Enjoy quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand – NRK Urix – foreign news and documentaries

“It’s a great and exciting day for families and friends,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

It commended the good handling of the epidemic that Australia and New Zealand were responsible for.

The joy was great when on Monday, New Zealand and Australia opened to travel without quarantine between the two countries for the first time in over a year.

Both countries closed their borders to everyone except their citizens and others who had residence permits in March of last year, to prevent coronary heart disease.

Relax it more easily

Thanks to the strict measures, Australia and New Zealand survived the epidemic cheaper than most other countries in the world.

True, New Zealand citizens have been able to travel to Australia since October last year, but they had to be quarantined for 14 days upon their return.

Monday was the first time that Australians could travel to New Zealand since the border closed. Now even New Zealanders can return from Australia without quarantine.

Danny Mather eagerly waits for his daughter Christie at Wellington International Airport in New Zealand. He hadn’t seen his pregnant daughter and 15-month-old granddaughter.

“It was right to keep New Zealand as free as possible from the virus, but now is the time to open up,” Mother told The Associated Press.

Families and tourism

The opening is a source of relief for both the separated families, and for the tourism industry and airlines.

The largest group of tourists coming to New Zealand are from Australia. In 2019, 1.5 million Australians went there. It accounts for 40 percent of the tourist flow.

Now winter is approaching in the southern hemisphere. This means that the popular ski season in places like Queenstown is opening up. Many hotels and ski resorts are fighting bankruptcy as long as the epidemic continues.

It opens to more countries

Hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders live in Australia. It used to be common to travel back and forth between countries to visit family.

The journey takes only three hours.

The governments of the two countries hope this is a first step in reopening the rest of the world.

Similar corridors, also called “travel bubbles”, are expected to be created in cooperation with other countries in the region as they better control the epidemic.