(mellow music)
On Thursday this week, retail, malls,
cafes, restaurants, cinemas and other public spaces
including playgrounds and gyms can reopen.
So right now, I'm just opening up.
We've kind of been opening up in level three,
but this is the first day
we're allowed customers inside again.
We're really excited to be reopening today.
Yeah, we've really missed all of our regulars
and I think they've missed us too.
It's really nice to just be able to welcome
our community back in the doors
and not have them waiting out in the cold.
So yeah, we're really excited to get back
to some semblance of normality.
So we've got a few measures in place.
Obviously, all the recommended guidelines
from the government.
We have got our table space apart,
we've got our staff washing
and sanitising their hands all the time.
We've got hand sanitizer at our till.
Any surfaces that would be touched,
frequently we're sanitising.
We've got our contact tracing QR code.
For us as a small business, the biggest sacrifice
was the loss of revenue for a month or six weeks, really.
I have to say the wage subsidy was a real amazing gift
for businesses, I think,
to retain their most valuable resource
which is people always.
People are so dedicated to their mahi
in these places all across Tamaki Makaurau.
It's cool opportunity to get
to know your community and who's working for you
to create an interesting city for us to live in.
(mellow music)
As a team of five million, we've done really well.
We can definitely pat ourselves in the back.
Our strategy of going hard and going early
and aiming towards elimination has allowed us
to have zero cases for the third consecutive day.
To quote public health professor, Michael Baker,
you're really wanting to think about
that we need to be having zero cases in the community
for at least two consecutive incubation period,
and so that's equivalent to 28 days.
We've been closed for almost seven weeks now, I think,
and this is our first day opening in level two.
It's really crazy that we have full PPE in our job.
We have a job that's really a lot about communication
so wearing a mask is quite strange for us,
so it's definitely been a big shift for us
to go into full PPE.
It's a great feeling to be open again at level two.
I think the timing for level two is bang on
in terms of where people are at mentally
and what they, you know, how confident they are
to go back out into the community.
As yet, none of our clients have taken up the option
to have a mask but we're in full PPE,
so I feel like they probably feel quite safe.
And then, if you look at our space, we've reduced the number
of chairs that we have in the salon
and increased the space between our customers
so that we can practise safe distancing.
That's been really important.
Like a lot of New Zealanders and every business owner,
we have had no cashflow and no earnings during that time.
I don't think the sacrifices that we've made,
I feel like they're balanced with what needed to happen
and I was very happy to make any sacrifices
that we have made for the health of the country.
As we move into alert level two, it's good to be mindful
that we potentially had dodged this bullet
based on projections.
We could have had, instead, thousands
of cases a day like other countries
that we're seeing everyday in the news, but we don't.
So what that means is you need to continue
to make sure you get tested if you have symptoms
and self-isolate during that time
so that you reduce the spread,
and do everything you can
to keep New Zealand safe and COVID-free.
(mellow music)