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Monthly Archives: March 2021

To ensure success of the trans-Tasman travel “green zone”, we need to reduce system failures at the NZ border

Tuesday, March 30th, 2021 | carra86p | 2 Comments

Dr Leah Grout, Dr Jennifer Summers, Dr Amanda Kvalsvig, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Nick Wilson

While succeeding very well with its elimination strategy, NZ still does not have optimal border control. We find since July 2020 there have been 13 identified border failures and at least 6 internal MIQ facility failures. The forthcoming quarantine-free “green zone” between NZ and Australia provides an opportunity for NZ to benchmark its MIQ/border management policies and practices with Australian States and Territories to identify improvements in both countries.

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Expansion of “green zones” may provide a chance for the global eradication of COVID-19

Thursday, March 18th, 2021 | tedla55p | No Comments

Nick Wilson, Matt Boyd, Osman D Mansoor, Louise Delany, Michael G Baker

With effective vaccines for COVID-19 comes the potential for disease eradication (elimination at the global level). Here we consider the advantages and the challenges, but ultimately suggest consideration of progressive expansion of “green zones” towards a target of COVID-19 eradication. Even if eradication is not achieved, establishing and maintaining “green zones” with no local spread will have many medium term benefits by liberalising travel between “green zone” countries (eg, between NZ and Australia).

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How to best prioritise Covid-19 Vaccination in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 | tedla55p | No Comments

Dr Ben Gray*

New Zealand has begun to roll out its Covid-19 vaccination programme, starting with those working at the border, including in the Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facilities. There have been calls for prioritising other groups such as  those in South Auckland [1] and meat industry workers [2] and the National Ethics Advisory Committee has released a final report [3] on Resource Allocation and Covid-19 that includes a section on vaccine prioritisation. The NZ Government has also developed a Covid-19 Vaccine Strategy [4] but without any detailed prioritisation.

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