COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins is defending the decision to keep masks mandatory at supermarkets - despite them not being required in nightclubs.
A switch to the orange traffic light setting overnight means indoor gathering limits are gone and masks won't be required in some places.
But supermarkets are not one of those places - with masks remaining mandatory there. Speaking with AM on Thursday, Hipkins explained the reasons behind that decision.
"The issue here is: people have to go to the supermarket and so you're going to have people who are elderly, who are immunocompromised - they've still got to go to the supermarket alongside everybody else."
Attending a nightclub, however, was a personal choice, Hipkins said.
"It is also, practically, very difficult to wear a mask when you're in a nightclub - let's be realistic about that. There'd often be people walking around with a drink, they might be eating sometimes."
The move to keep masks mandatory in supermarkets was despite Public Health director Caroline McElnay saying in November the risk of COVID-19 infection in grocery stores was "very, very low".
But Hipkins said the COVID-19 environment had changed since November.
"In terms of supermarkets, one of the reasons they're no longer as risky of an environment as they were previously is because they are wearing masks - and that massively decreases the risk.
"On the other hand, [in] a bar or a nightclub, there is an increased degree of risk but those are choices that people make and, ultimately, they'll make informed decisions - we can give them the best information we can and they'll make their own decisions about whether or not they want to hit the clubs."
When announcing the easing of mask restrictions on Wednesday, Hipkins fumbled and wasn't even sure of his own rules. On Thursday he apologised for the confusion.
"I made a mistake in reading out my introductory notes where I skipped over a bit that was actually quite important," he told AM. "I got a little bit flustered as a result of that and made it worse before making it better, so it was a bad day - I'll own that.
"Unfortunately, in this job, when you make a mistake and have all of the nation's media with their cameras pointed at you, it's a difficult thing to back away from."
