Covid 19 coronavirus: Skilled requires tighter checks on travellers after a whole lot of individuals arrived in NZ and went on to Australia

Professor Shaun Hendy: “We should be better able to track travelers and understand where they are going.” Photo / Greg Bowker

An expert is calling for stricter controls on travelers leaving New Zealand soon after they arrive after it was revealed that hundreds of newcomers have left for Australia.

Statistics NZ has confirmed that 549 people who arrived in New Zealand on or after October 1 left for Australia in October or November.

Most of them (492) were based in New Zealand and many are believed to be flight crews and business people who still travel regularly despite Covid restrictions.

However, Professor Shaun Hendy of Auckland University, who modeled the risks of international travel during the Covid-19 pandemic, said the numbers showed that anyone who leaves quarantine will be kept an eye on in the event of a new outbreak in the community have to.

“We should be better able to track travelers and understand where they are going,” he said.

“If we’ve ever thought about the situation where we asked for follow-up [in a community outbreak]Then we would like to be able to ask people to come to these tests and then to interact with the border system. So it would be important to know if you stayed in New Zealand or not. “

The latest figures came after Australian authorities revealed that 12 people quarantined at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland had quarantined at the same time as one person caught by Covid there last month traveled to Sydney.

Three of them traveled from Sydney to Hong Kong, two went to Queensland and the other seven stayed in New South Wales.

According to Statistics NZ, 549 people who arrived in New Zealand after October 1 left in October or November – 39 in October and 510 in November – the latest figures available.

Australia allowed the New Zealanders to do so Travel without quarantine from October 16 to New South Wales and the Northern Territory, from October 20 to South Australia, from November 9 to Victoria and from December 12 to Queensland.

On the subject of matching items

New Zealanders travel to Western Australia must be quarantined for another 14 days.

The 549 people who came to New Zealand after October 1 and who traveled to Australia before the end of November represented 2 percent of the 24,133 people who came to New Zealand in those two months and roughly the same percentage of the 27,106 people who left the country Land in these months.

Almost all (492) of the 549 people were resident in New Zealand, only 57 residents of other countries entered New Zealand after October 1 and left by November 30.

Tehseen Islam, manager of statistical indicators in New Zealand, said the 549 arrivals who traveled to Australia also included the flight crew, but they are required to do Covid tests every seven days do not need to be quarantined for 14 days.

Chris Hipkins, Minister for Covid Response, said he had asked officials “to look into the overall process and see if the system could be modified so that those leaving for Australia quickly would pay a premium for their stay at the MIQ can and should “.

“I haven’t seen any evidence of any particular motivation for people traveling to Australia in the months after landing in New Zealand,” he said.

“The reasons are likely for a variety of reasons and the travelers could include multiple New Zealand citizens.

“We need to strike the right balance to recognize people’s rights to free movement by fairly administering the MIQ’s limited resources and the right of kiwis to come home.”