A New Zealand airport worker tested positive for Covid-19, just one day after the country opened a quarantine-free travel bubble with Australia. The frontier worker is employed at Auckland Airport, the largest and busiest airport in New Zealand.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, told the press that the worker was fully vaccinated early in the start and tested positive as part of the routine investigation. She said the worker had cleaned planes coming from the “red zone”, or high-risk countries, and that “all indications are” that the case had nothing to do with new Australian arrivals.
Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt has indicated that the case is highly unlikely the freshly cut travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand.
Hunt told reporters that Australian authorities ‘have full confidence in New Zealand’s system’, which is dealing with an ‘inevitable outbreak’ with ‘highly developed inclusion systems’.
New Zealand airports are separated into red and green zones. The red zones deal with all international flights, where passengers are guided to managed isolation and quarantine. Green zones are used by domestic passengers, as well as those visited under quarantine-free travel arrangements from Australia, Niue and the Cook Islands.
Ardern said such cases could be expected at the border. “We fully expect that people who are vaccinated will still get Covid-19, it just means that they will not get sick, and that they will not die.”
“It’s by no means a leaky frontier,” she said as someone cleaning a plane that positively tests people infected with Covid.
Ardern said such cases were expected by the Australian and New Zealand governments when they announced the bubble rules. “The reason this person was part of our surveillance testing is because they worked in an area considered high risk,” she said. “They are working on aircraft from high-risk countries.”
Both Australia and New Zealand knew that with the opening of the borders on both sides, business would continue: “We accept that it will be part of our journey together.”
She said she had not yet spoken to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison but the countries’ health ministers were in touch.
She added that in addition to protecting workers from serious diseases, there is also evidence that the vaccine ‘reduces the chance of it being transmitted to others’.
Hunt said he and Australian officials ‘had a lot of confidence’ that New Zealand ‘knows how to deal with it’.
He noted that the worker was ‘fully vaccinated’ and ‘worked in the hot zones, receiving planes from areas abroad with a larger amount of cargo’.
‘But the worker did everything right. The New Zealand system has picked up a case and we know we have a very contagious disease but highly developed inclusion systems in New Zealand and Australia. ”
If the case is an isolated case, it is unlikely to affect the trans-Tasman bubble. When the bubble was announced, the New Zealand government set out a “traffic light” system to determine the conditions under which the quarantine-free road could be closed.
In the case of an Australian border case with a clear source, and where further spread was unlikely, the border would remain on ‘green’ and travel would continue. In a case of unknown origin that would probably be linked to the border, the border would be ‘orange’ and the journey could be interrupted for 72 hours. Where there have been several cases of unknown origin, the bubble may close.
The Ministry of Health said in a press release on Tuesday that ‘the usual protocol to isolate the case, conduct interviews with them and track their contacts and movements’ is underway, and more information will be provided later in the afternoon. .
New Zealand officials have previously warned that ‘flyer beware’ and that travelers should be careful as another outbreak in one of the two countries could mean the border will close. “We may have scenarios where travel will turn off one way,” Ardern said earlier this month. “It can therefore cause travelers – for a period of time – to get stuck on either side of the Tasman.”
Ardern told ABC TV this morning that 1,800 Australians crossed into New Zealand on Monday.