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Just some thoughts on this ever growing situation with the Covid-19 variant that originated from the UK. I know most on https://Twitter.com want to discuss Trump and Liddell but right now there is something on our doorstep that could have great ramifications for NZ /1
The govt has moved for towards pre-departure testing from travellers from the UK and USA, however as @GladysB rightly pointed out this strain is now in 30+ countries. A move needs to be made to include far more countries for pre-departure testing 2/
One argument is the availability of pre flight testing, to combat this NZ should look to work with Aus and begin to create an approved list of testing facilities around the world. After that, if a country doesn’t have this capacity then the pre-departure test could be waived /3
Moving onto arrival of travellers, a good question to be asked is where are high risk travellers placed in MIQ? Are they simply fit in to the latest spare room, or put into one seperate facility. This is important because a pragmatic step would be using few facilities /4
This is important because a pragmatic move would be for these high risk travellers to be isolated in a facility outside of Auckland. Worst case is if there is a leak, it doesn’t take out NZs biggest city and grind the rest of the country to a halt /5
When there are positive cases of this new strain the same idea should apply, quarantine them outside of Auckland, it would be easier to lockdown Rotorua than Auckland if needed. /6
Moving onto preventative measures at the airport, the segregation of terminals for bubble travel needs to be actioned now, not for quarantine free travel but to split up high risk and lower risk travellers, and to lower the risk for front line airport workers /7
As proven in previous cases, contamination of surfaces is possible, this shouldn’t be ruled out at the airport where all cases would have transited through. Splitting the terminal would also allow dedicated cleaning regimes are an even greater level of caution. /8
Finally, the vaccine for frontline workers needs to be fast tracked. Australia has recently announced this, and other countries are moving much faster on this. Vaccinating frontline workers will at least reduce the risk of them getting it and taking it out of the facility. /9
That is all from me, feel free to share, comment, or in some cases Bitch and moan about this. These are all simple steps we can take to reduce risk and enjoy a Covid free summer, because F*** doing a lockdown in this weather /end
