Australia has once again resumed its travel bubble with New Zealand allowing tourists to visit Australia without a 14 day hotel quarantine.
The move came 6 days after the Australian government closed the travel bubble when a case of the new Covid-19 variant was found in New Zealand. There has been no locally recorded case since.
Visitors from New Zealand “are judged to be sufficiently low risk, given New Zealand’s strong public health response to Covid-19”, Australian Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd told reporters.
The travel bubble was initially suspended when a 56-year-old woman was found to have contracted the South African variant of Covid-19 following her 14-day isolation period in Auckland.
The woman had already completed her quarantine and had returned two negative Covid-19 tests, after which she left the facility and had proceeded to travel around the region.
However, after later developing symptoms, she tested positive for the more-virulent South African strain of the virus. It is believed that she contracted the virus from somebody staying on the same floor of her quarantine hotel.
Currently New Zealand is the only country in the world that can enter Australia for tourism and bypass the 14 day quarantine. All other countries are currently banned from entering Australia for non-essential purposes.
The travel bubble between New Zealand and Australia is not a reciprocal agreement. Currently, Australians are not permitted to visit New Zealand.
Australia will require screening of travelers from New Zealand before and after flights for the next 10 days, Kidd added, “given there is still a small risk of further associated cases being detected and with an abundance of caution”.
Travelers will be screened for Covid-19 symptoms and cross reference with contact tracing to ensure they are not close contacts of the recently infected cases.
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister stated that the borders will be impacted for all of 2021.
“For travel to restart, we need one of two things: We either need the confidence that being vaccinated means you don’t pass COVID-19 on to others – and we don’t know that yet, or we need enough of our population to be vaccinated and protected that people can safely re-enter New Zealand. Both possibilities will take some time.”
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Disclaimer: Current travel rules and restrictions can change without notice. The decision to travel is ultimately your responsibility. Contact your consulate and/or local authorities to confirm your nationality’s entry and/or any changes to travel requirements before traveling. Travel Off Path does not endorse traveling against government advisories
Martin
Monday 1st of February 2021
Until they detect 1 single case and then it all shuts again. What a joke!