MIQ 'LIMBO-LAND'

Today the Government is expected to make some decisions on the immediate future of the country’s managed isolation and quarantine facilities, or MIQ. And not before time. Delta has already rendered the system – at least partially – little more than an economically damaging sinkhole for taxpayer cash and resources. That’s not to mention the profound misery it has created for many.

The announcement will come hot on the heels of yesterday’s announcement, mandating the Covid-19 vaccine for any worker at a business that requires a vaccine certificate at entry.

This argument was made on the basis that vaccines are crucial to public safety. Yet to date, there has been no recognition of vaccination status at the border.

Let’s take a minute to back track. Way back on 9 April 2020, MIQ started up at a few hotels after New Zealand closed its borders to all but citizens and residents.

As New Zealand’s suppression strategy morphed quickly and seamlessly into an elimination strategy, the MIQ system evolved into the front line defence in the fight against Covid-19.

But all that will have to change. Covid-19 is here and it is staying. The Government’s plan to relax restrictions once vaccination rates hit 90 per cent already assume a level of Covid floating around New Zealand.

There are precious few positive cases coming over the border and barely any cases are fully vaccinated people. Yesterday there were 79 new Covid cases in Auckland and only one that came in through MIQ. All that leaves MIQ in a limbo-land.

The complication is that Auckland and Waikato are currently the only areas locked down. And until the traffic light system comes in, the Government wants that to remain the case. So will most voters especially given that flare-ups around the country will mean level 3 lockdowns.

So MIQ has to be calibrated differently for people who wish to stay in Auckland compared to those who want to go further south – for the time being at least. But the indications given by the minister for Covid-19 response, Chris Hipkins, are that the Government is considering only shorter stays at the moment.

This is surely madness. If a person is double vaccinated, and coming through MIQ, they have a greater chance of catching Covid once they get out of MIQ than they have bringing it through the border. At a bare minimum, fully vaccinated people should be able to self-isolate in Auckland without going through MIQ.

Keeping non-vaccinated people in MIQ is justifiable for the time being – and predeparture tests should weed out those that have Covid.

There are some who, still with an elimination frame of mind, fret about the possibility of new chains of transmission being started. Every country that has opened up has had this happen. When the vaccine target is reached and the traffic light system commences, that will be happening in New Zealand too. It is not a matter of if, but when.