The coronavirus outbreak in Australia's largest city of Sydney continues to grow. Photo / AP file
The coronavirus outbreak in Australia's largest city of Sydney continues to grow. Photo / AP file
EDITORIAL:
The Government's blunt response to Sydney's lockdown by applying the brakes to the transtasman bubble shows that any major change in its Covid-19 approach will have to wait.
The focus is still squarely on keeping it out or dousing any flare-ups.
Some Kiwis in Australia expressed understandableanger at disruption to their travel plans. They face both financial and emotional hardship, having paid for trips to visit family.
One man planning to visit relatives here said: "We have been vaccinated. We have had clear Covid tests. There were no new cases in Melbourne today. We are New Zealanders."
When it came to the crunch, the Government late on Saturday night reached for its 2020 handbook and introduced a blanket ban for three days on quarantine-free travel to Australia.
It had previously introduced a pause in travel from New South Wales over the large Delta variant outbreak centred on Sydney.
The Sydney man who put Wellington on alert level 2 was confirmed to have been infected with the contagious variant. And the NSW state government has been criticised for waiting too long to introduce tough restrictions.
Community cases have appeared in Queensland and Western Australia, and a Virgin Airlines flight attendant tested positive after working on five flights.
Delta has become dominant around the world and is causing rising Covid cases and deaths in countries with low vaccination levels. In countries with good vaccination rates, deaths have stayed low. A vaccine immunity net can contain the variants but they can still circulate through unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated people.
Even with good levels of vaccination, Germany has 16 countries on a travel-restricted "variant watch list". Israel has reintroduced an indoor mask-wearing requirement.
New Zealand and Australia are in Catch-22 situations where more nuanced risk-based approaches to health safety aren't realistic while vaccinations are low and an infectious variant could get in - and yet the countries' governments are responsible for the pace of the vaccination rollout.
Once rollouts are completed, both countries will have to prepare their populations for a major change where vaccinated status is the centre of the worldwide protection strategy and people should be allowed to use it to travel without quarantine.
A replacement alert and safety system for next year will be needed.
People from high-risk countries would probably still face restrictions and MIQ facilities. Those from medium-risk nations could face pre-departure testing, shortened quarantine and some self-isolation.
For vaccinated Kiwis, testing for travel, digital passports, mask-wearing, self-isolation for a period on return, are likely to be part of that approach.
Australia is planning quarantine hubs for Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. Those are valid investments to deal with some categories of travellers and future virus outbreaks.
But a quarantine requirement for travellers who are fully vaccinated, living in a country with a high vaccination level, and visiting non-hotspot countries, would be hugely problematic.
Some sections of the population are already chafing at their mobility being restricted and travellers, such as ones who have seen their plans disrupted by the bubble pause, are pointing out that vaccination makes them low risk.
The bubble itself has been a messy experiment, but at least involved a requirement at times for people to self-isolate rather than having to go into quarantine. It has also allowed both countries to test their travel arrangements.
Whether it has helped or hindered the necessary mindset shift coming up will be something we will find out.
