Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand remains on track for a staged border opening next year, with the Ministry of Health confirming vaccine passports will be available from December.
The comment is at odds with Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins, who this week told Parliament the reopening plan would need to be reworked in the face of Delta.
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An example of a digital vaccine passport.
The original plan, unveiled last month, would see a limited trial run of vaccinated international travellers able to self-isolate at home in the latter parts of this year. That would be followed by a phased reopening in 2022.
Key to the plan was a risk-profiling of countries, so places with high rates of vaccination and low levels of Covid-19 could be treated differently to places where the virus was rampant.
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However, Hipkins admitted “stratifying” countries based on risk could be problematic: “It would be fair to say that Delta has actually changed some of the thinking about that even in the last few weeks.
“We actually have to consider whether, in fact, that’s an appropriate thing to do, recognising that all countries, all people coming into the country at this point, have a degree of risk associated with them,” Hipkins said.
Ardern later said there “wasn’t a change in position” as the Government was always going to take into account variants of concern.
“So his reference was to the fact that we have this reconnecting framework, which remains in place, but within that, we have country risk assessments, and just a reference to the importance of the individual risk assessment of each country.
“Because actually with these variants of concern, individual cases of Delta are hugely problematic, and you need to build that into your risk profiling of every country.”
Hipkins also said checks like pre-departure testing could be less useful in a Delta environment as people could become infectious within 24 hours, meaning a test obtained 72 hours before a flight could be useless.
Ardern said vaccine status would be one of the most important factors for travellers.
Vaccine passports
The Ministry of Health has confirmed vaccine passports will be available for Kiwis later this year.
“It will contain a QR code and a secure digital signature, or “seal”. Certificates will be able to be printed off in hard copy or be stored and viewed on a smartphone,” said Astrid Koornneef, group manager of operations for the Covid-19 vaccination programme.
Koornneef said the Ministry of Health was designing the digital vaccination certificate to be compatible with emerging international standards, so it could be recognised by as many countries as possible.
