powerful.
Your disgusting to say that.
Your, you are, you’re.. Their, they’re, there goes…
Cliff Richard
I wish if anything it was a criminal trial where claiming money wasn’t a factor.
Methinks he protests too much.
Gold diggers
As Gerry Adams will tell you: if you ain’t got proof, go f**k yourself, even the most logical of circumstantial evidence in copious amounts is irrelevant – you are pure white innocent as the driven snow until anyone can prove otherwise in a court of law.
Go Bill! Go O.J!
johngahan, I didn’t realize bill cosby and oj simpson were White as Snow
Bippity bop bzzzzzzz
The reason they have gone the defamation route is not only because of money, but partly because the statute has passed for criminal charges in many if the states.
They already their
Oh sweet jeebus! Ever heard of syntax?!?
have your say