WELLINGTON: New Zealand on Friday suspend its newly opened travel bubble with Australia, the government in Wellington stated, after a COVID-19 outbreak in its larger neighbor.
“As set out in our Trans-Tasman bubble protocols, travel between New Zealand and Western Australia has been paused, pending further advice from the state government,” a statement on the New Zealand government website stated.
The decision came after Western Australia announced that the regions of Perth and Peel were entering a three-day lockdown, beginning midnight Friday to Saturday, because of a traveler testing positive for the coronavirus.
The decision to lock down adopted “a positive COVID-19 case from hotel quarantine who was active in the community”, an announcement on the Western Australia government website said.
Local media reported that a man in his 50s flew into Melbourne from Perth on Wednesday and tested positive for the coronavirus earlier Friday.
He underwent the legally required quarantine in a Perth hotel and, once released, went to restaurants, a university, a public pool, a doctor’s office, and a pal’s home before leaving the area.
“He spent as much as 5 days in Perth, and we now need to assume he was infectious,” Western Australia premier Mark McGowan informed a press conference.
Local media reported that the pal the man visited has since tested positive.
New Zealand and Australia had opened their quarantine-free travel bubble on Apr 18, almost 400 days after they closed their borders because of the pandemic.
The bubble, which followed months of negotiations between the largely coronavirus-free neighbors, was hailed as a major milestone in restarting a global travel industry that has been crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
It meant that passengers from Australia and New Zealand – both of which have largely contained COVID-19 – could fly throughout the Tasman Sea without undergoing mandatory quarantine on arrival.
The leaders of each nation had hailed the bubble, which also would have provided a much-needed boost to New Zealand’s beleaguered tourism industry, and urged residents to take advantage of it.
Earlier than COVID-19 brought New Zealand’s tourism industry to its knees, it was the nation’s largest export industry, with Australians accounting for about 40 per cent of the international guests.
After the travel bubble was announced, a spokesman for Australian flag carrier Qantas stated tickets to New Zealand have been “selling like hot cakes” with a strong “load” to Queenstown, which is billed as the nation’s “Adventure Capital”.
New Zealand authorities revealed on Apr 20 that an Auckland airport employee had tested positive for COVID-19, however Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on the time it will not affect the bubble, which was then barely 24 hours old.
Ardern stated the cleaner worked on planes arriving from “red zone” nations deemed high risk, not Australia.
She stated both Australia and New Zealand expected to handle border cases, and had systems in place to do that without closing the long-awaited travel bubble.
