Covid 19 coronavirus: Criteria for urgent travel to New Zealand are expanded; 75 MIQ beds per week free

The government is expanding the circle of people who can apply for urgent travel to New Zealand and is freeing them about 75 rooms per week.

Previously, that door was only open for Kiwis whose health or lives were at serious risk, but now critical workers, Kiwis in travel limbo and those with a dying family member in New Zealand can apply.

But the entry bar remains “extremely high,” says Megan Main, deputy executive director of managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

The announcement comes at a time when Kiwis are clamoring to come home for the summer, but MIQ spaces are extremely limited.

The criteria for rush trips have now been changed to a tiered system, with priority for category 1 applicants:

Category 1

• Citizens or residents of New Zealand who are at serious risk to their health or dependents, requiring urgent travel to New Zealand, or where urgent travel is required to ensure that a child receives adequate care and protection.

Category 2

• Citizens or residents of New Zealand who must provide critical care to a dependent person in New Zealand and must travel urgently to do so.

• A person whose speedy entry to New Zealand is necessary for a critical health or public service, such as the provision of specialized health services necessary to prevent serious illness, injury or death, or the maintenance of essential infrastructure the failure of which would result in damage significant. or disruption of large numbers of New Zealanders

• Citizens or residents of New Zealand who cannot legally remain in their current location and have no choice but to return to New Zealand

• New Zealanders and non-New Zealanders, when urgent travel to New Zealand is required for reasons of national security, national interest or law enforcement

• Citizens or residents of New Zealand entering New Zealand to visit a close relative who is dying, where it is unlikely that it will be possible to travel on time if the person books through the MIQ coupon system

Main said that anyone who meets these criteria will not necessarily be allowed entry.

“This will depend on the number of applicants and the places available.

“These decisions are not easy to make. We sympathize with the distressing situations people applying for an emergency assignment find themselves in.

“However, we need to balance each individual application with our critical work to ensure the safety of all New Zealanders and the limited capacity available by sequencing beds as they become available.”

The threshold for being assigned a bed for urgent travel was “extremely high.”

“To be eligible for an emergency assignment, travel must be time critical, the applicant must have the legal right to enter New Zealand and must be willing to travel within seven days of submitting their application.”

She said the canceled flights had freed up between five and eight beds each day that had previously been assigned to someone with a voucher.

“To date, we have released as many of these into the system as possible by manually checking reserves on a regular basis. From now on, these will be kept aside for emergency allocations.”

Another seven or eight rooms a day were free because people with coupons and booked flights didn’t make it to New Zealand.

“Due to these factors, we are confident that we can make around 150 rooms available per fortnight for those who need to travel urgently.”