Ardern moves to relax New Zealand's tough border controls
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Loading... - Liam Burton
- 03 Feb 2022
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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says the country will start reopening its borders in a phased plan beginning with its own citizens, as it relaxes a strict quarantine system that was imposed at the start of the pandemic.
The five-stage plan will start with fully vaccinated New Zealanders in neighbouring Australia who will be allowed to return home starting from midnight on February 27, and will be extended to fully vaccinated New Zealanders elsewhere in the world from March 13.
The government envisages borders will be completely open to all by October.
“We are well on our way to reaching that destination,” Ardern said in Auckland of the full reopening. “But we are not quite there yet.”
Instead of going into government quarantine hotels – where spaces have been limited – fully vaccinated arrivals will be allowed to self-isolate for 10 days.
New Zealand imposed the stringent border controls as part of its strategy to eliminate the virus.
The country has recorded nearly 17,000 cases and only 53 deaths.
Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay, who is reporting from Tauranga in New Zealand, said that based on those numbers, the “elimination strategy” is considered a “success”.
“But it has to come to an end at some stage.”
Bottleneck
Last year, New Zealand rolled out a “travel bubble” policy with Australia, but that was abruptly ended after cases in travellers created a new cluster of cases.
The new plan comes as the more contagious Omicron variant spreads within New Zealand, and the border controls are coming to be seen as an obstacle to efforts to return to normality.
At the moment, citizens who have been allowed into the country through a lottery system are required to stay in a state-run quarantine facility for 10 days, but the lack of spaces has left many people unable to return home. Read More…
