The Government has announced it will be dropping the majority of the COVID-19 restrictions it has in place but some people think it is too soon.
New Zealand's COVID-19 traffic light system has been scrapped by the Government, which means most of the COVID-19 restrictions have been dropped and masks will only need to be worn in healthcare and aged care facilities.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the decision to drop the COVID-19 restrictions, which came into effect at 11:59pm on Monday.
Dropping the restrictions means only people who test positive for COVID-19 will have to isolate for seven days but household contacts will not need to isolate anymore.
Vaccine mandates will also come to an end on September 26 and aircrews and travellers to New Zealand won't need to be vaccinated.
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker spoke with Janika Ter Ellen on Newshub live at 8pm about the changes to the COVID-19 restrictions and said there still needs to be some restrictions in place to keep people safe
"We do this with earthquakes with fires, a whole host of other risks why shouldn't we just keep the system with COVID-19 and other pandemics."
He also added scrapping the COVID-19 framework whilst case numbers are low is all well and good but is worried having no protection will mean a rise in cases.
"My biggest concern with the current direction is that not we are not retaining any kind of alert level system."
When asked how well the Government did on a scale of one to ten in making changes to New Zealand's COVID-19 response, Baker said it was right in the middle.
"There were some pluses and some minuses. I think we are very fortunate the Government is using evidence and it's not throwing away all of the control measures, it is retaining some key ones."
Prof Baker said as the virus is unpredictable New Zealand needs to be able to adapt to change.
"The essence of our COVID-19 response is to keep evolving that response as the pandemic changes."
