Flights, freight, essential travel continue from north
Daily flights from Auckland to Christchurch and Cook Strait ferry trips to the South Island are continuing as more than 3300 exemptions are granted for motorists needing to travel in or out of Auckland during the current Covid-19 restrictions.
Only people needing to travel for essential purposes are allowed to cross the boundary between alert level 4 (Auckland and Northland) and alert level 3 (south of Auckland). Police stopped and checked cars at various checkpoints yesterday.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Ross van der Schyff said that as of 9.30am yesterday, 3312 businesses had been issued with business travel documentation to move across the border.
A Bluebridge Cook Strait Ferries spokesperson said the company was operating a full schedule for passengers permitted to travel under the current restrictions.
Interislander had three return ferry sailings yesterday. A KiwiRail spokesperson said the ships carried 147 passengers who were essential workers or individuals with permission to travel, along with 83 truck drivers and 250 commercial vehicles.
Air New Zealand had several flights scheduled yesterday, including between Auckland and Christchurch, Nelson and Wellington, and Christchurch and Wellington. A spokesperson declined to say how many passengers were booked to travel on these flights.
This is not the first time different regions have had different alert levels, but it is the first time part of the country is in full alert level 4 lockdown while the rest is not.
It would be risky to move the South Island to level 2 while the Auckland outbreak was not contained, Auckland University Professor Shaun Hendy said.
‘‘[Changing levels] will be contingent on Auckland bringing its outbreak under control. That won’t necessarily mean zero cases in Auckland, but may mean that transmission is no longer being seen.’’
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the risk posed by essential workers moving across alert level boundaries had to be carefully considered.
Public health experts had long suggested that the alert level system should be revised, so it could accommodate regions having different levels, he said. Earlier this year, Baker and two fellow epidemiologists devised a seven-tier system that allowed for ‘‘in-between’’ levels.
Baker said there needed to be a level that allowed people back at work and school, but
with appropriate barriers to prevent the virus being easily transmitted.
He said the seven-tiered system was designed to manage a situation such as the current outbreak more effectively.
‘‘Level 2, which is a level we are going to have to use a lot more, is not fit for purpose with this virus. We need the alert levels revised before we can move down.’’
Despite the warnings from health experts, there continue to be calls for a lower alert level in the South Island.
ACT leader David Seymour said the South Island had been ‘‘let down by slow contact tracing efforts’’.
‘‘There should be no need for South
Islanders to wait another five days to find out if they can leave the highly restrictive level 3.’’
Christchurch property investor Mike Percasky has also questioned the alert level decision, claiming that any positive cases in the South Island would have been known 10 days ago, as the Delta variant has a four-day incubation period.
‘‘It is worth remembering that it took us nearly 10 days to spot the Auckland outbreak after it likely began,’’ Hendy said.
One of the positive Covid-19 cases reported yesterday was a household contact of a Wellington case who had returned three negative tests before testing positive and remained asymptomatic.
Baker said there was no published evidence on Delta’s maximum incubation period.
‘‘That is why people are kept in MIQ for two weeks. Fourteen days is ... designed to cover the range of variability.’’
A Ministry of Health spokesperson said that as of 8am yesterday, 524 contacts were either self-isolating or had completed self-isolation in the South Island since the beginning of the current outbreak.