In Focus on politics, Is New Zealand ready to move to the new Covid future?

"The whole of the system is already under pressure ... they're anticipating what the next shift is gonna be like, are the gonna have enough nurses to be able to cope with the demand?" - Nurses organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku

Once New Zealand moves to the traffic light system, that's an acceptance that Covid will be circulating within the community - which will lead to more cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

The great fear, as seen elsewhere, is that the hospital system is over-run and unable to cope. At the end of the week there were 51 Covid-19 cases in hospital in Auckland and Waikato, and five in ICU or high dependency.

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday laid out the government's new traffic light system, which would replace the alert levels. It would do away with nationwide lockdowns, taking into account vaccines and the spread of Delta.

She said the major differences from the alert levels of the past 18 months included the use of vaccine certificates at businesses which could continue operating no matter the alert level if they used them, and a shift to more localised lockdowns based on vaccination rates and vulnerabilities.

The question being begged - will New Zealand be ready?

Read more:

'Our patients trust us': GPs prepare to treat Covid-19 patients at home

New 'traffic light' Covid-19 framework and vaccine certificates announced

Auckland hospitals getting Covid-19 ready at slow pace

DHBs ramp up ICU, Covid-19 wards, oxygen supply capacity

Covid-19 modeller Michael Plank says case numbers could double in coming weeks and while it's hoped vaccination rates could temper them from rising further, there is a risk they could get much worse.

"One of the dangers is that if the contact tracing system really struggles to keep up with the number of cases ... the cases could really accelerate and if that happens we could see a much higher number of cases."

College of Emergency Medicine president John Bonning says for every Covid-19 patient needing intensive care, he expects up to eight times more will be treated in emergency departments.

Nurses organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku told RNZ that DHBs were not well enough prepared, and nurses are already under incredible pressure.

Otago University Professor Phillip Hill last June recommended the system be stress tested in anticipation of higher numbers of community cases, he's seen no evidence that was done…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details