PM Jacinda Ardern: New Zealand needs some level of herd immunity before border restrictions are eased

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has revealed that New Zealand will need to have a certain level of herd immunity to Covid-19 before the border restrictions are significantly changed.

But that may still be a long way off: Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said that some travel restrictions would likely remain in place for another 12 to 18 months.

Speaking to the media this morning, Ardern said the government was still working on its immunization strategy, which focuses on a Covid-19 vaccine.

“Ultimately, 2021 will be the year of the vaccine,” he said.

But Ardern said New Zealand’s goal is to achieve a certain level of immunity before the government considers changing its border restrictions.

People should be able to safely go about their daily lives before quarantine rules are relaxed, he said.

He said the question is: “What will it take us, through immunization, to achieve that herd immunity? [level]? “

Once that question has been answered, he said New Zealanders might be less concerned about what is happening at the border.

Hipkins said work is underway, given the vaccines that continued to emerge, to decide how much of the population would need to be vaccinated before travel restrictions could be eased.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be 100 percent, we may never get to 100 percent.”

But he said some form of travel restrictions is likely to remain in effect for the next 18 months.

“The sooner we remove the restrictions, the better,” he told the media this morning.

He added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was talking with other countries about an international system to vaccinate people in a certified way.

“We need to know if someone has been vaccinated or not. We would like to know that as part of our general protective measures.”

He said it would likely be the subject of many diplomatic discussions, but part of that could be a technological fix.

The NZ Covid app could not only show if someone had been tested and the result of that test, but it could also show if someone had been vaccinated and why.