Covid 19 coronavirus: there will be no transtasman bubble before February at the earliest

A trans-Tasman bubble without quarantine before Christmas is out of the question and is unlikely to be implemented before February at the earliest, the Herald understands.

That will disappoint tour operators and hoteliers who are expecting an influx of Australian tourists to boost their business during the holiday period.

However, they will still see a push for Kiwis to take a summer break, and the government will soon unveil how it would handle a new Covid-19 outbreak complicated by vacationers traveling the country.

It comes as leading epidemiologists on both sides of the Tasman have wondered why we don’t have a transtasman bubble yet, which would also release about 40 percent of the sites in managed isolation facilities.

“Tour operators in Te Anau must be scratching their heads in puzzlement because they can host Auckland locals who were locked up for Covid eight weeks ago, but not Western Australians who haven’t seen a case of the virus for seven months “, Act. Said frontman David Seymour.

But the issue is not Australia’s relative Covid-free status, but what happens if Covid suddenly reappears.

One sticking point, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has spoken about in recent weeks, is the definition of a Covid hotspot that would trigger a regional travel ban in Australia.

There are currently 30 cases in three consecutive days, a threshold that Ardern has described as too risky. It would mean Melbourne could experience nine cases a day from a new outbreak and Melburn residents could fly to New Zealand without having to self-quarantine.

New Zealand could, and could, draw its own line in the sand for when we reinstate the quarantine for travelers from Australia.

“It means we have to do a little more planning and be prepared for the fact that we might have to close [the border] again, or change the requirements, “Ardern said.

She did not say how many cases in how many days is tolerable.

A transtasman bubble would also see more overseas arrivals from countries with more Covid than Australia, increasing the risk of the virus leaking from a community-managed isolation facility.

That would require more MIQ staff, nurses in particular, and the labor shortage is as much of an obstacle to the bubble as reaching an agreement on Covid’s hotspot criteria, the Herald has been told.

Another problem is stranded travelers. What should happen if a kiwi was flown into a part of Australia that was suddenly closed due to an outbreak? Could they return to New Zealand on MIQ and if so, would they have to pay for MIQ costs?

Other complexities include the security guarantees Australia can provide, following the two newcomers from Germany who were to be quarantined but managed to travel from Sydney to Melbourne.

And another is how the bubble could accommodate another country outside of the Pacific region.

All of these issues mean that a transtasman bubble is unlikely to occur before February at the earliest, the Herald understands.

The government has also been busy finalizing its summer resurgence plan, to be revealed on Tuesday, which will include specific scenarios so that people have an idea of ​​what to expect if Covid suddenly emerges in the community again.

The key issue will be the ability of DHBs and public health units to quickly set up test stations anywhere in the country, especially in summer vacation pressure points like Coromandel, or travel-heavy places like Picton.

On Sunday, the government will launch its summer Covid campaign, a heavy dose of communications on what people should do during the holidays, with the aim of reducing complacency and increasing the chances of fast and effective contact tracing.

That includes continued encouragement for QR scanning and wearing a mask on public transportation; the government has so far decided not to make them mandatory: hand hygiene and getting tested if you’re sick.

As of Monday, only 8 percent of registered users of the Covid tracking app had used it to scan QR codes in the previous 24 hours.

Yesterday, Kiwis were able to enable Bluetooth tracking for close contacts in their Covid Tracer apps, which the government hopes will shake Kiwis out of complacency.