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Wellington, December 14, 2021
Most fully-vaccinated travellers arriving in New Zealand would not be required to go through Managed Isolation Quarantine (MIQ) from early next year.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said that fully vaccinated New Zealanders will be able to travel from Australia without having to quarantine from January 16, 2021.
Foreign nationals arriving from April 1, 2021 would also be exempt from MIQ. But a mandatory seven day self-isolation period will in place for such people.
From 11.59 pm on January 16, 2022, fully vaccinated New Zealanders and other eligible travellers can travel to New Zealand from Australia without staying in MIQ. From the same time on February 13, 2021 , fully vaccinated New Zealanders and other eligible travellers can travel to New Zealand from all other countries.
Back to normalcy with a difference
From April 30, 2021, fully vaccinated foreign travellers can travel to New Zealand.
This will happen in stages, Mr Hipkins said.
He said that New Zealand is now in a position to start moving back to normality, with a reminder that travel in 2022 will still be different.
Travellers must have a negative pre-departure test, be fully vaccinated, a declaration of full travel history, test on arrival and at end of self-isolation period. He said that the announcement gives families, businesses, airports and others the time to prepare.
“It is very encouraging that as a country, we are now in a position to move towards greater normality. I do want to emphasise though that travel in 2022 won’t necessarily be exactly the same as it was in pre-2020 travel,” he said.
Mr Hipkins acknowledged the differences in opinion on the subject but said that the government was following the expert advice which showed the border is one of the highest-risk areas.
“A phased approach to reconnecting with the world is the safest approach to ensure that risk is carefully managed and it reduces the potential impacts on vulnerable communities and the New Zealand health system,” he said.
The medium-risk pathway
The three steps constituted a new medium-risk pathway, he said.
Those who do not meet the requirements of this pathway can still enter New Zealand but must be in MIQ on arrival under the new regime of seven days managed isolation followed by three days self-isolation. These are people who do not meet the vaccination requirement, including unvaccinated New Zealand citizens, as well as people coming from high-risk countries, Mr Hipkins said.
The announcements will free more space in MIQ, which the government intends to use.
Mr Hipkins said that the government expected people to stay in their bubbles for the seven day isolation period and that other people in the household will be moving around.
“There is a lot more freedom involved in self-isolation than there is with being in MIQ. We are being upfront that it is not a low-risk pathway. There will be more cases coming across the border, even amongst people who have been vaccinated. Rapid antigen testing is going to increasingly play a more prominent role for our surveillance testing procedures,” he said.
Rapid Antigen Tests
Mr Hipkins said that the world will use Rapid Antigen Tests more widely, and that New Zealand will do so. He said that the ‘very high-risk’ classification for Indonesia, Fiji, India, Pakistan and Brazil has been removed. Travellers from these countries can enter New Zealand on the same basis as travellers from most other countries.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) will continue to be classified as high-risk and hence only New Zealand citizens and their dependants can travel directly to New Zealand. All travellers from PNG who aren’t citizens must spent 14 days in a non-very high risk country before coming here and humanitarian exemptions are still available.
“As we move to Year 2022, we know that the pandemic will not over. We only need to look at Europe to know that the path out of the pandemic is not a straight-forward one. Our announcement does not mean that MIQ as a system is not going to end any time soon. It is intended to be a temporary measure and its current scale and the way it operates has served us incredibly well,” Mr Hipkins said.
-Published under a Special Agreement with www.rnz.co.nz
