Editorial: Covid-19 border rule changes show pandemic response must be flexible

A medical staffmember prepares to test workers at the Ports of Auckland. Photo / Dean Purcell, File

EDITORIAL

In case you missed it, the Government this week made some changes to rules around our frontline in the battle against Covid-19 .

While the wording in the changes is layered in bureacratic vocabulary, it can be read between the lines that we are still making up our response to this pandemic as we go along.

The amendments to border orders came into effect on Monday to "further strengthen and fine-tune New Zealand's frontline defences against Covid-19", according to the official line from the Ministry of Health.

Some of the changes to the air and isolation and quarantine orders, via the Covid-19 Public Health Response (Air Border and Isolation and Quarantine) Amendment Order (No 2) 2020, might come as a surprise to those who already think our borders are too porous.

Such as the definition of "aircrew" being changed to include aircrew who are not working but returning from an overseas leg.

The "tweaks" as they were described this week also included exclusion from managed isolation for "a small number of additional people, where the health risk is deemed very low".

On the other hand, some of the changes are more likely to be starching up areas of border control which have been deemed lacking. Such as mandating personal protective equipment (PPE) be used in specific high-risk scenarios on ports and ships.

This is likely a result of the marine electronics technician who is thought to have caught the virus at the Ports of Auckland before driving to work at New Plymouth and returning to Auckland where he tested positive. Epidemiologists called the man a hero for his precautions which prevented a major outbreak.

As an example of how precarious the situation remains, one of this week's amendments eased the rules for aircrew arriving from Antarctica as members of a scientific programme or expedition, and who have been determined "to pose a negligible public health risk".

Two days later, it was revealed that Antarctica had its first infections with the Chilean research base confirming 36 new cases of Covid-19, including 26 members of the Chilean army and 10 maintenance workers.

Clearly, extreme flexibility will continue to be needed in our efforts to fend off this "tricky virus".