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© 2021 AFPNew Zealand to stay closed to foreign nationals for another five months
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© 2021 AFP
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nonu6976
Better than nothing I suppose - they should hit a 95% vaccination rate by Feb I think. Glad to see they will not be letting in unvaccinated folks, just like many other countries are doing.
Wakarimasen
This will obviously work so well. Once everyone vaccinated they will open the borders and infection rates will spike and so panic will ensue.....
Haaa Nemui
Reading another article about this it seems unvaccinated can enter but have to continue with MIQ, no option of home isolation. Negative pre departure tests and negative tests on last day of isolation also required.
Mark
If that what it will take to keep N Z safe then let it be, unlike some other nations where they put $$$ ahead of their citizens lives.
Eastman
this makes sense.there is no need to be hurry at all.
藤原
Good idea
dbsaiya
@wakarimasen, I don't think Ardern is known to panic or New Zealanders for that matter.
bob
New Xiland certainly showing the world two things at the same time.
The virus is gonna virus.
Communists are loving every minute of it.
Ubesh
Of course I wonder what will happen once the need for booster shots come in. All eyes will be on the UK as they were the first out with the vaccines.
Thunderbird2
So far 15 million people in the UK have had the booster shots... I'm due to get mine in mid December. As long as people continue to get the booster we should hopefully be okay.
Hiro
Another 5 months. By then there is probably no longer a tourist industry left to save. Same with the airlines. I am impress they are actually able to hold on for this long. Such strict restriction for 2 whole years. We here already can see many major companies selling some assets to soften the blow of the pandemic. Kinda amaze considering we heard almost no negative impact there for the last 2years.
Sal Affist
The Northern Hemisphere winter is the best time to visit New Zealand, and peak tourist season. Doing this will be the final nail in the tourism industry. They will all be broke by next May.
fxgai
So the lockdown didn’t work?
who’d have thunk it…
GBR48
-Hiro, Sal Affist. And they managed it without paying much compensation and with few legal cases. Australasia will see Covid cases rise as they have simply delayed the inevitable, so they will bring in new restrictions through 2022/3. The border blocks simply time shifted the region. It's not over. It's just starting there, but with fewer hospitalisations. The comments suggest that the locals are generally happy with this. Governments can rely on enough people disliking both immigrants and tourists.
Sensible airlines sold most of their wide-bodieds to places like China who can use them domestically, converted some to cargo and reseated the remainder for small numbers of wealthy passengers - sports stars, politicians etc. Most of the blocks on mass international tourism are here to stay courtesy of quarantine restrictions. Only a few countries will open up again. Governments see it as part of ending migrant labour, refugee issues and covert immigration, particularly with those from developing countries unable to achieve vax levels for entry. The free market and the consumer are no longer in charge, governments are back in control. Anyone running a business should have twigged this a long time ago and acted accordingly.
Richard Gallagher
Closing the b orders should have been an initial response everywhere. To disallow foreign tourists from abroad, over the winter is an excellent idea.
As for international tourism, dependency on such is foolish.
carpslidy
I m going next month, so doesn't help me.
Wolfpack
It’s telling that no matter how hard Ardern tries to keep covid out, she continues to fail from keeping it from getting in.
2020hindsights
Wolfpack
Try to keep up. With higher levels of vaccination, the zero covid policy, which worked extremely well pre-delta and pre-vaccine, has been replaced by a 'traffic light' system that allows vaccinated people more access to restaurants etc.
2020hindsights
fxgai
recognition that the highly contagious Delta variant is now firmly embedded in the community.
Lowest death rate by far, yep, looks like it did work. Who’d have thunk it…
RegBilk
Hipkins said under the new regime, travelers would self isolate for seven days provided they were fully vaccinated and passed a series of COVID-19 tests.
NZ is still letting people enter from international destinations. Funny.
2020hindsights
Wolfpack
Try to stick to the facts. During most of those nearly two years there have been no lockdowns for the majority of NZ.
fxgai
Lockdown was a good policy initially last year, but didn’t age well, as seen this year. I give their government response an A grade for last year, but an F for this year. It was only after they found cases of Covid (inevitable) that they hurried up with vaccines, and lockdowns are a trade-off, like “solutions” to any problem. And they clung to the notion of zero covid for too long.