Govt makes 'significant' changes to rules for international air crew in NZ, but expert says they could go further

There are significant changes to isolation requirements, but one expert says they could go further.

The Government has announced “significant” changes to rules for international air crew coming into the country, but one expert says they could go further.

The ‘air border order’ makes some existing requirements for New Zealand and overseas-based international air crew enforceable by law, and there are new rules too.

From Monday, overseas-based air crew who are laying over in New Zealand will have to stay in a Government managed isolation facility for as long as they are in the country.

From October 19, weekly surveillance testing for some lower-risk New Zealand-based international air crew will start.

Cabin crew transferring passengers to managed isolation facilities on domestic flights will also have to be tested regularly as part of the existing border staff testing regime.

Other existing requirements will also be formalised, like the need for crew to wear PPE in airports and on planes.

It will also become mandatory for New Zealand -based air crew returning from so-called high-risk countries like the US to be tested once, on arrival. They will have to isolate until they receive a negative result.

University of Otago epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker says he’s pleased to see NZ closing off “areas of weakness” at the border, but is surprised some of the rules weren’t already in place.

“New Zealand has tightened up its testing of routine border staff quite some time ago, I’m quite surprised it didn’t extend to air crew who are transporting potentially infected people around New Zealand, that would be a logical group to include” he said.

He also says new isolation and testing requirements should extend to international air crew returning from all countries, except those who have eliminated the virus completely.

“Some states in Australia, some Pacific Islands, you’ve got places like Taiwan – certainly we could have a lower requirement for testing for air crew from those low-risk countries, but pretty much the rest of the country is moderate to high risk.”

Air New Zealand says the ‘risk matrix’ of countries is decided by the Ministry of Health, but that Hong Kong is an example of a country deemed to be a medium risk. Australia and the Pacific Islands are deemed low risk.

Air New Zealand says it's had no cases amongst crew since April and is pushing for less invasive saliva testing of staff.

“We strongly endorse the work of ESR to validate saliva testing methods to use for our crew as a less-invasive method of testing. If saliva testing can be validated for use in New Zealand this would vastly improve the experience for our people,” chief operating officer Carrie Hurihanganui said.

While there were no new cases of Covid-19 reported today, yesterday the Ministry of Health announced 12 new cases in managed isolation, 10 of which arrived on the same flight from India.

National’s health spokesperson Shane Reti says that reinforces the idea New Zealand should test all returning Kiwi before they board the plane overseas, with a negative result required before travel.

“There may be people who are positive and boarding a flight to come to New Zealand…they put crew at risk and other passengers at risk.”

“We've been advocating for this for months, other countries have deployed it months ago - Japan, Hawai’i. Deploy it today.”

It’s an idea backed by Professor Baker, who says it’s about eliminating the risk of bringing Covid-19 into the country.

“This additional check before people get on plane shouldn’t necessarily be applied to all travellers everywhere, just the source countries that generate the most cases.”

“The purpose of them coming back into New Zealand isn’t medical evacuation The outcome of a positive test wouldn’t be that you couldn’t come back to New Zealand, it would defer your trip, maybe for a month and that seems perfectly reasonable.”

Health Minister Chris Hipkins isn’t ruling out pre-flight testing.

“We’ve never said we wouldn’t do it, we just previously said it didn’t stack up…you’d need a workable international standard.”

“It's something we've been exploring for some time, as more countries require it, it's more likely New Zealand would do it,” he said.
 

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