Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins is defending Government and health officials' messaging amid confusion from Kiwis returning home about whether or not they have to isolate, and if so, if it will cost.
When asked if there needs to be better clarity, Hipkins this morning told Breakfast that the Covid-19 risk and messaging was constantly changing as the virus was.
"We work really hard to try and be as clear and consistent as possible but sometimes the risk profile changes and the messages change," he said.
"We do press conferences where we try and get those messages out. Before we do the press conferences we try and get that information out to the airlines, get it ready to go straight up on the Covid-19 website and the [Ministry of] Health website , we make sure we are getting it to Healthline and the other places where people might ring seeking information.
"We're also doing all of that at speed and so we try and make sure that all of that information is out there and as accurate and complete as possible, as quickly as possible."
Hipkins comments come as quarantine-free travel from NSW remains paused and managed return flights from Sydney are in place.
All travellers on these flights will have to go into managed isolation for 14 days when they arrive in New Zealand. These travellers are not required to have a pre-departure test before flying.
"[At the] beginning of last week we were working on the basis of people from New South Wales would be able to come back into New Zealand without the need to quarantine, providing they'd done some things around pre-departure testing and isolating whilst they were in New South Wales," Hipkins said.
"The risk ultimately became too much for us to be comfortable going ahead with that approach and so hence we introduced the MIQ requirement."
Rules around other Australian states have changed too, including pre-departure Covid-19 testing and different rules if someone has been at a location of interest, Hipkins added.
"There are some differences here and people need to make sure they're making the time to get their heads around that before they book their travel home."
However, as those returning from Australia take up space in managed isolation, some people returning from elsewhere around the world are struggling to get bookings.
MIQ slots are currently fully booked until the end of November , with thousands of New Zealanders overseas competing for spots that pop up. Prices for third-party services have sky-rocketed, with one website charging nearly $2600 to secure a voucher on the behalf of desperate Kiwis.
But Hipkins this morning said there had been opportunity for those people to come home.
"You would have heard me say over the last few months we had low demand for MIQ, to those Kiwis who are living abroad, further afield, 'now is a good time to come home, we do expect demand will increase again in the future'," he said.
"Now, of course, we are at that point where demand is starting to increase again and it is becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of an MIQ voucher.
"We've just been through a period for several months where that hasn't been the case, people have been able to log in, get a voucher at relatively short notice and it hasn't been difficult for them to come home so I was during that time encouraging Kiwis to take up that opportunity."
Hipkins also said when the trans-Tasman bubble opened officials made a provision for 500 rooms in case of an emergency need such as these NSW travellers.
As well, extra rooms for people coming from NSW have been freed up by delaying some maintenance work, he said.
"During this period where demand has been lower we have been doing maintenance on our hotels. They've been being used now for this purpose and some of them need work done on them ... we're keeping them going so we can deal with this unexpected peak."
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