Coronavirus NZ: Jacinda Ardern pressured to lift lockdown due to unemployment

There is mounting pressure on New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to lift lockdowns as new virus cases continue to drop.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is facing mounting pressure to ease New Zealand’s radical lockdown with the revelation that 35,000 Kiwis have applied for the dole since the COVID-19 outbreak began.

That’s roughly a thousand Kiwis a day applying for financial help.

Four of New Zealand's 20 district health regions have reported no active cases, including Wairarapa which has logged no new cases in 31 days.

Now Kiwis want on end to the lockdown.

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New Zealand’s PM Jacinda Ardern is facing mounting pressure.

Ms Ardern said the lockdown will be reviewed on May 11.

Some communities don’t think this is good enough.

On South Island’s rugged West Coast, it’s been 28 days since a new case, and local mayor Tania Gibson said frustration was growing.

“My bottom line is ‘let us work’,” she told AAP.

With very few access points to the region, Ms Gibson believes the virus could be kept out.

“We have asked the government for regional checkpoints and it didn’t come through,” she said.

“Our region had the first death from coronavirus in New Zealand which shocked our community to the core … we've had low case numbers since and now we’re at zero.

“If it’s going to take weeks and weeks, our businesses and our people are going to be suffering.”

New Zealand’s Opposition leader Simon Bridges is also championing a return to work, especially after hearing about the new statistic with 35,000 Kiwis out of a job.

Simon Bridges has joined the chorus of criticism.

“Every one of those numbers represents a family that will be under enormous stress to pay the bills and put food on the table,” Mr Bridges told AAP.

“We can’t underestimate the health impacts that unemployment has on people, both physically and on their mental health.

“We need to move out of lockdown now to open up the economy and let people get back to work.”

New Zealand’s lockdown is at level three, which allows many industries – construction, forestry and education among them – to return to operations alongside ‘essential’ industries.

But the next step down, level two, currently prohibits non-essential travel between regions, which could crush the vital tourism sector.

Ms Ardern has pledged to consider a change, as well as a regionalisation of the lockdown that could benefit communities like Tairawhiti and the West Coast.