Originally Posted by YOWgary

I disagree - it's at least as much about being seen to be doing something about "UK strain" COVID coming into the country, and to me, to a lesser extent it's simply the only way the federal government can express ITS covid-fatigue.

The phrasing chosen in today's announcement was pretty telling; that both ministers talked about the fact that they can't ban foreign travel, and asking people to do the right thing hasn't worked, so now they're putting up whatever additional roadblocks the law DOES permit.

Originally Posted by Fiordland

I hope this is the start of the longer term permanent solution. You show a test result or you show a vaccination card. If not on arrival you spend 3 days in a government controlled hold area.

Phase II should be to start to apply the same requirements for "essential exempt" travelers. Either vaccination card or test report.

The health authorities are also reaching the point where the vaccines are arriving faster than they can administer them. A solution could be to send some of that to a private operator that setups up shop at each of the airports. Business that have a need to have there people travel regularly can pay to get their people vaccinated outside of the health authority queue. That may not be popular on the universal healthcare front but it addresses restarting the economy. A reasonable exemption for the next six months.