KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia’s ruling party Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) will join the Muafakat Nasional (MN) alliance with the country’s two biggest Malay Muslim parties, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said on Saturday (Aug 15).
Addressing party members, Bersatu president Muhyiddin said that the party’s entry into the coalition is expected to be finalised soon. MN was formed by Umno and Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) in 2018.
“I believe this is the best option for Bersatu,” Tan Sri Muhyiddin said, as his four-year-old party begins to hold its first ever internal elections since its inception over the next week.
The announcement comes at a time when Bersatu has been rocked by members quitting the party to join the newly formed Malay party of former premier Mahathir Mohamad - Parti Pejuang Tanah Air.
Tun Dr Mahathir, 95, founded Bersatu together with Mr Muhyiddin in 2016, but the two of them had split following Dr Mahathir’s resignation as prime minister in late February, which caused the collapse of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition government.
Mr Muhyiddin subsequently led Bersatu’s exit from PH to establish a Perikatan Nasional (PN) government together with Umno, PAS and other parties, gaining a slim single-digit majority in Parliament.
“We believe, by being in a coalition with Umno and PAS, and other parties in a grand coalition, the majority of the people’s support will be with us,” Mr Muhyiddin said on Saturday.
“This will pave the way to political stability for the country,” he added.
The decision also comes just weeks after Umno said that it would not be formally joining PN, instead choosing to prioritise strengthening Muafakat Nasional.
Bersatu’s move will likely give Umno an upper hand with regard to future seat negotiations as the possibility of a snap election by the end of the year or early next year looms.
While Bersatu leads the PN government, Umno remains the biggest party - by membership and also in terms of parliamentary representation - in Muafakat Nasional.
MN remains an alliance without a formal registration, with a memorandum of understanding binding Umno and PAS together so far.
Mr Muhyiddin is unlikely to chair MN as well, an analyst said, putting him and his party at a disadvantage in seat negotiations.
“Muhyiddin and his party essentially have no other political exit, as they are being marginalised by Umno and not yet welcomed back by Pakatan,” said Dr Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
Dr Oh said that the only option left for Mr Muhyiddin is to join the alliance with the hopes of retaining the seats that the party currently holds. Bersatu currently has 32 MPs in Parliament, but more than half of its number were secured via defections after the 2018 elections, mostly from Umno. The party won only 13 parliamentary seats during the 2018 elections.
Bersatu also purged 282 party members earlier on Saturday in its attempt to remove those who are aligned to Dr Mahathir. With the purge, Mr Muhyiddin is now the only founding member to remain with Bersatu.
MOSCOW (REUTERS) - A majority of Russian doctors would not feel comfortable being injected with Russia's new Covid-19 vaccine due to the lack of sufficient data about it and its super-fast approval, a survey of more than 3,000 medical professionals showed on Friday (Aug 14).
Russia has said that the world's first vaccine for the novel coronavirus will be rolled out by the end of this month, with doctors among those set to be administered it on a voluntary basis.
The vaccine, called "Sputnik V" in homage to the world's first satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, has yet to complete its final trials and some scientists said they fear Moscow may be putting national prestige before safety.
A survey of 3,040 doctors and health specialists, conducted by the "Doctor's Handbook" mobile application and quoted on Friday by the RBC daily, showed 52 per cent were not ready to be vaccinated, while 24.5 per cent said they would agree to be given the vaccine.
Just a fifth of respondents said they would recommend the vaccine to patients, colleagues or friends.
Their misgivings are shared by some Russians who say they are too scared to try the vaccine, while others agree with their government that scepticism expressed by foreign experts is driven by jealousy.
The Russian vaccine's approval comes before trials that would normally involve thousands of participants, commonly known as Phase Three. Such trials are usually considered essential precursors for a vaccine to secure regulatory approval.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the vaccine, developed by Moscow's Gamaleya Institute, was safe and that it had been administered to one of his daughters.
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko rejected safety concerns aired by some experts over Moscow's rapid approval of the drug as "groundless".
BANGKOK: In a neighbouring province of the Thai capital, in one of the metropolis' hottest and most polluted industrial zones is not an obvious place to start a farming enterprise.
But above the dusty, busy streets in Samut Sakhon, a concrete space that before had done little except radiate heat is now a little oasis.
