New Zealand suspends all travel from India amid soaring Covid cases

New Zealand has recorded fewer than 2,200 cases of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic

File image: New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that quarantine-free travel between New Zealand and Australia will start from 19 April (Getty Images)

New Zealand on Thursday suspended entry for all travellers from India after recording more than a dozen cases of Covid-19 from the South Asian country.

“We are temporarily suspending entry into New Zealand for travellers from India,” said New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in a news conference in Auckland.

“I want to emphasise that while arrivals of Covid from India has prompted this measure, we are looking at how we manage high risk points of departure generally. This is not a country specific assessment.”

She said the pre-departure testing requirements reduced the number of positive cases coming from other countries but that’s not been the case with India.

“We have looked into whether or not we have issues with accuracy of the pre-departure tests. That has not demonstrated that that’s where the problem lies. So this suspension gives us the time to look at the problem more generally,” she said.

Starting from 4 pm on 11 April, the suspension will be in force till 28 April. The move came after the New Zealand authorities recorded 23 new positive Covid-19 cases at its border on Thursday, of which 17 were from India.

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Since the start of the pandemic, it is for the first time that New Zealand has extended any bar on entry to its own citizens and residents.

India has recorded about 12.92 million cases of Covid-19 till now including over 166,000 deaths and over the past few days, has witnessed a second wave of the pandemic. In the last few days, it has recorded over 100,000 cases in a single day three times including its highest one-day record of 126,000 cases.

While New Zealand is one of the countries across the world which has managed the spread of the pandemic well. Since January 2020, it has recorded only 2,199 cases of coronavirus including 26 deaths.

Earlier this week, New Zealand announced the opening of a travel bubble with Australia from 19 April. Australia is also one of the countries that have successfully managed to control the spread of Covid-19.

Additional reporting by agencies