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Meanwhile, people here, including health experts, want the government to tighten the screws on its border controls.
A new highly infectious variant of Covid-19 is spreading across Britain, while another, imported from South Africa, is being investigated by experts.
A New Zealander in the UK, Ranko Berich, described the plight of his fellow Kiwis as “hundreds of people in dire straits”.
He has been trying to get home to his wife and two young children, after quitting his job and calling at his apartment, but they have found themselves in the middle of the trip interruption.
Hundreds of flights were canceled after Singapore and Hong Kong stopped allowing transits.
“We are effectively unemployed and homeless and we have to fight to make alternative arrangements,” he said.
“There are a lot of people in a worse situation where they struggle to find accommodation, they are worried about money and they really have no options.”
The situation is complicated by the New Zealand managed isolation reserve system, which is full for about 10 weeks.
The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment said people would be able to keep their isolation reservations managed if they rebooked new flights on the same day as the canceled ones.
Between eight and 20 arrivals per day were expected to be affected by the outage in the coming weeks, and he said canceled bookings would be republished on days with flights from the UK.
Berich said he had been unable to find any managed isolation reserves that lined up with the flights.
“It is a really difficult situation and we hope to see a little more participation from the various agencies,” he said.
While two airlines are still taking flights from the UK to New Zealand, Berich wanted the government to consider repatriation flights if that changed.
Shiwon Green, another kiwi in the UK on the same boat, said it was devastating, distressing and potentially lethal for kiwis to be away from their home country due to a lack of flexibility with controlled isolation.
“For me that is not right. There are people who have given their lives and someone is getting a last minute ticket to spend a summer vacation in New Zealand. It really doesn’t ring a bell at all,” he said.
On the other hand, some health experts in New Zealand also made their own appeals to the government about the border measures.
Epidemiologist Michael Baker said the country needed to adapt as the virus mutates, and he wanted pre-trip Covid testing for New Zealanders before flying home.
“We have to do a lot more work at our borders. I think the message I would take from this is that we need to add that extra step before passengers get on planes to New Zealand. Some of us have been talking about this for many months because seems to be the missing element in New Zealand’s defenses, “he said.
Microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles did not want anyone to stop coming to the country because the place they were in did not offer testing.
Until scientists knew exactly how transmissible the new strains were, New Zealand’s best defenses against an outbreak were community actions like getting tested and using the Covid tracking app, he said.
“Regardless of how infectious it is, we know how to stop it. That is by taking really good infection prevention and control measures, and everyone in the community doing things that mean if a case crosses the border, we really catch it.” fast, “he said.
Moving on to the holiday season, Dr. Wiles said that meant there was no time for complacency.
“Don’t think this virus is gone.”
The Health Ministry said yesterday that it was closely monitoring international developments.
He turned down RNZ’s interview requests, as did the health minister, the Covid-19 response minister, and the minister on duty.
– Katie Todd
