WELLINGTON (XINHUA) – New Zealand’s retail association Retail NZ yesterday called on the government to move to stage 2 of the Auckland roadmap this week and open stores in Auckland and the Waikato region after nearly 11 weeks of lockdown.
“While the government is finally planning to introduce a new traffic light system called the COVID Protection Framework, we are still stuck in the old alert level system and stage 1 of the so-called roadmap. of Auckland,” said Greg Harford, managing director of Retail NZ. said in an ad.
He called for the retail sector to be opened up with the necessary safety measures, citing “the enormous mental and financial harm caused by the current lockdown. There is a real concern that the current confinement could last until the New Year, which would be catastrophic for the survival of businesses and the maintenance of jobs”.
Auckland has been in lockdown since mid-August on the Delta variant of COVID-19.
