Our Government said four weeks. But the Civil Defence website says different. In this document dating back to 2006, it says the following:
Again and again, in international news media, particularly media coming from the UK, I’ve been hearing talk about lockdowns lasting through until June at least, which would be consistent with the ten weeks mentioned in the Civil Defence document above. Ten weeks from the New Zealand Lockdown date of 25 March brings us to the 3rd of June.
WILL THERE BE A SECOND WAVE OF INFECTIONS?
Almost certainly. We are not doing widespread testing, and a vaccine is not available.
Publicly mobile citizens, such as hospital staff, NZ Police, NZ Defence forces and suchlike do not have enough PPE (personal protective equipment) and are not routinely wearing it, so are likely to be common carriers and spreaders of the virus.
Until these New Zealanders routinely wear PPE in all contact situations, the virus will not be controlled. Because we are not testing these people unless they fall seriously sick, the virus will continue to spread in the community. These groups of people will likely be primary spreaders, along with supermarket staff, pharmacy staff and other essential workers.
This is all due to New Zealand, as a whole, being completely unprepared. We can thank our Government for its lack of preparedness – almost as much as China for dumping this mess on us in the first place.
Our national borders are also still open, which increases the risk of another outbreak. We still have aircraft flying in daily, and hundreds of people are still entering the country, and not being routinely tested unless visibly sick.
Our Government does not seem to understand that people can transmit this virus while remaining asymptomatic!
Most of these people are not going into quarantine, but instead are just being told to “self-isolate”, which could mean anything really. Some individuals are exempt from self-isolation altogether, such as aircraft personnel (pilots etc.). Until our leaky borders are plugged, we’re open to further waves of the virus.
I believe that we can expect this lockdown to last through until June. We can expect at least one further lockdown after that, which will probably run longer still (due to the almost certain ineffectiveness of this one), probably 2-4 months after this lockdown.
If I were going to guess – and I will – you can expect to be in lockdown through until June, then back down to Level 3 or lower from June through to August sometime, then lockdown again for a further 12 to 15 weeks. Beyond that, I’m not willing to guess anything.
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