A sprinkler gently sprays water across beds of leafy plants and herbs and flowers. It is peaceful up here.
Importantly though, this rooftop garden has become a place of function and purpose for those who tend it. The building is home to the Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN), an organisation that provides legal and social assistance to vulnerable overseas workers.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, migrant workers were among those who lost their livelihoods and were unable to return to their home countries due to ongoing border restrictions.
Suthasinee Keawleklai, MWRN’s coordinator, soon saw a growing problem - these workers were going hungry.
“I noticed that people were starving because they had to cut their living expenses because they were furloughed and had lost their jobs. They had to do whatever it took to save money. They came to ask us for vegetable cuttings,” she said.
Ko Saw has found joy in learning the art of growing vegetables in this rooftop garden. (Photo: Jack Board)
Instead of trying to find ways to donate food, she looked up. “A friend of mine who’s into organic farming suggested that we should grow more vegetables. I told my friend that there’s no space. My friend said ‘if you have a rooftop, it can be done’,” she recounted.
A few months on, about 30 migrants - mostly workers from Myanmar and their families - care for the garden themselves in their free time, transferring seeds, cleaning and watering the transformed space. And the vegetables have become a daily food staple during uncertain times.
“Whoever comes can just grab them This is what we do. We don’t separate who helps or who doesn’t help. If they come here, they can take the vegetables to eat,” said Ko Saw, a member of MWRN and now a keen gardener.
Rooftop gardens like this are not designed to be relied upon for food, but they can play an important role in filling gaps during times of crisis. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked interest in urban farming over the past few months.
In Thailand, looming concerns about food insecurity driven by climate change also means that urban farming is poised to be a crucial long-term resilience tool.
The rooftop garden in Samut Sakhon is small but functional and a boost to the local community. (Photo: Jack Board)
FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS
The Thai City Farm project at the Sustainable Agriculture Foundation Thailand has been sharpening urban residents' farming skills for more than a decade. With a focus on the economically disadvantaged, especially slum communities, the project is aiming to build resilience among them.
Communities like the one in Samut Sakhon are the beneficiaries of guidance about how to set up their urban farm operations. Others are provided with soil and seeds to kickstart their planting ambitions.
Overall, Thai City Farm helps oversee more than 450 community projects, a number which has accelerated quickly in recent times with 210 new projects being launched during the COVID-19 period.
“There are so many people who fell through the crack because they have no food of their own and never learn how to grow. When they are out of a job, they have no money to buy food. They have to wait for donations,” said Varangkanang Nimhatta, the head of the project.
She says that the basic skills to grow food have largely disappeared from Bangkok’s urban fabric. It is expected to be a growing problem with the United Nations predicting that about 70 per cent of the global population will live in cities by 2050.
“Nowadays, it’s clear that urban people barely have any skills to produce food or truly understand the origin of their food, food-producing areas, or farmers,” Varangkanang said.
“Do we want people in the city to 100 per cent rely on themselves? No. But we want to rely on agricultural work in urban areas, as a tool, to make people learn basic skills.
The urban farm at the headquarters of the Thai City Farm project. (Photo: Jack Board)
“Apart from that, we think that learning to become a producer will make people understand the true origin of the food, and become a consumer who supports sustainable, organic, and natural agriculture, as well as agriculture that supports small farmers to be able to make a living, agriculture that does not destroy the environment and our surroundings,” she said.
It is a mantra shared by one of Bangkok’s pioneering urban farmers, Nakorn Limpacuptathavon, the “Veggie Prince”. He has been growing and promoting a sustainable urban lifestyle for more than 12 years and his backyard today in the district of Lat Prao is brimming with greenery.
“We want people to re-learn and re-connect with nature again,” he said. “A crisis is like a catalyst - a catalyst to awaken the people.
“The way to solve this problem is not hard. Everybody can do it.”
The "Veggie Prince" has been cultivating his own small space for 12 years. (Photo: Jack Board)
One of Thailand’s leading voices on food security says there’s a critical imbalance in the ways the country’s food is produced. Powerful conglomerates control much of the country’s agriculture sector, leaving farmers at the mercy of market prices and a centralised system.
It means there are fewer choices for consumers and less understanding about the delicate systems that generate the food that millions consume.
