People queue outside Silvia Park shopping center ahead of the opening of a new store, JD Sports, on November 09, 2021 in Auckland, New Zealand.
Phil Walter | Getty Images
Shops and malls in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, opened for the first time in three months on Wednesday as the city, which is at the epicenter of the country’s coronavirus outbreak, gradually reopened.
Retail stores filled up hours after reopening due to pent-up demand, while some shoppers reportedly lined up outside malls overnight to take advantage of early bird deals at some stores.
Libraries, museums and zoos have also been allowed to receive visitors as the government eased coronavirus restrictions amid rising vaccination rates and due to mounting pressure from critics calling for more freedom .
The hospitality sector, however, remained closed.
On her first visit to the city since it closed on August 17, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the hospitality sector would reopen as soon as Auckland hits its vaccination target.
“We have maintained contact with hospitality reps throughout…we know how difficult it has been,” Ardern said.
“But there is light at the end of the tunnel. We will see reopenings in the very near future as Auckland begins to meet these targets,” she said.
Ardern said the city will switch to a new ‘traffic light’ system to manage outbreaks rather than lockdowns once 90 per cent of Auckland residents have been fully immunized. So far around 84 per cent of Auckland residents have received their second dose.
While New Zealand has been criticized for the slow start to its vaccination campaign, almost 80% of the eligible population has now received a second dose.
Schools in Auckland can resume face-to-face learning from November 17, the government has announced.
Despite its success last year in eliminating Covid-19, New Zealand has struggled to combat a highly contagious Delta variant this year, forcing Ardern to move from a strategy of zero cases through lockdowns to live. with the virus.
New Zealand still has among the lowest coronavirus cases in the world with less than 8,000 infections reported so far and 32 deaths.
Apart from the 1.7 million Aucklanders and residents of some neighboring areas, life for the rest of the population has largely returned to normal domestically, although the country’s borders still remain tightly closed.
