By Mandy Te
There will be tougher rules around masks — this means no more scarves, bandanas and t-shirts pulled up over the face.
Following a meeting with Cabinet ministers, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield spoke to media on Tuesday afternoon.
Masks must now be worn at food and drink businesses, and close-proximity businesses.
This means when people enter restaurants, masks should be kept on — and when people get up to use the bathroom, a mask should be put on, Ardern said.
She encouraged workplaces to think about mask policies and these new rules would not apply to non public-facing businesses.
It was good practice to wear mask and she encouraged people to wear them as much as possible, she said.
All workers legally mandated to be vaccinated must wear medical grade masks — this includes the widely available blue, medical grade mask, Ardern said.
"Masks play a significant role when done right ... now, we need to tighten this up slightly and get the best out of an important measure."
These new rules around masks come after the entire country was moved to the Red traffic light setting last Sunday at 11.59pm following Omicron cases being found in the community.
Experts have been recommending people wear N95 or P2 respiratory masks because of how transmissible the Omicron variant is.
On Tuesday around 1pm, the Ministry of Health announced there are ten new Omicron cases in the community bringing the total number to 29. The cases are in Nelson-Tasman, Auckland, Palmerston North and Tauranga.
Bloomfield said the Ministry would not recommend these types of masks to the public as they were expensive but for people choosing to use these masks, the Ministry would soon offer advice on how best to use them.
Rapid antigen tests
More than 40 million tests will be available over a five-week period, Ardern said.
These tests will remain available to critical workforces in New Zealand.
"People who need a test will be able to access a test," Ardern said.
"We want to make sure when people are using them that they have good cause to use them."
Rapid antigen tests could give false positive and false negative results, it was best they were used in approved, critical settings rather than in households, she said.
Testing improvements
In a statement, Associate Minister of Health, Dr Ayesha Verrall, said the country's PCR testing capacity can be increased by nearly 20,000 tests per day to deal with a surge in cases as part of the Government's wider Covid-19 testing strategy.
“Our labs have already processed 5,906,843 tests to date and our highest testing day so far was 24 August 2021 where 49,736 tests were completed," Verrall said.
“With Omicron cases now in the North and South islands, testing, tracing and quickly isolating any COVID-19 cases and their contacts will be all the more important for protecting whānau and communities.
“A rapid rise in case numbers will require us to shift from identifying all infected individuals to being more targeted to those most at risk and those needed to maintain critical infrastructure."
“To do this, testing remains a cornerstone of our response," Verrall said.
PCR tests continue to be the main way to test for Covid-19 in the initial phase of dealing with Omicron in the community, Verrall said. This will be supplemented by wider use of rapid antigen testing.
Two doses for Delta, three for Omicron
Ardern said nearly 60 percent of eligible people eligible have had their booster shot and one in five children under 12 have been vaccinated.
Booster doses were important to keep people out of hospital, she said.
While there were no plans for a vaxathon, Bloomfield said it was important to get the message out to the public about getting their booster shots.
Health officials were looking at booster shots for children, he said.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Government will talk about the three-stage plan it has for managing the spread of the Omicron variant.
Top Image: A person wearing an N95 mask. (File photo) Photo: torwai/iStock
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Omicron is here, it's time to ditch cloth masks