COVID CRUNCH
After basking in the afterglow of the trans-Tasman bubble, the Government is suddenly facing a Covid crunch: Temporarily barring New Zealand citizens from travelling home from India while managing a possible spillage from a border facility.
The twin problems reared up yesterday, and the response highlighted the Government’s increasing wariness of any risk as it tentatively rolls out the Covid19 vaccine, sitting on nearly
300,000 Pfizer doses to ensure it has enough stock incoming to cover the entire country in an unimpeded inoculation campaign later in the year.
The first issue was a 24-yearold man working a security job at the Grand Millennium managed isolation hotel in Auckland. He tested positive for Covid-19 after having a sore throat for four days. He was among the 5 per cent of border workers not yet vaccinated.
But of most concern to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was the sharp uptick of people returning to New Zealand with the virus: 19 new cases in the managed isolation system yesterday, 16 who had travelled from India in the past week.
Having received advice from Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Ardern pulled a lever the Government has so far avoided: stopping New Zealand citizens and residents from entering the country, as is their right under law.
‘‘We are taking the time, until the 28th of April, to see if there are other measures that we can have confidence in that may be able to reduce the risk,’’ she told reporters, at a press conference in Auckland. ‘‘It is not our intention that this be a long term tool ... that’s just not something that we are able to do to our citizens.’’
The temporary measure may be extended. Ardern said the Government would use the two weeks to consider how it will improve the border system to absorb the increased risk posed by travellers from India, and other high-risk countries.
The surge of Covid-19 in India is expected to worsen, with the country counting more than
126,000 new cases yesterday. Since late January, there have been 117 people entering from India who had Covid-19, whereas the next largest cohorts were 17 people from the United States and
11 from the United Kingdom. ‘‘If you look at India, particularly the rates of infection in those states where people are departing from for New Zealand, and the trajectory of the epidemic curve which is on a very, very steep rise, there is clearly an increased risk,’’ Bloomfield said yesterday.
He said the remedies being considered included a dedicated high-risk managed isolation facility, and measures stopping people travelling if they become symptomatic mid-journey.
The separation of travellers from high-risk countries has been called for by health experts for months. The National Party had similarly called for such a move in January, and Covid-19 spokesman Chris Bishop renewed the call yesterday afternoon.
‘‘People from higher-risk destinations, like India, should not be mixing and mingling in MIQ with passengers from the Pacific Islands,’’ he said.
The security guard who contracted the virus was the second worker to catch Covid-19 at the Grand Millennium this year.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins and Bloomfield have for weeks provided assurances border workers who do not take the vaccine would not be able to work at the facilities.