After almost a month of restrictions, quarantine-free travel between Melbourne and New Zealand is set to be restored. Photo / Getty
After almost a month of restrictions, quarantine-free travel between Melbourne and New Zealand is set to be restored. Photo / Getty
The travelling public is set to enjoy quarantine-free flights with Victoria in a little over 12 hours, nearly a month after a Covid outbreak hit the Australian state.
There are no new Covid community cases in New Zealand today.
There are also no cases to report among recent returnees in managed isolation facilities since the Ministry of Health's last update yesterday.
There were 16 contacts who had been identified in New Zealand as being at locations of interest in Sydney, however.
The majority of these contacts self-identified through Healthline and have been provided appropriate health advice to stay at home and be tested, the ministry said.
Five of them are required to isolate for 14 days and be tested twice in that time, and all have returned a negative first test.
A further 11 are required to self-isolate until they return a negative day-five test. Of those, eight have returned a negative test and three are outstanding.
Quarantine-free travel with New South Wales remains in place, meanwhile, but health officials were keeping an eye on developments in the Australian state, the Ministry of Health said. NSW recorded ten new local cases of Covid-19 today.
Contact tracing teams last week got in touch with 6824 passengers from New South Wales, who arrived in New Zealand before last Wednesday, when the first recent community case in Sydney was announced.
These were travellers who had been in NSW since June 11.
"We also want to remind anyone with symptoms to get tested. This advice applies to everyone, not just recent travellers," the ministry said.
There are now 21 community cases linked to the highly infectious Delta virus strain with 10 new cases announced today in NSW.
Queensland health officials also announced a new community case on Sunday in an air crew worker. However, New Zealand health officials had determined that, at this time, the Covid public health risk to New Zealand was low.
Anyone who was at Brisbane Airport at DFO outlet shop between 4pm and 4.30pm, or the Brisbane Portuguese Family Centre from 7pm onwards on Saturday, June 19, must contact Healthline, get tested and stay home until they receive a negative result.
Quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Victoria is set to resume at 11.59pm.
There have been no new local cases in the past 24 hours as the Garden State brings its latest outbreak under control.
After almost a month of restrictions, quarantine-free travel between Melbourne and New Zealand is set to be restored. Photo / Getty
At this point the public health risk is deemed low, and while officials are regularly reviewing developments, there was no change in present travel arrangements.
Despite the NSW and Queensland scares, quarantine free travel with Victoria was due to resume, the Ministry said.
"Following an assessment by New Zealand public health officials that the public health risk from Victoria is low, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins agreed to lift the pause in quarantine-free travel with the Australian State from 23.59 tonight," it said.
"From this time, QFT flights between New Zealand and Victoria can resume."
"Travellers will no longer be required to have a pre-departure test."
The resumption of quarantine-free travel with Victoria came as there were 20 active cases of Covid in New Zealand managed facilities.
The seven-day rolling average of new cases detected at the border was now one. Since January 1, 2021, there had been 76 historical cases, out of a total of 547 cases.
The total number of confirmed cases to have been in New Zealand was 2363.
The total number of tests processed by laboratories to date is 2,229,592. On Monday, 2857 tests were processed. The seven-day rolling average was 4207.
