Traffic lights on: North Island sees red and orange, South Island all orange

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed on Monday that the country will move to the new Covid-19 Protection Framework (or “traffic light system”) from 11.59pm Thursday, NZ Herald reports, doing away with the alert level settings that have become part of daily life since March last year. The new framework is based around high vaccination rates enabling living with Covid-19 in the community, with three levels of restrictions based on the risk posed – green, orange and red. Auckland, as centre of the current outbreak, had been signalled as going to red.