August 20, 2021
Police take high profile to stop travel
Deputy police commissioner Wally Haumaha has told iwi leaders they don’t need to post roadside checkpoints into their rohe – and in fact it’s dangerous to do so.
He says police will be highly visible enforcing the level four lockdown rules against moving around – and they will impose fines.
Keeping the highly-infectious delta strain of Covid in check is not a job for volunteers.
"What we didn't want to see was our people standing on the roads, stopping people, coming into contact with them and the likelihood of going back onto their community with this virus. Leave it to the police We're mobilising our staff into those high vulnerable areas and certainly have upped the ante on visibility," Mr Haumaha says
People who rushed to their holiday homes before the lockdown are likely to be straining the resources at testing stations if they find they had been at one of the locations of interest back in Auckland, and he hopes they will act more responsibly in future.
There are 11 new cases of COVID-19 in the community today.
Eight are in Auckland and three are people in Wellington who recently visited Auckland.
This brings the total number of cases associated with the current Auckland community outbreak to 31.
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