Piers Morgan is criticising New Zealand's move to the red traffic light setting, calling it "draconian" and suggesting the country is "trapped in a perpetual pandemic prison camp", despite there being no lockdown.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealed the entire country was moving into the red setting because Omicron was believed to be circulating in the community.
While Kiwis were generally relaxed about the move, former Good Morning Britain presenter Piers Morgan was not.
"Given over 90% of New Zealand's eligible population has had at least 2 doses of covid vaccine, and Omicron is indisputably a significantly less severe strain of the virus, I'm not sure why Jacinda Ardern is implementing draconian new restrictions & cancelling her wedding?" he tweeted.
"New Zealand is also trapped in a perpetual pandemic prison camp," he continued. "Vaccines + much milder Omicron is the most likely way out of this. NZ has very high vaccination levels now so shouldn't continue with Ardern's unachievable zero covid ambition."
New Zealand scrapped its COVID-19 elimination strategy in October 2021, with the Government acknowledging it could not stop the spread of Delta.
Morgan's comments come after Ardern revealed she had postponed her wedding in light of the new Omicron restrictions.
Under the red light setting events such as weddings can go ahead with a gathering limit of 100 people if vaccine passes are required and a limit of 25 if they aren't.
Morgan has previously commended Ardern for her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, after New Zealand managed to contain the virus and lift all restrictions, the broadcaster said he "wished" the UK had a leader like her.
Kiwis hit back
Morgan's comments haven't gone down well with some New Zealanders on social media. CEO of the New Zealand Telecommunications Forum Paul Brislen highlighted New Zealand's low COVID death rate and called Morgan "the biggest dick" in a tweet.
"Australia: 80 deaths/mil. UK: 2150 deaths/mil. US: 2350 deaths/mil. NZ: 9 deaths per million. Thanks for playing "How big a dick am I". Congratulations, you are the biggest dick," they said.
"I'm not sure why what he thinks matters. We actually don't care!" another said.
Someone else pointed out the red setting has minimal impacts for fully vaccinated people.
"To be honest, red light doesn't really do much so I don't know what Piers is moaning about. If it was level 3/4 again then yes, Piers (and the rest of nz) can complain about it," they said.
Vaccinated people get a lot of freedom under the red setting with services such as stores, cafes, restaurants, hairdressers, schools and workplaces allowed to stay open. Vaccine passes are used to access many services in red along with the use of face masks.
The move comes as COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins warns there could be tens of thousands of cases of the variant each day.
"It certainly could be into the tens of thousands reasonably quickly, so within weeks," Hipkins told Newstalk ZB on Monday
"That is certainly [possible], if you look around the world that's certainly what's happened for a lot of places."
Experts have previously said New Zealand is in a better place to handle Omicron compared to other countries because of its high vaccination rates.
Ninety-five percent of Kiwis are fully vaccinated and 96 percent are partially inoculated. Nearly 1 million people, 974,784, have also received a booster shot.
While Omicron can be less extreme than variants like Delta, The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously warned against referring to it as mild.
"It does not mean it should be categorised as mild. Just like previous variants, Omicron is hospitalising people, and it's killing people," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick that it is overwhelming health systems around the world."
