In potentially exciting news for the future of international travel, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jancinda Adern announced on Tuesday this week that from the 19th of April Australians would be able to visit New Zealand, and that’s without quarantining!
Australia opened its borders to travellers from New Zealand late last year, but New Zealand has taken a fair bit of time to reciprocate. Both countries have done an incredible job at preventing the spread of the virus, but at the expense of anyone’s ability to leave their own shores. Australia takes just a few thousand Australians back from overseas each week, who have to pay to quarantine in hotels. The only others allowed into Australia have been foreigners with a pressing reason to visit – for example those with Australian partners. The flights have been extremely expensive to get back home and then people have had to fork out thousands to stay in hotels for 14 days. And even then there have been breaches and Covid has got out into the community, especially here in Victoria.
But now, perhaps, things are on the up finally. It’s a very significant step, although the New Zealand Prime Minister has pointed out that the situation could change suddenly and borders could be locked down again or people might be forced into quarantine. And for me, until things are more settled, that’s enough to hold back for now.
In the background is the vaccination progress. This, despite whether you are pro or antivax, or something in between, is the great white hope for Aussies being able to travel again. Sadly here it has been going at a snail’s pace. We have around 900,000 people who have had the first dose of the vaccine but very few, so few the number is negligible at this stage, have had the second dose and been ‘fully’ immunised. And if you take out the USA, Israel and Chile, the rest of the world isn’t exactly racing along at full pace either.
If governments are looking at a certain percentage – perhaps 70% – of the planet being vaccinated before things go back to something like normal, well, it seems a heck of a long way away. Having said that, around 1.9% of the world has been FULLY vaccinated at this stage and the rate is increasing, not to mention many countries have really focussed on getting that first dose done, knowing that a couple of months or more between doses increases the effectiveness of at least the Astra Zeneca vaccine.
Australia also is in talks with Singapore to create a similar travel bubble with them, and who knows other countries may be open to Australia by mid-year. Certainly it’s still a fair while before the majority of the world is accessible again, but it’s a start. Fingers crossed it goes well, with the European summer coming up and more vaccinations across that continent, the way things go there will probably be the biggest indicator to how well the world is doing in general as it seems to have been at its worst in Europe.
Apparently a flood of flights to and from New Zealand opened up on the announcement. Let’s hope they fill and they run and a decimated industry – the travel and airline industry – sees the boost it is desperately needing right now! Thanks and May the Journey Never End!
Andy's World Journeys 
That’s awesome to hear! As for vaccines, it surprises me that much of the rest of the world hasn’t gotten around to vaccinating people quickly, although it’s understandable due to politics and supplies…I’ve already received my first dose in the US, and I will be getting my second one shortly. Here’s hoping the rest of the world catches up, and/or sees to a decrease in COVID cases!
Wow, under 30 and nearly fully vaccinated! My 60 year old mother just got her first dose and won’t receive the second until August because we are extending the interval between doses to 4 months (with no scientific basis and not recommended by Pfizer). The rest of my under-60 family members probably won’t be fully vaccinated until mid-2022 at the rate we’re going.
The US is really pushing to get people vaccinated STAT, which I can understand after the whole mess we’ve been in since last year. I qualified early as I work in government. Hopefully, you’ll catch up soon!
Well we’ve had a change of of policy if 2 days ago and now we are going from astrazeneca to Pfizer which is going to slow everything up again sigh
Wow really you’re still ahead if us at the moment. We’re now at around a million doses but the govt JUST declared astrazeneca not advised for under 50s which means we need Pfizer now. It’s a mesd
Things are looking up! 😃
Fingers crossed!
Great news about the travel bubble with NZ. Let’s hope more travel corridors open up soon. Vaccinations are progressing well here in the UK and I’ve received my first one at a large centre which was extremely well organised and was in and out within minutes.
Glad to hear it’s well organized somewhere it’s frankly a joke here. Thanks for reading!
New Zealand is a great country to visit, although winter may not be the best season.
Unless you are into winter sports
It seems that Australia did a great job of committing to a proper lockdown and now you are reaping the rewards. In Canada we have only a minuscule portion of the population vaccinated and we are shutting down all over the country again!
That’s good news!
Cheers!
Great job on both countries, it looks they both managed very well the whole situation. I guess the island status helped that a lot, but still much much better than elswwhere.
It definitely did. Still a .long way to go. Thanks for reading!
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Good news! we can now travel to NZ without keeping for quarantine as long as we’re been vaccinated.
No vaccination required I believe at this stage. Thanks!