Witoon Lienchamroon, the founder of Biothai Foundation, says there is a prevailing myth that Thailand is the “kitchen of the world” where food will be forever plentiful.
To the contrary, the country remains in the grip of a damaging drought, which has resulted in sharp declines in rice and corn production and a drop in agricultural economic growth.
Additionally, around 6.5 million Thais suffer from malnutrition and hunger - including 600,000 children - while a further 5 million suffer from obesity, showing the clear inequalities that exist when it comes to food access and quality.
“Of course, there’s a food security problem in Thailand,” he said. “The source of food is no longer like it was in the past. In the past, people could grow their own food. Now, they have to buy from the market. And big companies have a bigger share in the market.”
Urban farming encourages growing food without the use of pesticides or herbicides. (Photo: Jack Board)
“We heavily rely on a few mass production food sources – not farmers. Food distributors and food producers are in the hand of big business chains.
“When this system of mass food production is integrated with food distribution, it causes climate change problems and pollution problems. The whole chain involves a lot of activities: using a lot of energy, water, machines, packaging production, trucks for transportation and so on,” he said.
BioThai is involved with promoting food safety and security, as well as promoting perennial vegetables that can be more sustainably grown and closing the links between farmer and consumer.
With climate change impacts worsening, cities like Bangkok are increasingly vulnerable to disruption in food supply. As rural areas suffer, it is the cities that go hungry, or face increased prices. In this regard, urban farming is a clear solution to help fill the gap, Withoon said.
Some of the benefits include reduced energy use, enhanced carbon sequestration from urban forests, the reuse of urban water and reducing the urban heat island effect, which is the increase of mean-day temperatures largely due to buildings and pavements, a factor to be further aggravated by climate change.
Varangkanang Nimhatta tends to vegetables in her project's garden.(Photo: Jack Board)
ON THE GROUND, ON THE ROOF
Places like Samut Sakhon and Rangsit, both near-satellite regions of Bangkok, were once home to important agricultural land. Now these areas form part of Bangkok’s sprawling urban shadow.
The result is a lost connection with the soil and the history of the area, says landscape architect and founder of urban design firm Landprocess, Kotchakorn Voraakhom.
“Over 50 years and you can see this big patch of concrete creeping out over the wetlands that used to be a channel for the river and how we drain our water from the north to the ocean. We used the best place to grow agriculture in the world to build the worst city in the world,” she said.
“From the beginning, we built the city in the wrong place but we cannot return. So now it’s about finding the right solution and changing the attitudes of the people.”
Kotchakorn has been a leading voice promoting functional green spaces in Bangkok’s new developments and converted spaces.
The rooftop garden of Thammasat University is the largest in Asia. (Photo: Land Process)
In Rangsit, at a campus for Thammasat University, Kotchakorn’s designs have given birth to Asia’s biggest rooftop garden.
The 22,000 sq m space recreates a rice terrace, includes micro-watersheds from its cascading roof and has expansive areas for students to grow organic vegetables and herbs. It has aesthetics but more critically, purpose.
“I think this building can create a solution to combine green space, food shortage problems and build the next generation of sustainable citizens, because this place is a university,” she said.
“This can really relate people back to the ground, even though it’s on the roof. Thinking about the land coverage, we covered the places that are supposed to be nature, supposed to be places to grow food.”
While she believes there is a disconnect at the moment between modern Bangkok residents and the land, which is rapidly being overtaken by urban fixtures, deep down people have an underlying desire to rediscover links to farming.
“We are actually growing from an agricultural culture. Farmers are our ancestors. So growing food and getting things as we walk from the trees is part of our culture and our landscape. So I feel that urban farming should be rooted in the new generation,” she said.
The rooftop of Thammasat University's rooftop garden recreates the landscape of a rice terrace. (Photo: Jack Board)
Beyond these purpose-built green zones like at Thammasat, Withoon of Biothai wants unused space, which can be precious in crowded cities like Bangkok, to be unlocked for communities to farm.
“There are so many emptied lands. So, the government should change the law to facilitate urban farming ideas so that poor people can grow their food,” he said, giving the examples of district offices and temples as areas that could easily be converted for use, especially by poorer city residents.
