Dawn chorus: 'Red' means cancel it

TLDR and TLDL: Aotearoa-NZ moved back into the ‘red’ Covid setting overnight, but not before the cancellation of a rash of events that can’t be run with the rule that no more 100 people can gather under ‘red,’ and have to be seated 1m apart.

Look out below the the paywall fold for my preview of the week ahead on omicron, interest rates, inflation and the economy. Paid subscribers also have access to my daily podcast above.

New Zealand wakes up this morning in red across the whole country, and to the news that a whole lot of festivals and events will now not go ahead. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/TheKaka

In the news this morning:

• a range of festivals and events were cancelled because of the move to ‘red’ overnight, including Splore, Auckland Pride Festival, Karangahape Rd’s Other Ways, Fashion Week, Christchurch’s Great Kiwi Beer Festival, Dunedin’s Masters Games and Dunedin’s Craft Beer Festival, Festival One at Karapiro, Tauranga’s One Love festival, Wellington’s Lunar New Year Festival and Wellington’s Gindulgence Festiveal. (RNZ, ODT, Stuff, Stuff, Stuff);

• other events up in the air for March include, Wellington’s Homegrown and Cubadupa festivals, Christchurch’s South Island Wine and Food Festival, the Coast to Coast race, the Hokatika Wildfoods festival and Six60’s stadium tour. (RNZ, ODT, Stuff, Stuff);

• police investigating the 2018 burglary of Anne-Marie Brady’s home in Christchurch asked for a briefing from the SIS because of suggestions Chinese diplomats were involved (NZ Herald-$$$’s Matt Nippert);

• the US warned Russia overnight of severe sanctions if it tried to install a pro-Moscow regime in the Ukraine (Reuters);

• China imposed more lockdowns in Beijing to stop the spread of omicron on the eve of the Winter Olympics (Reuters);

If you missed it in your inbox yesterday, here’s my weekly summary that included a lot of the detail and issues involved with the ‘red’ announcement yesterday. I’ll be focused on Wednesday’s RATs and ‘three phase’ self-isolation’ rules announcement, the Fed’s big rates decision on Thursday morning our time, and our own inflation data for the December quarter later on Thursday morning. I welcome suggestions for topics to cover in the comments below from paid subscribers.