Quarantine debacles

I am angry. Angry at the Government and the Ministry of Health following the debacles surrounding quarantine arrangements for travellers arriving into New Zealand since lockdown level 4.

I find it incomprehensible that two women from the UK, one of the worst infected countries in the world, were allowed to enter New Zealand without testing and subsequently be permitted to travel from Auckland to Wellington, again without a test. This is not the only example of lax management.

We as a nation of 5 million have endured weeks of lockdown in an effort to eliminate the virus. This appears to have been successful.

We have been told on many occasions, in their daily media briefings, by Jacinda Ardern and Dr Ashley Bloomfield of the need to test, test, test. We have had tests undertaken in carparks for locals to ensure there is no community transmission.

Yet now we discover travellers crossing our borders are not being tested or tested spasmodically even though many come from the world’s worst infected countries. This is unbelievable. If this continues we will be setting ourselves up to return to level 4, many more deaths and the spending of many billions to mitigate the economic fallout.

I fail to understand how the Government and Ministry of Health can on the one hand impose draconian measures on 5 million New Zealanders but on the other allow minimum or laughable control measures on people crossing our borders.

How highly paid Ministry of Health officials cannot design and administer a bulletproof quarantine regime involving testing, testing, testing is beyond me.

Perhaps it is understandable when their own minister David Clark cannot understand or follow his own lockdown rules regarding exercise.

Mark Stephens Temuka