Varangkanang of Thai City Farm added: “I think it’s been proven that if there’s space, whether it’s land or concrete or whatever it is, every place has the potential to produce food.” “People just need to start to do it.”
BRUSSELS (REUTERS) - The European Union has agreed to buy at least 300 million doses of AstraZeneca's potential Covid-19 vaccine in its first such advance purchase deal, which could weaken plans led by the World Health Organisation for a global approach.
The European Commission, which is negotiating on behalf of all 27 EU member states, said the deal included an option to purchase 100 million additional doses from the British drugmaker should its vaccine prove safe and effective.
The EU's bilateral deal mirrors moves by the United States and other wealthy states, some of which are critical of the WHO's initiative, and further reduces the potentially available stock in the race to secure effective Covid-19 vaccines.
The EU agreement follows an initial deal with AstraZeneca reached in June by Europe's Inclusive Vaccines Alliance (IVA), a group formed by France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to secure vaccine doses for all member states.
The Commission did not disclose the terms of the new deal and declined to say whether it had replaced the IVA's.
"This new agreement will give all EU member states the option to access the vaccine in an equitable manner at no profit during the pandemic," AstraZeneca said in a statement.
The EU executive said its deals are aimed at financing part of the upfront costs to develop vaccines. The funding would be partial down-payments to secure the shots, but actual purchases would be decided at a later stage by each EU state.
The EU said over the past two weeks it was in advanced talks with Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi for their vaccines under development .
It is also in talks with Pfizer, Moderna and CureVac to buy upfront their potential Covid-19 vaccines, EU officials told Reuters in July.
BLOW TO WHO?
The EU move could make more difficult efforts led by the WHO and Gavi, a global alliance for vaccines, to buy shots on behalf of rich and developing countries with a separate scheme.
The Commission has urged EU states to shun the WHO-led initiative because it sees it as too expensive and slow, EU officials told Reuters in July.
Now the Commission is openly saying that vaccines bought from AstraZeneca, and from other vaccine makers, could be donated to poorer states, effectively taking on the very task that the WHO is pursuing with the so-called ACT-Accelerator Hub.
Brussels has publicly said that its purchasing scheme is complementary to the WHO's, but in private told EU states that there may be legal issues if they joined the WHO programme.
BEIRUT: Ten days after the deadly Beirut explosion, rescue workers recovered the remains of firefighters killed while battling the initial blaze, as authorities appointed a well-respected judge to lead the investigation.
Beirut, brought to its knees by the cataclysmic explosion, has seen the arrival of a string of high-level international envoys, a sign that Lebanon has returned to the centre of struggles for regional influence.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, foreign minister of Iran, which backs Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah, is set to meet officials in the capital on Friday (Aug 14).
He risks crossing paths with the top career diplomat of Iran's arch-foe the United States, David Hale, and French Defence Minister Florence Parly, who will also meet with Lebanese authorities and civil society representatives.
Both Hale and Parly have joined calls from the international community for a reform-oriented government that would coordinate aid flooding into the small Mediterranean country after the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab's cabinet on Monday.
Zarif said it was for the Lebanese to decide what government they wanted.
"Others should not condition their aid on any change in Lebanon during this emergency situation," he said.
Protesters filled the streets and clashed with security forces in the days after the explosion, blaming their political leaders for the negligence they say led to the disaster that killed 171 people and wounded at least 6,500.
At the now-devastated port, rescue workers continued to recover the remains of those killed by the ignition of a huge shipment of ammonium nitrate fertiliser left unsecured in a warehouse for six years.
MISSING FIREFIGHTER
Relatives of three firefighters from the same family, who had been at the port attempting to put out the fire thought to have ignited the blast, were informed that the remains of two of them had been identified by DNA analysis.
"I don't have words to describe the fire that consumes us. Imagine getting to the point of being happy to have found the remains of two among you," said Antonella Hitti on Facebook, after learning that the remains of her brother Najib, 27, and her cousin Charbel, 22, had been identified.
"We're not organising funerals before finding Charbel Karam," the third missing firefighter from the family, relative Mayane Nassif told AFP.
The remains of seven of the 10 firefighters who responded to the initial blaze have now been found.
On Thursday, rescue workers also found the body of a young man at the wheel of his car that had been thrown into the sea by the blast.
