Double-jabbed Kiwis are right to ask how it’s fair those with travel exemptions can enter Auckland without vaccine protection and return home with Covid in tow. If the Prime Minister is serious about different treatment for the unvaccinated, she should start with the Auckland border, writes political editor Jo Moir.
Analysis: In an unusual twist on Thursday the Government and Opposition found something to agree on – the need to not vaccinate to travel.
They have rarely been on the same page in recent months, but when it comes to proof of vaccine for essential workers and those with exemptions to travel in and out of Level 3 Auckland, both National and Labour haven’t treated it as a priority.
Instead, the focus is on testing.
National wants rapid antigen testing at the border, which it has been calling for over many months.
The Government is relying on testing while repeatedly kicking the can down the road on how to implement vaccine checks at the regional border.
The focus would be better placed on vaccination coupled with testing – especially when the recent Christchurch case was unwell for at least several days before going to get, what turned out to be, a positive test.
By then they’d passed it on to another household contact – an unvaccinated truck driver who had been travelling around greater Christchurch.
While it’s right that parents should be able to continue to care for their children during an outbreak, there’s a responsibility that comes with that in the form of doing everything possible to protect those around you, including your children.
Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins says the testing did its job in that the Christchurch case received a negative result before leaving Auckland and then got a test – albeit more than a week after returning from Auckland – that turned out to be positive.
Another household has already been identified as close contacts and a string of locations of interest are now being nervously checked by Cantabrians.
The Christchurch case was given an exemption to travel to Auckland because of a childcare arrangement.
While it’s right that parents should be able to continue to care for their children during an outbreak, there’s a responsibility that comes with that in the form of doing everything possible to protect those around you, including your children.
That protection is called vaccination and we’ve heard ad nauseum from government ministers, including Jacinda Ardern, about getting vaccinated to protect your kids.
It’s a clear message that plenty of people have listened to – many have told stories of being motivated to get the jab to protect those who can’t.
Yet something as simple as requiring those travelling on flights in and out of Auckland to produce proof of vaccination has been put in the too-hard basket for months by the Government.
Families across the globe have been separated for months, and in some cases years, because of the strict restrictions at the international border.
But in the middle of a Delta outbreak, which the Government is desperately trying to keep contained in Auckland, there is nothing stopping the unvaccinated travelling in and out of the epicentre with an exemption, with total disregard for doing everything possible to protect the rest of the country.
For weeks now, Ardern, Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins and the Director-General of Health have repeatedly told Newsroom it’s too much of a logistical challenge to require those crossing the border to be vaccinated.
On Thursday, Hipkins told Newsroom it remained under consideration but there were no announcements to be made and he wouldn’t say if Cabinet would consider it when it next met.
“There’s always a practical trade-off. A vaccination requirement adds a separate layer of complexity to it.’’
He conceded requiring vaccine proof at the airport when those with travel exemptions boarded flights was “probably one of the easier” ways to enforce it.
There are many reasons – both professional and personal – as to why people have needed exemptions to travel in and out of Auckland since Delta arrived.
The border checkpoints are there for a reason, to keep everyone safe.
Aucklanders have carried the load in so many ways since Covid first broke through New Zealand’s borders, and the efforts to get vaccinated in the country’s largest city have been phenomenal in recent weeks.
It makes a mockery of their efforts that someone who has chosen not to get vaccinated can enter Auckland and have the luxury of returning to the freedoms of the South Island.
It also makes a mockery of those in Canterbury who have done their bit to get vaccinated, many for the sake of their own children.
