NEW ZEALAND SUSPENDS TRAVEL BUBBLE WITH AUSTRALIA OVER COVID-19 OUTBREAKS

Sat 26 June 2021:

New Zealand announced a three-day suspension of its quarantine-free travel arrangement with Australia on Saturday, with the government citing “multiple” outbreaks of Covid-19 in Australian states and territories.

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the suspension would give officials time to consider measures “to make the bubble safer, such as pre-departure testing for all flights” between the two countries.

The announcement comes as a two-week lockdown begins in Sydney to contain a rapidly spreading outbreak of the Delta coronavirus variant.

More than 80 cases have been reported so far in Australia’s largest city, while a handful of community cases have also been recorded in the Northern Territory, Victoria and Queensland in recent days.

New Zealand has previously paused the bubble arrangement five times with individual states but this is the first time it has put a blanket halt to quarantine-free travel from all of Australia.

Both countries have been among the world’s most successful in containing COVID-19. New Zealand has recorded just 26 COVID-19 deaths in a population of five million, and Australia has had fewer than 1,000 deaths in a population of 25 million.

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