Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Michael Baker, Prof Martin Eichner*
In this blog we detailed our just published modelling work on estimating the risk of COVID-19 outbreaks associated with air travel to NZ. We find that the risks are typically very low for travel from Australia (a “green zone” country with small occasional outbreaks from border system failures). But these risks go up if there are larger outbreaks in Australia and especially for travel from other countries (e.g., from an “amber zone” country like Japan or a “red zone” country as per the US during 2020) where rigorous border controls including 14-day quarantine are still required. With the spread of more infectious SARS-CoV-2 variants it is critical that very rigorous ongoing scientific risk assessment is used for NZ and all aspects of border control are optimised for the differing risk posed by green, amber and red zone countries.