The extended Auckland lockdown and no prospects of an international visitor market this summer has created market conditions that place YHA in an unsustainable financial position.

The properties closing permanently are; YHA Auckland International, YHA Rotorua, YHA Wellington, YHA Christchurch, YHA Lake Tekapo, YHA Aoraki Mt Cook, YHA Wanaka, YHA Queenstown Central, YHA Queenstown Lakefront, YHA Te Anau, YHA Franz Josef and Our Dog Friday Cafe.

Our 20 privately owned and operated Associate hostels will continue to operate.

The Youth Hostel Association will permanently close its 11 hostels from next month.

The YHA said the extended Auckland lockdown and no prospects of an international visitors this summer left the association in an unsustainable financial position. The 11 hostels owned by the association will close from 15 December after 89 years of operation. The association is also linked with 23 other individually-owned properties around the country which will continue to operate as normal, Cartwright said.
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The YHA-managed hostels to close next month are: YHA Auckland International, YHA Rotorua, YHA Wellington, YHA Christchurch, YHA Lake Tekapo, YHA Aoraki Mt Cook, YHA Wanaka, YHA Queenstown Central, YHA Queenstown Lakefront, YHA Franz Josef and YHA Te Anau.
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The number of people vying for a room in managed isolation has dropped to a third of last week’s numbers in the first virtual lobby since changes to the system were announced.

Fully vaccinated Kiwis travelling from Australia can bypass managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) from January 17, instead self-isolating at home for seven days. Those returning from other countries will be allowed to do so from February 14.

Joint head of MIQ Chris Bunny said the changes to MIQ from next year caused a significant drop in the number of people participating in Thursday’s room release.

There were 5426 people in the lobby at 4pm – about 9200 fewer than last week – and for the first time since running the virtual lobbies, everybody that joined the queue could enter the allocation website.
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Summary of the stats
The lobby opened about 10 minutes before 3pm today.

At 4pm 5,426 people were moved into the queue — this represented 8,182 passengers. These numbers grew as people entered the queue throughout the room release (these people go to the back of the queue). There were 6,307 people in the queue in total, representing 9,341 passengers.

4,927 people from 122 countries managed to secure MIQ vouchers – that’s across 3,320 rooms. The number of available rooms was 3,411, but not all rooms were taken.
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6,214 people from 126 countries managed to secure MIQ vouchers – that’s across 4,230 rooms.
More than 43,500 people have secured vouchers through the last 8 room releases.
Rooms started being released at 1pm and were gone by 3:45pm.
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At 10am 14,205 people were moved into the queue — this represented 22,458 passengers. These numbers grew as people entered the queue throughout the room release (these people go to the back of the queue). There were 16,277 people in the queue in total, representing 24,695 passengers. 26% of passengers got a booking.

5,888 people from 128 countries managed to secure MIQ vouchers – that’s across 4,039 rooms.

More than 37,300 people have secured vouchers through the last 7 room releases.

Rooms started being released at 10am and were gone by 12:27pm.
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OPINION: “If you want summer, get vaccinated” has been the Government’s message to Kiwis for several weeks.

Failing to do so will mean “there will be everyday things you will miss out on”. That was the plan anyway. And it was a solid plan.

The implementation of that plan - using technology(!) - has been less impressive.
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Thirdly, and you couldn’t make this up, the My Vaccine Pass record was sent out as an editable PDF. Meaning anyone can edit their Pass’ name and date of birth, with the most basic of software, in a matter of seconds.
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People who cannot get their vaccine pass online, can now visit a pharmacy to have a hard copy printed out.

It is one of the new channels offered by the Ministry of Health to help people access their Covid-19 vaccine passes. More than 300 pharmacies are listed on Healthpoint as offering vaccinations and many of those will also print out or email vaccine passes to people. Some are yet to implement the service so people are being advised to call ahead to check.

Liv from Unichem Wellington Central Pharmacy said since it began printing passes yesterday, around 50 people had come in and used the service."We've had quite a few people come in, not so much that we can't keep up and we can still stay on top of our other pharmacy practices but it's been a pretty constant flow in the last few days."Many of those people were having trouble with using technology to download their own pass or had international forms of ID that could not be used to access their My Health account online, she said.
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Alongside the My COVID Record website, people can also call 0800 222 478 to request a physical copy of their pass. Ministry of Health national digital services group manager Michael Dreyer said call centres had faced "unprecedented demand" with more than 70,000 calls to the 0800 number on Thursday alone. There are now three call centres operating with extended hours to help people wanting to set up their My Covid Record, check their NHI number, or generate their My Vaccine Pass - which can be saved digitally or posted or emailed out to them.
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Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins has defended the Government's vaccine pass rollout, as he said there are still up to 100,000 people waiting to get one.
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On Thursday, the Ministry of Health said around 70,000 Kiwis will be issued temporary exemptions from being required to produce a My Vaccine Pass while they await assistance obtaining them. The temporary exemption is a record of the individual’s request for assistance and has a unique identifier, the ministry said in a statement.
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>In his answer, Hipkins says that number is actually now higher but is being worked through. "If we break those numbers down, as of this morning, there were somewhere between 90 to 100,000 issues in the queue to be dealt with," he said." More than half of those are people who have been vaccinated overseas and are attempting to get their vaccines recognised in New Zealand, or they're people where there have been name-related issues in the way their records are in the system." For example, people who gave a slightly different variant of their name when they got their second dose compared to when they got their first dose and the system may not match them up well to generate their pass."
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