Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

SocietyNovember 29, 2021

The traffic light settings for each region revealed

Deputy editor
Image: Tina Tiller
Image: Tina Tiller

The prime minister has announced which areas will be in orange and which will be at the stricter red setting when Aotearoa moves into the traffic light system on Friday.

What’s all this then?

This time a week ago, the government announced that the Covid-19 protection framework (aka the traffic light system) would kick in for the whole country at 11.59pm on December 2, but we’d have to wait until today to learn which regions would go to red and which to orange. (Other than Auckland, that is –  we got an early heads up that, unsurprisingly, the epicentre of the outbreak would be in red.)

So other than Tāmaki Makaurau, where’s red?

Northland, Taupō and Rotorua Lakes Districts, Kawerau, Whakatāne, Ōpōtiki Districts, Gisborne District, Wairoa District, Rangitikei, Whanganui and Ruapehu Districts. It’s basically the whole top of the North Island and a big chunk of its middle.

And orange?

The rest of the North Island – that includes the Waikato region, Hauraki, Thames-Coromandel, Waitomo, the Taranaki region, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatū, Horowhenua, Tararua, Wairarapa, the Kāpiti Coast and the Wellington and Hutt regions – and the entire South Island.

Where are the boundaries between these regions?

They’re the existing local government boundaries – here’s a handy map made by our head of data, Harkanwal Singh.

And here's a searchable table:

How was each region's setting decided?

“The factors considered when setting the colours in each region include vaccination, the state of the health system, testing, contact tracing and case management capacity, as well as the rate and effect of Covid-19 transmission," said Jacinda Ardern via a statement, adding that vulnerable populations were also taken into account.

That explains why regions such as Gisborne are going to red – it's had no confirmed Covid cases in the delta outbreak (despite a positive wastewater result earlier in the month), but vaccination rates are the lowest in the country.

Some regions aren't so easy to explain: Waikato has 260 active cases (10 new today), and its vaccination levels are in the bottom half of DHBs, but it's going to orange. This is in line with the decision to move the region to alert level two a couple of weeks ago, when the government said it believed the outbreak there was under control. Case numbers have remained steady since then.

Is this bad news for Rhythm & Vines?

Yes (see event rules for red below).

So the entire South Island is orange?

Yes. One big block of orange, resembling perhaps an orange Fruju that melted a bit on the way home from the dairy and you put it in the freezer and it refroze a little warped.

Right. Will people be able to move between orange and red regions?

Auckland notwithstanding, yes – there will be no boundaries. Auckland's current boundary will remain, to be loosened on December 15 (those in Auckland can travel if fully vaccinated or they've had a negative test within 72 hours of departure), until January 17 (after which there will be no restrictions at all).

When will these traffic light settings be reviewed?

On Monday, December 13 (that's two weeks away), cabinet will review settings and provide an update on any changes. After that, there won't be another update until January 17, then they will continue on a fortnightly basis.

So could some regions go down to green in a couple of weeks?

In a word, no. At this afternoon's press conference, the prime minister ruled out moving any region to green before January 17, largely because of the uncertainty of what the effects of loosening Auckland's borders will be.

Could some regions currently in red go down to orange?

It's not impossible, but it's unlikely cabinet will be keen to make any big changes before the summer holiday period for the reasons identified above.

Could you give me a quick rundown of the key differences between the red and orange settings?

I can. Advice has changed a little since our earlier explainer, so here's a quick TLDR (you can check out the official rundown here).

Schools and ECE

Open at both red and orange, with public health measures in place. At red only, masks are mandatory for Year 4 and above. (NB: In Auckland, schools and ECE will continue in the settings they reopened at under alert level three, step two, ie a mix of at-home and on-site learning, for the remainder of the school year).

Tertiary education

Can open at orange with public health measures in place. If vaccine certificates are used, can open at red with capacity limits based on 1m distancing. If vaccine certificates are not used, distance learning only. 

Workplaces

Open at both red and orange. At red only, the official advice is “working from home may be appropriate for some staff”. (There’s been a change in wording here – originally it said working at home was “encouraged”.)

Hospitality

Open at both red and orange. If vaccine passes are used, at red there are limits of 100 people based on 1m distancing. (No limits at orange.) If vaccine certificates are not used, hospitality must operate contactlessly at both red and orange. 

Gyms

If vaccine passes are used, they can open at both red and orange. At red only, the 100-people-based-on-1m-distancing limit applies. If vaccine passes aren’t used, gyms cannot open at either orange or red. 

Hairdressers and other close-contact businesses

If vaccine passes are used, these can open at both orange and red, but at red there must be public health requirements in place. Without vaccine passes, they must stay closed at both settings. 

Gatherings at home

If vaccine passes are used at red you can have up to 100 people round and at orange as many people as you damn well like. No distancing requirements at either level, but remember what Dr Joel Rindelaub said about dry humping – not advisable outside your bubble. Without vaccine passes, at-home gatherings are limited to 25 people at red (an increase from the initial limit of 10), and 50 at orange. 

Weddings, funerals, tangihanga, places of worship, marae, social sport etc

If vaccine passes are used:

At red, 100 people max, based on 1m distancing (seated and separated for service of food and drink).

At orange, no limits.

If vaccine passes are not used:

At red, limit of 25 people, based on 1m distancing (again, this was increased from an initial limit of 10). At orange, limit of 50 people, based on 1m distancing. 

Cinemas, concerts, other indoor/outdoor events 

If vaccine passes are used:

At red, 100 people max, based on 1m distancing (seated and separated for service of food and drink). At orange, no limits.

