Balancing act: Bubble vs outbreak

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has suggested New Zealand will deal with outbreaks in Australia the same way it deals with outbreaks here when the long-awaited transtasman bubble is up and running.

Ardern – who plans to next week announce a start date for a bubble – has also signalled how New Zealand might shut off travel to individual Australian states when needed.

With New Zealand and Australia working through arrangements for quarantine-free travel, Queensland has reported a spate of new community cases that has forced the greater Brisbane area into a three-day lockdown.

Asked yesterday about that flareup, Ardern spoke of the importance of aligning how New Zealand would respond to a similar outbreak here.

She couldn’t say how the Queensland outbreak would affect a bubble were one in place.

Brisbane’s ordeal showed why it was important “that we get the settings right and the planning right”.

“We will have situations where New Zealand will have to respond to cases in Australia, in the same way Australia has had to deal with cases in New Zealand,” she said.

“What’s important is that we get all of the infrastructure we need to make sure we can respond quickly to keep New Zealanders safe.”

While she didn’t share any specifics about criteria for closing borders, Ardern pointed to the importance of giving travellers predictability.

That included letting them know how prepared they’d need to be in the event they had to stay where they were if there was a border closure.

She also gave some indications about how New Zealand might interact with separate states.

“Yes, there is absolutely a chance that if a state has an outbreak, if we’re confident that border controls are in place, we could turn off that state,

whilst continuing travel elsewhere.”

Covid-19 modeller Professor Michael Plank said it would be interesting to see precisely what the bubble rules looked like, and how travellers would be affected by outbreaks.

“Are they asked to remain where they are? Or are they asked to come home, but go through quarantine, or go into home isolation? ”

Otago University epidemiologist Professor Nick Wilson expected the current outbreak wouldn’t have any major implications for the prospects of a bubble.

“Australia has been pretty good at outbreak control, with their combined use of contact tracing and lockdowns,” he said.

The Ministry of Health announced yesterday 11 new Covid-19 cases in managed isolation related to new arrivals. There were no community cases.

Of the new cases, 10 arrived from India on a flight via the United Arab Emirates on Saturday.

They all tested positive on arrival during routine testing. The other new case arrived on March 26 from Italy, via Singapore, and returned a positive routine test on day 1.

All 11 new cases are in managed isolation and quarantine in Auckland.