The border is finally reopening in New Zealand. Consequently, travellers will be welcome sooner than expected. Fantastically, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced last night that New Zealand will welcome fully-vaccinated travellers from 60 visa-waiver nations. Indeed, this includes Singapore.
Initially, New Zealand planned to welcome back all non-citizens worldwide in July. Delightfully, this has been pushed ahead to May 1.
Already, a phased re-opening of the New Zealand borders began on February 27. Fully vaccinated New Zealanders living in Australia were permitted to travel home without a two-week quarantine in an MIQ Hotel.
From April 12, vaccinated Australians will be permitted to travel to New Zealand without quarantine. Likewise, visitors from anywhere in the world will be welcomed in October as planned.
However, Singaporeans who plan to travel to New Zealand must take a pre-departure test, along with two further rapid antigen tests on day 1 and day 5 or 6. Additionally, if a test is positive, you must self-isolate and book a PCR test in New Zealand.
Wonderfully, New Zealand has a 94% fully-vaccinated rate of people over aged 12. Meanwhile, here in Singapore the full regime of vaccination stands at 86.8%. Indeed, both countries vaccination rates are some of the highest in the world.
COVID-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China in early December 2019. Since then, it has spread across the globe, infecting over 464 million people, with 6.06 million deaths as of March 17, 2022.