If vaccine passes are not used:

Not allowed at either red or orange, with the exception of “outdoor community events”, which can go ahead with up to 25 people (red) or 50 people (orange), based on 1m physical distancing. What constitutes an "outdoor community event"? The example offered is "public parade".

Keep going!
Auckland
If Auckland’s roads are anything to go by, the city is struggling. Image: Tina Tiller

OPINIONSocietyNovember 29, 2021

Auckland is losing it

Guest writer
Auckland
If Auckland’s roads are anything to go by, the city is struggling. Image: Tina Tiller

As ‘Freedom Day’ approaches, the people of Tāmaki Makaurau appear to be at the end of their tether.

On Saturday morning this past weekend, the north-western motorway seemed calm and peaceful. It’s a pretty straight stretch of road, a usually boring drive back home out west, occasionally stalled by peak-time congestion, road works, or, once, three horses on the lam. This day, around the 11am mark, drivers were held up by something else: idiocy, followed by anger, then terror.

In the left-hand lane, by the exit for St Lukes, an SUV towing a trailer full of junk pulled out erratically, cutting off the driver of a small blue car. Forced to slam on the brakes, the blue car’s driver gently tooted the horn, then pulled out to overtake.

In response, the driver of the SUV flashed an aggressive one-fingered salute out the window. The antagonism didn’t end there. The SUV’s driver floored it, pulling up bumper-to-bumper behind the blue car, tailgating it for several hundred metres down the motorway. You could almost see fumes of red rage wafting out the windows.

Finally, the blue car pulled over, off the motorway, and let the SUV, and his obvious anger, drive off.

I thought about that incident all weekend. It stayed with me. Fifteen weeks into lockdown, the end is in sight, and Tāmaki Makaurau is clearly feeling it. The driver of the SUV could have handled that incident in so many different ways: a wave, an apology, or, as usually happens whenever something dodgy occurs on Auckland’s motorways, nothing.

Being cut off is a regular event here. Everyone involved could have shrugged their shoulders and enjoyed the rest of their weekend. No harm done.

Instead, a flash of anger saw it escalate, quickly. If the SUV had deliberately hit the blue car, forcing both to pull over, I don’t like to imagine what might have happened next. I doubt it would have been a chirpy “Hello!” and a pleasant exchange of phone numbers.

I’ve always felt that you can judge Auckland’s mood by the state of its traffic. If queues are calm and orderly, we’re doing fine. If motorways are full of dodgy lane changes and random manoeuvres,  something’s up. If that hypothesis is true, right now we’re in the emergency zone. If you don’t have to drive, you possibly shouldn’t. It’s chaos and confusion out there, folks.

Across the past few weeks, I’ve seen countless examples of speeding, overtaking, undertaking, tailgating and cutting off. That Saturday incident was just one example. Road markings are, apparently, just suggestions. In Point Chev, I watched three drivers in a row take their cars over a raised median barrier because they couldn’t be bothered sitting through another set of lights.

On Symonds Street, waiting for a takeaway lunch, a driver casually mounted the kerb, the car more on the footpath that off it. He got out, then walked away, only to return. It wasn’t to correct his parking – he’d forgotten his mask. While that happened, two motorbikes were driven down the footpath, forcing me to jump out of their way.

Judging by the amount of wing mirror damage being reported just by the staff who work in The Spinoff offices, our spatial awareness has been whittled away to nil.

I lost my own wing mirror recently. On the Saturday after what everyone seems to agree was the worst week of lockdown, the one that followed two weeks of solid rain, I decided I’d had enough. I planned a day out. I went for a chilly swim at the beach. I walked through Riverhead forest. I streamed an overseas musical festival, then headed out to pick up takeaways booked days in advance.

The sun came out. It was a near-perfect day. Then the mirage evaporated. At a roundabout just a block from the restaurant, an Auckland Transport bus drove into me, damaging every panel along my car’s right hand side. I covered my ears to mask the horrible sound of metal scraping on metal, and watched as my wing mirror was torn off, left dangling.

The bus driver didn’t stop. I had to follow it down Dominion Road, then take photos of the number plate when it pulled in to pick up passengers. Next stop, insurance, and more life admin.

It’s another sign that, collectively, the city appears to be losing it. As we emerge from three months of lockdown, we’ve forgotten how to behave in public. Our masks are on, but all bets are off. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. All those strategies we used to survive lockdown – eating all the doughnuts, stocking up on vinyl, panic buying for Christmas, and taking stupid little walks – no longer apply. Now we need to find a new normal, one where delta is out among us, Covid case numbers are consistent, and vaccine misinformation continues to spread. No one seems to know what that looks like.

Come Friday, or what’s been dubbed as “freedom day”, we’re going to be crashing into each other even more, working out where we stand, exercising closely, dining together, sitting near each other in movie theatres, all the while wondering how it suddenly got this close to Christmas. Auckland’s always crazy in December. I get the feeling it’s about to go next level.

How will we cope? The other day, there was something that could be considered a sign. Walking to my local shops, a plane flew overhead. Someone had paid for it to tow the message “Hugs won’t fix this Jacinda” around the city. That’s another inexplicable decision involving multiple steps made by someone that I think about far too often.

A block on, I watched a (different) bus driver swing his vehicle around a roundabout. He was drenched in sweat, his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, his belly hanging out for all to see. He was smiling, and appeared to be singing, having a great time.

What a sight for sore eyes. I couldn’t help it: I caught his vibe, and cracked up. That bus driver is all of Auckland right now: sweaty, dishevelled, high on all of the freedom that’s coming our way. If we copy that bus driver and get through this with a smile on our faces – instead of putting our middle finger out the window – maybe, just maybe, we’ll be OK.

Society