Te Tai Tokerau Border Control say Northland borders may be in place over Christmas as the region struggles to lift its Covid-19 vaccination rates.
Hone Harawira, a spokesperson for Te Tai Tokerau Border Control told Q+A that the decision about when to lift border restrictions will depend on the level of protection the region has.
Although the Prime Minister has assured Aucklanders they’ll be able to leave lockdown for Christmas , the former MP for the region says they may not be able to enter the Far North.
“My understanding is you can’t come up here is our light isn’t green.
"If your lights are all green in Auckland...you can run around from the eastern side to the western side, you can run around from Mercer all the way up to Te Hana but you have to stay within your green light system.
“Once we’re green lighted, and we’re certainly doing as much as we can to get there ... cause we wanna get out, we wanna get free, we wanna catch up with our whānau as well. We want to make sure that happens as soon as we can possibly make it.”
He says they plan to maintain the border while vaccination rates are low, to buy their health teams time to get more people protected.
He says between trying to vaccinate people, treat those with Covid, and test those with symptoms the region’s health workers are “dropping like flies from fatigue”.
“We’re just doing what we can in terms of border control, to limit the number of people coming in to our territory, to give our meagre medical resources and our awesome medical teams the opportunity to lift our vaccination rates at home.”
Seventy-three staff from Te Whānau o Waipareira and several mobile vaccination teams are due to arrive in the North today to support those efforts.
In the meantime Hone Harawira is hoping those from outside the region are reasonable about the restrictions.
“We love you, you are from here, many of you, and those who aren’t you’ve been here in the past and we’d love to have you back.
"But please understand if, with all of our work, we aren’t able to get our rates up, please understand if its going to be a little later than it needs to be.
“Our aim has to be first of all to care for our people, to provide as much as we can to ensure their health and well being is the main target.
“If we’re up in the high 90s, welcome, welcome to our world. But if we’re not, understand if its going to be another couple of weeks.”
SHARE ME