NEW ZEALAND TO SLIGHTLY RE-START "TRAVEL BUBBLE" WITH AUSTRALIA
Date : 29th June, 2021
The New Zealand government announced to restart quarantine-free travel with parts of Australia next week as it lifted COVID-19 curbs in Wellington on Tuesday.
New Zealand halted its "travel bubble" with Australia on Saturday as an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant took root in Sydney and several other Australian cities.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said quarantine-free travel will restart with South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria states where as the Australian Capital Territory will resume from Monday, although authorities would continue to review the situation until then. The pause in travel with Western Australia, New south Wales, Queensland state and Northern Territory will reviewed on Tuesday.
Hipkins mentioned in a news conference that "The cabinet agreed that partially lifting the pause was the appropriate course of action,". said. He also mentioned that "The health advice is that the spread of COVID-19 in these parts of Australia has been contained at this point,".
Travellers will be required to provide a negative COVID-19 test pre-departure and must not have visited the blocked states and territories in recent days, Hipkins said.
The Sydney outbreak also led officials to impose social distancing restrictions in Wellington a week ago after an Australian tourist who visited the city tested positive for COVID-19 after returning home.
Hipkins also mentioned that the measures will be eased from midnight on Tuesday.
The last community case of Covid-19 in New Zealand was in February. No new cases were reported on Tuesday. New Zealand has so far had 2,385 confirmed cases and 26 deaths linked to the virus.
