The Government will have made some enemies with its decision to delay the border reopening, but it’s a necessity as it buys itself more time to prepare for Omicron, writes political editor Jo Moir.
It’s only taken 18 days for Omicron to move from being no obstacle to the country’s border reopening plans to becoming the cause of (at least) a six-week postponement.
On December 3 it was an overly optimistic Grant Robertson who told Newsroom those vaccinated Kiwis wanting to return to New Zealand and bypass MIQ should push ahead with their plans to self-isolate from January 17.
Many made the call to forgo their MIQ spots or stop sitting at a computer for hours when lotteries came up – not surprising when the Deputy Prime Minister said they should “absolutely’’ plan for self-isolation, even though the new variant was starting to sweep the rest of the world.
Just 10 days later and the writing was on the wall for hopeful trans-Tasman jetsetters when the Prime Minister laid out a warning at her press conference that Omicron was a threat to reopening plans.
Jacinda Ardern said a final call would be made in the first week of the new year when more information had been gathered from around the world.
In the meantime, Covid Response Minister Chris Hipkins started recycling old trans-Tasman bubble catchphrases like “flyer beware”, making it increasingly unlikely restrictions would loosen as promised.
Public backlash demanding more certainty ahead of Christmas prompted Cabinet to review settings on Monday, and led to Hipkins announcing on Tuesday that the staged reopening was being postponed until the end of February.
Adding salt to the wound is news the latest MIQ room release has been cancelled this week and put off until January, as officials work out how to manage capacity.
Once Omicron makes its way into the community, the Government won’t be able to argue that vaccinated Kiwis in Australia who have tested negative for Covid are a greater risk than someone already living here.
The original plan had been for vaccinated New Zealanders travelling from Australia to be able to self-isolate at home for seven days from January 17, with Kiwis from other parts of the world following suit on February 14.
The staged reopening of the border for vaccinated Kiwis was outlined in recent weeks at the same time Delta has been continuing to sweep through the country.
It was designed with a highly transmissible variant in mind and high vaccination rates.
Omicron is understood to be even more transmissible, which is why the Government is buying itself time to beef up protections before it inevitably cracks the border and enters the community as well.
Those protections – bringing booster shots forward from six months to four, and vaccinating five- to 11-year-olds from January – were part of Hipkins’ announcement on Tuesday.
Once Omicron makes its way into the community, the Government won’t be able to argue that vaccinated Kiwis in Australia who have tested negative for Covid are a greater risk than someone already living here.
And the likelihood it will arrive this summer puts pressure on the Government to get as many first, second and booster jabs in arms as possible, especially children who are more likely to spread it when school starts.
For that reason, it makes little sense that the rollout for children doesn’t start until January 17.
Time is crucial and vaccine hesitancy will be higher in this rollout with parents concerned about the health impacts on their children.
That means more conversations will be needed to reassure parents, and that is time the Government doesn’t currently have with Omicron knocking on the door.
It may well be that Omicron has already swept New Zealand by mid-January, in which case the original border reopening date with Australia could have still kicked in.
Plenty of Kiwis will be devastated by news another Christmas and summer will pass without seeing loved ones, but most will understand why it’s necessary this time round.
Considering it only took one Sydney returnee’s arrival at MIQ to deliver Delta to Auckland in August – and there’s still no clear understanding of how it then got into the community – Omicron’s arrival could be just weeks, if not days, away.
The number of positive cases of that variant arriving into MIQ has been ramping up since it was first detected on December 16.
By the end of February three million people will have been eligible to get their booster shot, which international evidence shows to be far more resilient to Omicron than just two doses.
Children will have had six weeks to get vaccinated too.
Much like Delta, and now Omicron, there will continue to be new variants – how successfully the Government holds off the onslaught of this strain will provide lessons for whatever the next one happens to be.
Plenty of Kiwis will be devastated by news another Christmas and summer will pass without seeing loved ones, but most will understand why it’s necessary this time round.
But it won’t be long before the freedoms promised through vaccination will boil to the surface again, and any further delays at the border will become a much tougher sell.
