As I write this, New Zealand is still at COVID-19 Alert Level 2. The Cabinet is reviewing the regulations on Monday 25th.

Going hard and going early has put us in a good position. The number of new cases of COVID-19 has reduced significantly, and any recent new cases have been directly traced to existing cases. The last case of unknown source was in early April, and we haven’t seen any new clusters for more than a month.

This gives us confidence there is no community transmission in New Zealand.

But our journey is far from over. COVID-19 is still present in New Zealand, and it’s certainly still present around the world. For as long as that remains the case, there’ll be risks for us to manage, and work for us to do.

Just last week, the Budget highlighted the Government’s commitment to job creation, keeping people in work, supporting those who may have lost their jobs due to the pandemic, supporting key sectors such as tourism to get back on their feet, and getting our economy moving.

Ultimately, the best thing we can do for the economy is to stay on top of the virus, and continue to carefully ease restrictions where we can.

At every alert level we’ll maintain our basic wall of defence against the virus. That means tight border controls, widespread surveillance testing, and rapid contact tracing. It also means good hand hygiene, physical distancing, and staying home if we feel sick.

That’s our new normal.

Getting out and about over the weekend, it was great to see New Zealanders making the most of our new hard-earned freedoms. Cafés were humming, and you could see people adjusting to rules around physical distancing and contact tracing and so on.

The Government intends to keep phasing in additional activity at Level 2, when the evidence says it’s safe. Bars, for example, have just reopened as well, and measures like size limits on gatherings will be reviewed every two weeks.

We don’t have to shift a full level to wind down restrictions. This nimble approach, making incremental adjustments, will allow us to get New Zealand moving faster, to limit the economic impact of the virus.

As the Prime Minister has said before though, the descent can be more dangerous than the climb. Some countries that started to ease restrictions experienced a spike in cases. The same could happen here if we’re not careful. We know from our clusters that one case can become 90 after a single night out.

No one wants that.

For a safer descent, many businesses are adopting innovative solutions like mobile apps to keep track of who has visited their stores. To support these measures, the Government has launched a new app to help you keep a record of where you’ve been. It’s called NZ COVID Tracer, and it’ll help public health units identify, trace and isolate cases and close contacts to prevent further spread of COVID-19.

You’re invited to create a secure digital diary of the places you visit by scanning QR codes displayed out front of businesses and other public places. Registering your contact details through the app too means public health units can get in touch if need be.

You can download it from here: tracing.covid19.govt.nz.

The more of us who download and use the app, the better we can respond to any new case that might spring up in our community. It makes that basic wall of defence against the virus, our new normal, even stronger.

-Marja Lubeck Labour List MP based in Rodney, Auckland.