"Deeply demoralising" is how National's COVID-19 spokesperson Chris Bishop has described tuning in to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's traffic light rules updates.
"This idea that we have to constantly tune in every two weeks to the podium to find out the latest edit that Cabinet's decided is deeply demoralising for people," Bishop told reporters on Tuesday.
He said it's "affecting people's confidence in the overall response and it's now actually being counterproductive when the Government thinks it's being informative".
Bishop's comments came after Ardern on Monday dashed hospitality's hopes of a shift down to the less restrictive 'orange' level of the COVID Protection Framework, also known as the traffic light system.
"I know there is an eagerness to move to orange, but we are still, frankly, amid an outbreak and there is still pressure across our hospital network," Ardern said after her Cabinet meeting.
With 98 percent of all COVID-19 cases to date occurring in the past 90 days, and with the Omicron wave still moving down the country, "we need to be mindful of the pressure on healthcare nationally", Ardern said.
"We also need to help the system recover and be ready for the expected winter surge."
The latest Ministry of Health data shows there are 734 people in hospital with COVID-19. Hospitalisations have dropped in Auckland recently but continue to plateau or increase in regions like Canterbury, Waikato, and Northland. Hospitalisations are not expected to peak in some regions until mid to late April.
The next rules check-in will be on April 14, just before the Easter break.
Bishop acknowledged that COVID-19 is not done with us yet but urged the Prime Minister to change her approach.
"People are incredibly frustrated at the week by week cycle of having to tune in at 4 o'clock or 1pm or whenever it is to find out what colour setting we're in, the definition of what each colour is seems to change so we're now still at red but there's more liberal freedoms within red but yet the red setting remains," he said, before heading into caucus.
"Everything seems to change on a week by week to fortnightly basis. People are over that. The overwhelming feedback I get from the community is that it's time to move on from that, time to get back to some form of normality.
"No one's saying we shouldn't wear masks, no one's saying we shouldn't have rapid antigen tests. We've been the biggest proponents of people being able to self-test and control their own behaviour. Of course all of those things remain important.
"But this idea that we have to constantly tune in every two weeks to the podium to find out the latest edit that Cabinet's decided is deeply demoralising for people and actually, I think affecting people's confidence in the overall response and it's now actually being counterproductive when the Government thinks it's being informative."
Bishop questioned the need to remain at 'red' when Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said on Monday it's "difficult to model" what impact a move down to orange would have on cases and hospitalisations.
Bishop said: "It's at the margins, right? In the Government's own words, the liberalisation and removal of vaccine passes and restrictions won't increase hospitalisations."
With vaccine passes no longer mandatory, the only major difference with red is that guests at hospitality venues must be seated and separated and indoor venues can only have up to 200 people.
The hospitality industry feels unfairly impacted.
"Patronage continues to be down on previous years and whilst this is starting to pick up, the decision to stay in red will not do much to help consumer confidence," said Restaurant Association CEO Marisa Bidois.
The March member feedback survey from the Restaurant Association showed that businesses continue to struggle with 90 percent of respondents saying their revenue is down compared to 2021 with the average revenue decrease sitting at 34 percent.
While the outdoor limit on gatherings has been scrapped - a welcome change for outdoor stadiums like Eden Park - Ardern acknowledged how difficult it is for indoor events.
"I absolutely acknowledge, of all the sectors, they're the ones that really are bearing the brunt."
The latest ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence survey published on Friday showed that consumer confidence had dropped even further in March to reach a fresh record low in data that began in 2004.
Ardern pushed back on the idea that removing the red settings would help bring back consumer confidence and spending.
"Well, interestingly, the flip side, we know that people's confidence is also based on whether or not they feel like it's safe and so we have to make sure that we're creating an environment where people feel safe to go out, and in some cases the settings actually encourage people to believe that because there are extra protections in place," Ardern said.
"But I also reflect on the data. Since mid-March, we've seen an uptick in those visiting places of retail and recreation, so we're now at about 9 percent below 2019 levels. So we are starting to see that change."
