nzkarit

A bubble flights before vaccine passport to bypass MIQ will always run the risk of having bubble shut down with hours of notice & flights enroute ending up in MIQ.

Vaccine rollout is up in the air & have two strategies:
* Be very public and optimistic with time line and have Italy block shipments which may throw out timelines.
* Release plan it just in time when vaccine is actually in country & start vaccinating two days before the country with a public plan started.

bce1

So..... now vaccinated.
Do I need to go through MIQ on my return from a trip to Australia?
There is now good published data around the Pfizer vaccine and lack of ‘carrier’ state.
I have had antibodies measured and have immunity .........
So there is no medical reason to not allowing quarantine free travel, but it’s not being allowed ....... so this being the case, it is now political and not medical.
I think as the numbers of vaccinated people rise this question is going to become more pressing. MOH don’t have an answer.
Not all work can be done by zoom and I have pressing work in Australia and the UK, so will have to travel at some point - but cannot even get a MIQ slot.

I think we have a zero risk very egalitarian government so my answer will be no you cannot travel until the rest of country has been vaccinated.... so roll on heard immunity at 65-70% in Sept-October.....

bce1

PS - no vaccine passport yet, but enough data is being collected to easily supply a statement of who had what, on what day and what batch.

oranjemakker

Sadly I agree with you and this Govt only strategy is to lock us all up. And re herd immunity, there seem to be A LOT of nutcase anti vaxxers out there who may scupper the whole herd immunity thing anyway.
My latest thinking is to travel to the USA once they are offering all who want it the vaccine (maybe as soon as June July) so I'm not taking it from any people who need it and then just dealing with MIQ on return. There is no way this shower will be able to rollout a vaccine programme in 2021 to cover everyone in NZ

sbiddle

One thing to remember about all the discussions of "herd immunity" figures of around 70% of the population is that close to 20% of the population will not be vaccinated this year anyway because they're aged under 16, and currently no vaccines are approved. It's probably going to be at least 12 months before any are approved.

This means to hit 70% of the population vaccinated you'd only have 10% of eligible people declining it.

bce1

Yep.
Which is exactly what the problem is going to be - although despite all the bluster the UK has a vaccine refusal rate of a couple % - although the population there is scared compared to here. Australia is about 5% currently - but as creeps out more widely likely to get bigger. Not enough have been done here to get a feeling for it - but MoH are predicting 5-10%
But I think it gets to the point where if enough vaccine has arrived in the country and you have declined it. Then its your risk.
We cannot eradicate this, so we have to learn to live with it at some point.
The risk here in terms of why we have done what we have done, has always been 80% to mitigate health system failure and 20% to prevent death - the public only get the later - but that's about the weightings of the risk - so if you have essentially protected the medium and high risk populations and bought down the overall numbers that will require hospitalisation substantially then you have lost your arguments for shutting the country! Time will tell how long it takes the government to get to that point.....

cavemanzk

Currently I’m now expecting early Q1 2022, the current government seems to have litre desire to open any boarders this year. They need to control there current boarder leaks before they can go forward.

Mwenenzi

Australia allows quarantine free travel NZ to AU, so as long as their is not a community outbreak in NZ. Has been suspended twice. Is currently suspended. My understanding notice have been given, before flight departs, when the suspensions have been initiated. Australia introduced this one way bubble mid Oct 2021 (~5 months ago).

A while ago Jacinda said the requirement the non quarantine travel AU to NZ was that AU needed 28 days of no community transmission. NZ Govt seems to have pulled back on that in recent times. Now being far more risk adverse/conservative in media statements. NZ Govt seems to be looking for reasons/excuses not to have a TT bubble.. While some AU states have had 28 days of no community transmission, the country as an whole has not got to that.


Edit
Posts 193 to 204 inclusive were in a separate thread (Educated Guesses: When will TT "bubble" open?)in the Air NZ forum. Moved by a moderator.

sbiddle

WA went 10 months with no cases. There was zero reason a bubble couldn't have existed except for politics (or maybe they just didn't want NZ's Covid..)

bensyd

Western Australia doesn't control the international border. The federal government was adamant that no states would be allowed to have quarantine free international arrivals while they remained closed to other states.

supine

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political...ld-open-border

henrus

Well NZ to AU is back but I guess it's still quite pointless until we get AU to NZ going.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/...can-recommence

cavemanzk

It was as simple as Australia removing Auckland from the federal hotspot. The rest of Néw Zealand’s, could still travel to Australia. I did see an CHC-SYD a320 flight with NZ yesterday, which looks as if it was an one off. Transit via AKL, was still allowed while Auckland was an federal hotspot.

New Zealand’s reasons for not opening up, are becoming bazar. In March so far are more likely to get COVID in Auckland, than Brisbane.

Mwenenzi

The first AU closure of the TT bubble was federal (all states in agreement). The lastest was a unilateral announcement by QLD Govt that people from NZ needed to do 14 days. Other states did the same, but with different rules. Was not common federal/state decision.

NZ politics in play
10 March (nzherald.co.nz)--->Covid 19 coronavirus: National leader Judith Collins calls on Government to open travel bubble with Australia

Edit posted in wrong thread
Now moved

cavemanzk

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/polit...-thats-on-them

Pressure is starting to mount on the Government to open an bubble with Australia, Scott Morrison has taking his own dig at the slowness today. Along with Judith, will be an interesting month.

Ironically in the 1980s New Zealand, would haven against the Berlin Wall. In 2021 the goverment seems to be embracing the New Zealand Wall, even when there are low risk options that provide social and economic benefits.