Director of Public Health, Dr Caroline McElnay (she usually does Fridays):
2 new confirmed cases, one linked to the St Margaret’s Rest Home in Auckland (a nurse), and the other upgraded from probable. So just one more added to the combined total of 1,490
90% of all probably and confirmed cases have recovered.
3 people in hospital (up 1 in yesterday).
No more deaths.
A new record 7,812 tests yesterday bringing the total to 175,835 (3.5% of the population).
A reminder that we are still in level 3 lockdown but should be preparing for whenever we change down to level 2.
Urged to play it safe.
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson
When we change to level 2 the aim is to get business working again as much as possible, but safely.
Refers to: Govt books reflect swift action to protect New Zealanders from COVID-19 impact
The Treasury today released the Crown financial statements for the nine months to the end of March. Net Core Crown Debt was 21.3% of GDP with an OBEGAL deficit of $2.7 billion.
Core Crown tax revenue was $0.4 billion above December forecasts, due to higher-than-forecast PAYE, GST and customs and excise duties reflecting the growing economy before COVID-19. Core Crown expenses were $4.4 billion above forecast, reflecting the financial support for businesses and the health system as we went hard and early in our response.
“As of yesterday the wage subsidy scheme has paid out more than $10.6 billion dollars to more than 1.7 million workers. The scheme was in place from March 17, more than a week before the country went into Alert Level 4.”
MSD figures show jobseeker figures are up around 40,000.
There has been a tenfold increase of people coming back from overseas and onto the jobseeker benefit.
There has been an increase of 30 percent of vehicle traffic since moving to level 3.
Treasury says business activity would be back to 75% of prior levels under level 3 and 85% when we drop to level 2, but level 3 has actually been 80%.
The budget will be delivered next week. It is likely to be quite different to past budgets.+
Some signs of improvement globally: