WELLINGTON, March 23, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - New Zealand will relax its strict
Covid-19 rules this week because case numbers have peaked and the population
has high levels of immunity, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Wednesday.

  Ardern said limits on outdoor crowd numbers would be scrapped late Friday,
allowing sporting events and concerts to take place with unrestricted crowds.

  She said vaccine passes and scanning codes would no longer be compulsory
from April 4 and most vaccine mandates -- requiring employees to be immunised
or face the sack -- would be dropped.

  "This is not the end, but in some ways it is also a new beginning," Ardern
told reporters, saying the changes acknowledged that "Covid is here to stay".

  "To date, we've had more than 500,000 reported cases of Covid-19 and expert
modellers say there have probably been 1.7 million actual infections," she
said.

  "That figure, coupled with 95 percent of New Zealanders being fully
vaccinated, means we now have a high level of collective immunity."

  The announcement comes a week after Ardern outlined plans to open New
Zealand's borders earlier than originally scheduled.

  New Zealand was widely praised for keeping Covid-19 out of the community
for extended periods during the pandemic but it is currently experiencing a
wave of Omicron-variant infections, with almost 21,000 new cases recorded on
Tuesday.

  However, the population is highly vaccinated and there have been just 177
coronavirus-related deaths in a population of five million.

  "While we've been successful, it's also been bloody hard," Ardern said.

  "I want to start by thanking New Zealanders for the enormous sacrifices
they've made over the past two years."

  Ardern said vaccine mandates for the police, military and education sector
would be dropped, although they would remain for healthcare and border
workers.

  She denied the move was linked to protests in Wellington which ended in
rioting early this month as police removed a camp of anti-vaccine
demonstrators that occupied the grounds outside parliament for three weeks.

  "(We're acting) because it's safe to do so, not because anyone arrived on
the front lawn of parliament," she said.