Public anger at the negligence that allowed hazardous materials to be left in a warehouse in the heart of the capital despite repeated warnings has reignited a protest movement that had largely fizzled out in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the face of demands for his government to step down, Diab resigned on Monday.
His successor must be named by President Michel Aoun, the subject of increasing vitriol among protesters, on the basis of consultations with parliamentary blocs representing Lebanon's longstanding political parties - the very ones that the protesters want to see gone.
NO INTERNATIONAL PROBE
US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, Hale, who met with Aoun on Friday, has called for the formation of a government "that reflects and and responds to the will of the people and genuinely commits and acts for real change."
France, whose defence minister also met with Aoun on Friday, has echoed those calls.
Florence Parly will later oversee the distribution of aid from the helicopter carrier Tonnerre, which docked in Beirut with food and construction materials.
Lebanese authorities named judge Fadi Sawan, known, according to judicial sources, for his independence and integrity, to lead investigations into the explosion.
But he will not himself question current and former ministers on the ammonium nitrate that was stocked at the port.
They will instead be referred to a special judicial body specialised in questioning government officials.
On Thursday, Hale announced the US Federal Bureau of Investigations would join the probe "at the invitation" of Lebanese authorities. Paris has opened its own investigation.
Lebanese authorities have rejected an international inquiry, despite demands for one both from within the country and from abroad.
UN experts have called for a prompt and independent investigation into the explosion, expressing concern at the "impunity" they say Lebanese officials enjoy.
BEIJING: A coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by a unit of China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) appeared to be safe and triggered antibody-based immune responses in early and mid-stage trials, researchers said.
The potential vaccine has already moved into a late-stage trial, one of a handful of candidates being tested on several thousand people to see if they are effective enough to win regulatory approval.
Sinopharm is testing the potential vaccine in the United Arab Emirates in a Phase 3 trial expected to recruit 15,000 people, as China has too few new cases to be a useful trial site.
The state-owned company will also supply the candidate to Pakistan as part of a trial agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The shot did not cause any serious side effects, according to a paper published on Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by scientists who are part of Sinopharm and other China-based disease control authorities and research institutes.
The results were based on data from 320 healthy adults in Phase 1 and 2 trials.
The candidate triggered robust antibody responses in inoculated people, but it remained unknown if that was sufficient to prevent COVID-19 infection, researchers developing the vaccine said in the paper.
Sinopharm's chairman told state media last month that a potential vaccine could be ready by the end of this year with Phase 3 testing expected to be completed in about three months.
The novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 750,000 people globally, has prompted a race to develop a vaccine. More than 150 candidate vaccines are being developed and tested around the world.
Russia became the first country to grant regulatory approval to a vaccine after less than two months of human testing, and a shot developed by Chinese firm CanSino Bilogics has been cleared for use in the military.
China is leading the development of at least eight vaccine candidates in different stages of clinical trials.
WELLINGTON: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern extended a lockdown in New Zealand's largest city on Friday (Aug 14), giving health authorities more time to trace and contain a strain of coronavirus previously unseen in the country.
Ardern said stay-at-home orders would remain in force across Auckland until Aug 26 in a bid to prevent a mystery outbreak from becoming a fully blown second wave.
Genomic tests indicated the latest infections were not the same strain of coronavirus recorded in New Zealand earlier this year.
"This suggests it's not a case of the virus being dormant, or of burning embers in our community, it appears to be new to New Zealand," Ardern said.
A health worker takes details at a COVID-19 testing station setup at Eden Park, National Sports Stadium, in Auckland on Aug 14, 2020. (Photo: AFP/David Rowland)
She added that tests were also unable to link the outbreak to any cases among quarantined travellers from overseas.
Since four people tested positive on Tuesday - the first cases of community transmission in 102 days - New Zealand has now detected a cluster of 30 virus cases.
Amid speculation that the virus could have been brought in via freight, Ardern admitted the source of the strain may never be found.
But she said it was likely the outbreak had been detected early and expressed hope that it could still be held back.
"We don't necessarily need to answer that question in order to contain and deal with this cluster effectively," she said.
Police and military personnel check vehicles leaving the city at a COVID-19 check point setup at the southern boundary in Auckland on Aug 14, 2020. (Photo: AFP/David Rowland)
Ardern praised the 1.5 million residents of New Zealand's biggest city as carrying a "heavy load" for the nation's well-being.
