Prime minister says now is not the time to ‘remove our armour just as the battle begins’ despite pressure from protesters

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New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has said Covid-19 restrictions, including mandates and vaccine passes, will begin to lift once the country gets “well beyond” the Omicron outbreak’s peak.

At a post-cabinet press conference on Monday, Ardern said case numbers were likely to peak in mid-to-late March, or three to six weeks away. Case numbers were expected to double every three to four days.

Life can be tough for everyone and we never know what another person may be experiencing – take a breath to consider before you speak

We like predictability. We function best when we know what is going to happen. The irony here is that after all this uncertainty, predictability in this phase of the pandemic in New Zealand is increasing. As the Omicron wave gathers strength, we can most likely expect a version of what happened in other countries: a steep increase in case numbers, exerting pressure on the health and social care system.

New Zealand’s successful management of the primary health impacts of the pandemic may have contributed to a sense of “kiwi exceptionalism”. This may be responsible for the jolt we may feel when we realise that what has happened elsewhere might actually happen in New Zealand, when, for most of this pandemic, our experience has been very different.