The Prime Minister will at 4pm reveal if the country is ready to relax restrictions and move to the orange traffic light setting as the death toll continues to rise while case numbers trend down.

It comes after nine more Covid-related deaths were reported today along with 10,205 new community cases.

The deaths reported today take the total number of publicly-reported deaths with Covid-19 to 405 since the pandemic began.

There are 734 people in hospital, including 25 in intensive care, the Ministry of Health said in today’s 1pm update.

Cabinet is meeting today to review the traffic light settings, with options including a shift to orange and removing any number restrictions on indoor gatherings.

Today is the last day vaccine passes are mandatory. And vaccine mandates will be limited to the health and disability, aged care, Corrections and border workforce sectors.

The removals of some pandemic health measures and changes to others are based largely on expectations the Omicron wave has peaked.

Ardern will announce the traffic light decision at her post-Cabinet press conference at 4pm, accompanied by director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

It comes after last week was the deadliest of the pandemic, with 122 people dying.

Ardern confirmed today that the traffic light system “absolutely” allowed for regional differences, so some areas could move to orange before others.

Speaking to TVNZ’s Breakfast, she said the main consideration for Cabinet was pressure on the health system.

“When it comes to where we are, red or orange, we know we’ve peaked in Auckland … looks like the same in the Wellington area, but there are other parts of the country where that’s not quite the case – we’re either plateauing or still seeing an increase,” said Ardern.

Ardern said experts believed that the impact of vaccine passes was now “really marginal” due to high vaccination rates and the country already having its first peak of Omicron.

The impact of those passes had lessened and the role they played changed.

Ardern told RNZ people certainly shouldn’t see the removal of vaccine passes as the end of Covid-19 and the end of restrictions.

“This will be our first wave and not our only wave. This is our current variant and not our only variant.”

People were still being asked to wear masks, but there were also people who had legitimate reasons not to wear them.

Ardern is also expected to address the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and New Zealand’s response.

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