New Zealand hopes to gradually reopen borders in 2022

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday, August 12, that she hopes for a gradual reopening of the archipelago in 2022. She noted that these changes will be made “discreetIn order to prevent variants of the coronavirus from spreading throughout the country which has not recorded any local contamination for several months and where life has almost resumed its normal course.

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«By haste we can find ourselves in the situation that many countries are going throughIt confirmed, citing Australia, that it was hit by an epidemic resurgence linked to the Delta type, which is highly contagious. Jacinda Ardern has been praised for her effective management of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has so far killed only 26 people out of five million people. However, the vaccination campaign is struggling to get started, with less than 20% of the population fully vaccinated so far.

Flexibility requests

The center-left prime minister is facing demands to ease border measures from sectors such as health, hospitality and agriculture, and is facing severe labor shortages due to the absence of foreign workers. In order to facilitate border policy, Jacinda Ardern has pledged to ramp up the vaccination campaign in order to have vaccines available, by the end of the year, to all future-age residents.

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Under the proposed changes, travelers from abroad will have to self-quarantine at a hotel or at home, of varying lengths, depending on their vaccination status and country of origin. “Our ultimate goal is to achieve quarantine-free entry for all vaccinated travelersJacinda Ardern said without giving a timeline. “Vaccines, border testing, and perhaps a little bit of symptom monitoring when traveling will eventually become normal. We will get back to itShe said.

New Zealand’s attempts to loosen border controls have so far met with mixed success. the “travel bubbleAustralia was suspended in June after cases re-emerged on the huge island continent. Non-quarantine travel is permitted with the small Cook Islands as well as with seasonal workers in Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu.