The Prime Minister says Cabinet is anticipating an update on New Zealand’s situation later this morning after revelations the Australian traveller with Covid-19 might have been infectious towards the end of his Wellington trip.
It comes as the traveller’s wife tested positive for the virus yesterday after initially testing negative.
Jacinda Ardern told Breakfast that demonstrated that despite the man was “likely to be infectious … towards the end [of his trip to Wellington]”.
Ardern said there was no new information about any Covid-19 cases in New Zealand overnight, but that authorities were expecting test results later this morning.
Extending Wellington’s time at Alert Level 2 until at least Wednesday would give authorities time to observe test results for the next 48 hours, she said.
It also comes as more than 1000 people were placed in isolation on Saturday after a mine worker in Australia’s Northern Territory tested positive for Covid-19. The state entered a 48-hour snap lockdown yesterday, but some workers would have already travelled to other parts of Australia.
Ardern said they didn’t know “at this stage” whether any of those miners had come to New Zealand, as she knew there were Kiwis who worked in Australia’s mines.
She said Customs was still cross-checking the details of recent returnees.
Ardern said if there were no local Covid-19 cases recorded locally in the next few days, she said Wellington would likely return to Alert Level 1.
“I would anticipate we would have greater comfort in removing those restrictions,” she said.
The next 72 hours would also be crucial in deciding what would happen to the Australian travel bubble, which is currently paused for all states.
“You may see different guidance for different states. That 72 hours gives us the time just to assess everyone’s status.”
New South Wales’ travel bubble pause, however, would definitely extend beyond then, Ardern said.
The situation in Wellington also demonstrated vaccines weren’t the silver bullet for Covid-19, because the traveller’s wife still contracted the virus, she added.
“A vaccination in itself doesn’t prevent issues in its entirety. So, the person who brought Covid into New Zealand from Australia had one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.”
She said vaccines “are important, but they don’t do everything we need right now until we have really, really high rates of vaccination”.
“Even then, you may still need to have some precaution at your border.”
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