Coronavirus: Health Minister Andrew Little confirms November 29 is not ‘Freedom Day’

Bad news for Aucklanders expecting to escape the city before the end of this month – the Health MInister says the so-called ‘Freedom Day’ that’s been reported widely is nothing of the sort. 

November 29 “is now circled on every desk and wall calendar in Auckland”, Newsroom reported this week, while Newstalk ZB reported “Ardern signalled the city’s own ‘freedom day’ is November 29” – and they weren’t the only ones. 

And the Prime Minister this week said shifting all of New Zealand into the new traffic light framework when Auckland does “could play a role in helping us drive [vaccination] rates up”, ending alert level and travel restrictions nationwide.

“Most DHBs are rapidly getting there,” Health Minister Andrew Little told Newshub Nation on Saturday. 

“In fact, we expect the Auckland DHBs to exceed that. The payback for getting to that level of vaccination – which would be one of the leading levels in the world – is that we do start to reduce restrictions.”

But that’s absolutely not going to happen on November 29, he said. 

“Not at all… You might have misunderstood what the Prime Minister has been saying,” he told host Simon Shepherd. 

“The Prime Minister said on the 29th of November, Cabinet will do a significant check-in on the state of the system… as we start to make decisions about the introduction of of the COVID Protection Framework – the traffic light system. 

This is so disingenuous.

Technically what Little is saying here is true, the Government stated right at the beginning that November 29th was a decision day but  I’ve watched journalist after journalist say ‘Freedom Day’ to the Prime Minister and she cocks her head to one side, pulls that concerned face and then nods without correcting that view.

Labour have been happy to allow that misrepresentation to dominate headlines because it calms the angry hobbits down.

The real reason why we will still be under de facto house arrest on the 29th November is because the vaccination passports are still not ready.

There has been 4 different dates as to when we can get our vaccination passports.

First it was mid November.

Then it was the end of November.

Then it was early December.

Now it’s back to mid November but I’m guessing that will become end of November.

The system already looks buggered.

Many, many, many New Zealanders don’t have a drivers license or passport so they will have to apply elsewhere which of course will see people not get their passports despite having been in de facto house arrest for what will be 4 months.

If the Government fuck up the vaccination passports, anxious people desperate to get their life back are going to lose their shit.

This could be the straw that breaks Labour’s back.

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