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Mike Yardley: Government has stalled long enough on taking some brave baby steps

Author
Mike Yardley,
Publish Date
Mon, 7 Dec 2020, 9:54AM
(Photo / NZ Herald)
(Photo / NZ Herald)

Mike Yardley: Government has stalled long enough on taking some brave baby steps

Author
Mike Yardley,
Publish Date
Mon, 7 Dec 2020, 9:54AM

It’s pleasing to see the criteria for urgent travel to New Zealand has widened, with seventy five MIQ rooms being freed up.

Critical workers, those in travel limbo and Kiwis with a dying relative can now apply for urgent travel.

It’s a tweak to MIQ , not a transformation. The biggest change the government should be lining up for MIQ pertains to Australia. Abolishing the two weeks in MIQ for Trans-Tasman arrivals would free up forty per cent of all MIQ spaces.

It’s becoming increasingly unconvincing to portray Australia as a Covid-spreading threat to New Zealand. Their case rates have dropped like a stone. They are matching our success story, not that any management system is completely risk free.

The occasional case spreading from hotel quarantine over there is no different to our occasional case. Nor it helpful, when New South Wales police mistakenly allow two arrivals from Germany to fly on to Melbourne, skipping hotel quarantine. But the brilliance of genomic sequencing and contact tracing is stamping out any scares fast, on both sides of the Tasman.

It is simply not plausible to consider viewing Australia as a potential menace to our Covid status. How am I anymore at risk of catching Covid in Manly, than Mangere? How is St Kilda Beach Melbourne higher risk than St Kilda in Dunedin?

I’m a huge fan of the traffic-light system that many public health experts want to see unleashed on our border. We need to modulate our strategy and be smarter. Target the higher risk countries of origin with even tougher requirements, pre and post flight, while low to no risk countries should get the green light. Australia and the Cooks should be accorded quarantine-free status.

The government has stalled long enough on taking some brave baby steps. Even if they won’t press go on opening up safe travel zones before Christmas, fine. But what about the New Year? How about February? Or March? 

They should signal their intentions well in advance , not just to give us hope and reassurance that there is real traction.

But most importantly confidence. Confidence to plan accordingly, ahead of opening up. Confidence that real change is coming.

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