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The Associate Health Minister is defending keeping most of the country in orange until December 30.
Everyone in the country will move to orange just before New Year's Eve, apart from Northland.
Northland's going to sit in red for the summer because not enough people are vaccinated.
Peeni Henare told Mike Yardley the Government wants to wait two cycles of Covid-19 before it moves most places to orange.
“And we’re confident that if we give it another cycle, which is why we announced what we did yesterday, we will give ourselves the best chance to have a really good summer break.”
Peeni Henare says the Government wants case numbers to drop and vaccination rates to lift.
He says Northland is nowhere near 90 percent vaccinated and it's not just Māori holding the region back.
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