It goes without saying that Jacinda Ardern has been absolutely nailing it in terms of managing New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown. Australia hasn’t been quite on New Zealand’s level but our leaders have done a good enough job on handling the COVID-19 lockdown that’s happening at home. In fact, things have been going well enough in both Australia and New Zealand that international travel between the two countries may be on the cards very soon.
Speaking of travelling, the GOAT team chat to Ben and Liam about moving back home to Adelaide on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
According to The Guardian, Australia and New Zealand have done such a great job at slowing down the spread of COVID-19 with its lockdown rules that there are now plans in the works for a “Trans-Tasman bubble” that will allow people to travel between the two countries.
Jacinda Ardern spoke to Scott Morrison about this Australia-New Zealand travel bubble and both are keen for it to happen “as quickly as we can,” saying that “it won’t be too long before we are ready.”
That being said, don’t pack your bags out of excitement just yet as there’s still stuff to be done.
The Trans-Tasman Safe Border Group – a 40-strong panel made up of government officials, health experts, border officials, and airport peeps – are hoping to present its travel plan to both the Australian and New Zealand governments in “early June.”
Should things go well, there will be a “proof of concept” flight between Canberra and Wellington. If things continue to go swimmingly and both Australia and New Zealand keep doing a good job on managing COVID-19, international travel between the two countries could start back up as early as September.
As an extra cherry on top of this exciting news, passengers won’t need to go into mandatory 14-day quarantine and will be cleared to go home right away.
Now as exciting as all this is, let’s keep our heads screwed on straight and not get carried away just yet as there still a heap of logistics to work out, like flight paths and which airlines will be able to handle all this hypothetical travelling. If the last few months has taught us anything it’s that COVID-19 is as unpredictable as America is racist and we should keep things on an even keel for now.
But hey, it seems like 2020 isn’t a total loss and perhaps this Australia-New Zealand travel bubble is a sign that things are finally starting to get back to some semblance of normality until that COVID-19 vaccine is good and ready.
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