Border closure an option in New Zealand pandemic

Researchers found the advantages of closing the borders could stack up. Photo / 123RF

Closing the border may make sense for New Zealand in some extreme pandemic situations, according to a newly published study.

"In a severe pandemic, timely/effective border closure could save tens of thousands of New Zealand lives, far outweighing the disruptions to the economy and the temporary end to tourism from international travellers," said one of the authors, Professor Nick Wilson from the University of Otago, Wellington.

"This finding is consistent with work that we published last year — except our new study used a more sophisticated model developed by the New Zealand Treasury for performing cost-benefit analyses," Wilson said.

The research has just been published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.

Another of the authors, Dr Matt Boyd, comments that with increasing risks of new pandemics due to growing population density and socio-economic, environmental and ecological factors, there is a need to look at different scenarios for better pandemic planning.

"Also, with advances in gene technology there is growing concern around the ease that new bioweapons could emerge deliberately or accidentally and they could cause a novel and very severe pandemic," suggested Boyd.

"There is even the scenario in future decades that a rogue form of artificial intelligence could develop such a bioweapon to allow it to escape from human control," he said.

The authors suggest there needs to be legal capacity for the Prime Minister and Cabinet to order the borders closed in under one day.

Wilson said: "It will be a very difficult decision — but ... it could save tens of thousands of lives."