Cook Islands – New Covid-19 Case Pushes Travel Bubble Talks Back to Square One

Government will “immediately review” their current settings with regard to incoming passengers following new community Covid-19 case in New Zealand.

Negotiations to form a travel bubble have gone back to square one following the latest community Covid-19 case in New Zealand.

After 22 days of no new community case, a port worker last week tested positive for the virus, halting the effort made by Cook Islands authorities engaging with their New Zealand counterparts to form a quarantine free travel bubble between the two countries.

Officials in both countries have been working through finalising the arrangement under the premise that there are to be at least 28 days with no Covid-19 cases in the community.

Fletcher Melvin, the chair of the Private Sector Taskforce, says government now needs to explore other options to restart the tourism industry.

Melvin reiterated their earlier proposal of opening up the country to long-term visitors.

To give tourism a much-needed boost, the Private Sector Taskforce would like to see government allow financially secure New Zealanders with sufficient health insurance coverage to stay in Cook Islands for up to 180 days.

Liana Scott, the president of Tourism Industry Council, said all options should be considered to find a perfect medium “as to what may work that can stimulate ‘new’ cash into the economy, whilst at the same time keeping the safest protocols in place”.

“The reality probably is, that no matter what precautions are in place, the inevitability of isolated cases arising will remain.”

Prime Minister Mark Brown agrees it’s becoming apparent that random cases will continue to occur in New Zealand.

“We must plan and design processes and systems that will take these considerations into account whilst at the same time looking at ways to get back into our tourism business,” Brown said.

He also said they would “immediately review” their current settings with regard to incoming passengers.

A week ago, Brown announced incoming passengers from New Zealand would no longer need to undergo 14-day supervised quarantine from this Friday.

However, he said should a community transmission case develop in New Zealand, supervised quarantine in the Cook Islands would immediately be reinstated.

“We will be following very closely what New Zealand will be doing and engaging directly with NZ Health officials to determine the best course of action for the Cook Islands,” Brown said.

Meanwhile University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker told First Up to expect similar cases to this latest one in New Zealand in the future.

“The pandemic is just intensifying globally, New Zealand has many connections with the outside world via airports, sea ports and arriving passengers and all of those situations that can allow the virus to get back into New Zealand.

“If we look now at the pattern of the last couple of months, we’ve had four other examples of the virus coming across the border, assuming the large Auckland outbreak was also introduced in this way, so this is really the fifth example of the last two to three months. We are seeing a pattern, it’s not probably going to be a very predictable pattern, but I guess the good news is that the last four of these breaches have all been very small and picked up quickly.”

(Source: Cook Islands news release 19 October 2020)