Health workers attend to members of the public at a drive-through Covid-19 vaccination clinic at Auckland Airport Park and Ride during a single-day vaccination drive. (Reuters photo) |
But while the changes will make it easier for New Zealanders
stranded abroad to return home, officials gave no date for when tourists might
be welcomed back. That change is likely still months away.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said that from next
month, most people arriving in New Zealand would need to spend seven days in a
quarantine hotel run by the military, half the previous requirement.
He said some new arrivals from low-risk Pacific island
countries could skip quarantine altogether and isolate at home.
He said the new rules were an interim step ahead of broader
reopening measures that would be gradually introduced once more than 90% of New
Zealanders aged 12 and over were fully vaccinated. So far, 72% of eligible
people have had both shots.
The change follows a growing outcry from New Zealanders who
have been trying to return home but have been unable to secure spots in the
quarantine system. Some have resorted to legal action.
“I acknowledge that there’s a lot of pressure there. My
message to the people who are keen to get back into New Zealand is: There isn’t
very long to wait now,” Hipkins said. “And encouraging their fellow New
Zealanders to get fully vaccinated will help us get to that point faster.”
Hipkins said he expected most new arrivals would be able to
isolate at home by sometime in the first quarter of next year. He said the
first priority was New Zealanders and those with valid visas.
“Tourists are more of a challenge, in that they don’t
necessarily have somewhere to isolate on arrival,” Hipkins said. “But we’ll
work our way through all of that.”
Political opponents said the changes didn’t go far enough
and that fully vaccinated travelers returning home posed little risk.
Before the pandemic began, more than 3 million tourists
visited New Zealand each year, and the industry was among the nation’s largest
earners of foreign income.
For more than a year after the pandemic began, the strict
quarantine system helped New Zealand remain almost completely virus-free and
allowed life to return to normal.
But an outbreak of the more contagious delta variant in
Auckland more than two months ago has proved impossible to extinguish, forcing
officials to abandon their previous zero-tolerance approach in favor of a
suppression strategy.
With the virus continuing to spread in Auckland, which
remains in lockdown, the border requirements had begun to seem outdated.
Thursday’s announcement came after officials said two people
in the city of Christchurch had caught the virus after one returned from
Auckland. There was no immediate evidence the virus was spreading further in
the city. -AP
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