"As we have said from the start, our overall COVID-19 strategy remains elimination," Ardern said in a televised media conference.
"Together, we have got rid of COVID-19 before. We have kept it out for 102 days, longer than any other country. We can do all of that again."
Health Minister Chris Hipkins said earlier that two cases had been detected outside Auckland despite the lockdown.
But he played down fears that the failure to ring-fence infections meant the virus was destined to spread countrywide.
"The cases so far are connected, they are all part of one Auckland-based cluster, that's good news," he said.
In just four days, New Zealand has gone from a transmission-free haven to contemplating national lockdown. (Photo: AFP/David Rowland)
Ardern cautioned that more cases were likely in the coming days but said she was confident officials would successfully identify the "perimeter" of the cluster - if not its source - allowing them to isolate cases and remove restrictions.
The earliest case authorities have identified to date is a worker at an Auckland-based cool store owned US-based Americold Realty Trust, who became ill around Jul 31. Almost a dozen other infections have been directly linked to the facility.
The current Level 3 restrictions in Auckland requiring people to mostly remain at home, and Level 2 restrictions for the rest of the country, are not as severe as the five-week Level 4 shutdown she imposed earlier in the year.
"I would characterise our approach as a ‘short but precautionary hold’ in an ongoing investigation that will stamp out the virus," Ardern said of the current measures, which will last a total of 14 days, the known incubation period for the virus.
"COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE"
The prospect of new wave of infections has rattled New Zealanders, who have come to regard the remote South Pacific nation as a transmission-free haven over the past three months.
Wellington resident Barbara Pond described the situation as "heartbreaking".
"I'm so sick of hearing about COVID," she said.
"We worked so hard to get rid of it and now every time you turn around it's COVID, COVID, COVID."
Shoppers queue outside a supermarket in the suburb of Devonport in Auckland on Aug 12, 2020. (Photo: AFP/David Rowland)
National health director-general Ashley Bloomfield acknowledged feelings were running high but urged the public not to take out their frustrations on frontline health workers.
"We've had reports of healthcare workers, who are doing their best to provide testing for people, being verbally abused and even attacked," he said.
"This is completely unacceptable," he added, declining to provide further details.
Motorists queue at a COVID-19 coronavirus testing centre in the suburb of Northcote in Auckland on Aug 12, 2020. (Photo: AFP/David Rowland)
New Zealand is following the same strategy that helped contain the virus after a seven-week lockdown earlier this year - isolating positive cases, contact tracing and extensive testing.
Ardern said swabs had been taken from 50,000 people in the past two days.
The government is making testing mandatory for frontline workers at ports and isolation facilities after reports that most staff at Auckland airport had never been checked for the virus.
Hipkins denied the government had failed to secure the border - regarded as the area most vulnerable to COVID-19's return - but conceded: "I'd have liked more tests (there) earlier."
ECONOMY AND ELECTION WORRIES
The opposition National Party has been pressuring Ardern to delay the Sep 19 election, arguing their inability to campaign because of restrictions gave her government an unfair advantage. Ardern said on Friday she would make a decision in the next 48 hours.
New Zealanders celebrated when Ardern appeared to eliminate community transmission of the coronavirus with the earlier hard lockdown that forced almost everyone to stay at home.
A shopper wearing a face mask packs groceries in the suburb of Takapuna in Auckland on Aug 12, 2020. (Photo: AFP/David Rowland)
There were concerns a repeat of that process would come with a huge economic cost and Ardern on Friday announced the extension of a wage subsidy scheme and mortgage deferral programme to support businesses and protect jobs.
"Lifting restrictions now and seeing a potential explosion in cases is the worst thing we could do for Auckland and the New Zealand economy," she said.
A cafe forced to close under restrictions places mannequins at the tables to mimic customers in Auckland on Aug 14, 2020. (Photo: AFP/David Rowland)
Prior to the extension announcement, Westpac Banking Corp estimated the current level of lockdown measures in Auckland and the rest of New Zealand would cost the economy about NZ$300 million, or 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product.
Reserve Bank of New Zealand Deputy Governor Geoff Bascand told Reuters a sustained resurgence of the virus posed "a major risk" to the bank's outlook.
