New Zealand pauses travel bubble with Australia after COVID-19 lockdowns in Perth and Peel
25 April, 2021
New Zealand on Friday (Apr 23) paused its newly opened travel bubble with Australia, the federal government in Wellington said, after a COVID-19 outbreak in its larger neighbour.
"As set out inside our Trans-Tasman bubble protocols, travel between New Zealand and Western Australia has been paused, pending further advice from the state," a statement on the brand new Zealand government website said.
Your choice came after Western Australia announced that the parts of Perth and Peel were entering a three-day lockdown, starting midnight Friday to Saturday, because of a traveller testing positive for the coronavirus.
Your choice to lock down followed "a positive COVID-19 case from hotel quarantine who was simply mixed up in community", a statement on the Western Australia government website said.
Local media reported a man in his 50s flew into Melbourne from Perth on Wednesday and tested positive for the coronavirus earlier Friday.
He underwent the legally required quarantine in a Perth hotel and, once released, visited restaurants, a university, a public pool, a doctor's office and a friend's house before leaving the region.
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New Zealand and Australia had opened their quarantine-free travel bubble on Apr 18, almost 400 days once they closed their borders because of the pandemic.
The bubble, which followed months of negotiations between your largely coronavirus-free neighbours, was hailed as a significant milestone in restarting a worldwide travel industry that has been crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
It meant that passengers from Australia and New Zealand - both of which have largely contained COVID-19 - could fly over the Tasman Sea without undergoing mandatory quarantine on arrival.
The leaders of both nations had hailed the bubble, which also would have provided a much-needed boost to New Zealand's beleaguered tourism industry, and urged residents to take good thing about it.
Before COVID-19 brought New Zealand's tourism industry to its knees, it had been the country's biggest export industry, with Australians accounting for approximately 40 % of the international visitors.
After the travel bubble was announced, a spokesman for Australian flag carrier Qantas said tickets to New Zealand were "selling like hot cakes" with a solid "load" to Queenstown, which is billed as the country's "Adventure capital".
New Zealand authorities revealed on Apr 20 an Auckland airport worker had tested positive for COVID-19, but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at that time it could not affect the bubble, that was then barely a day old.
Ardern said the cleaner worked on planes arriving from "red zone" countries deemed risky, not Australia.
She said both Australia and New Zealand expected to handle border cases, and had systems in spot to do that without closing the long-awaited travel bubble.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
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