The Prime Minister does not believe easing COVID restrictions will have a significant impact on New Zealand's health system.
Jacinda Ardern on Wednesday announced the Government's plan to loosen COVID regulations. From the end of this week, there will be no more limits on outdoor gatherings while indoor gathering limits will also increase from 100 to 200.
Vaccine passes will also be optional for businesses from early next month and immunisation mandates are being rolled back to just a few industries including health, aged care, border and Corrections workers.
But not everyone is happy with the changes.
"This pandemic is not over. We have seen overseas what happens if protections are removed too soon," Green Party COVID-19 Response spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said.
"The Green Party is calling for much stronger baseline protections to keep people safe from Omicron, as well as additional protections for spikes in infections and any new variants."
Ardern said the Government was following direct advice from its COVID-19 expert advisory group.
"The advice that we've had is, actually, [easing restrictions] won't make a material difference to the pressure on our health system or our hospitalisations," she told The Project on Wednesday evening.
"Whilst it won't make a material difference on that very important question, they will make a material difference to people's lives in many ways.
"That's been the challenge all the way through of managing this pandemic - making sure our health system copes because that means you give people the best care possible."
She said New Zealand was past the peak of its Omicron outbreak.
"The very clear message was to do exactly what we've done with mandates; narrow them… and to basically make those changes once we come post-peak which is what we've done.
"Same again with vaccine passes; post-peak, that's when we looked to make those changes in line with the expert opinions."
The Prime Minister said mandates could be removed from the education sector due to high vaccination rates and relatively high levels of natural immunity.
Ardern said up 1.7 million New Zealanders could have been infected with COVID - taking into account those who may not have been tested and reported their test result. That's well above the country's official case tally of 538,839 infections since the pandemic began.
The first restrictions to ease will be capacity limits - those changes will take place from midnight on Friday. Vaccine passes and mandates except for health and disability, aged care, Corrections and border workforce will be removed on April 4.
