NEW ZEALAND (Commonwealth Union)_ The final COVID-era travel requirement for New Zealand has been eliminated. Arrivals will no longer be required to complete the New Zealand Traveller Declaration as of Thursday.
The online form was established in March as a tool to gather information on a passenger’s prior travel experiences, as well as health-related COVID-19 data, such as vaccination documentation and pre-departure test results. Once finished, travellers would get a Traveller Pass with a special QR code that they would need to scan in order to board their flight.
After the government removed the pre-departure test requirement in June and reopened the borders to unvaccinated travellers in September, the system came under fire as being unnecessary (New Zealand citizens have always been able to enter the country regardless of vaccination status).
Defending the regulations, a Customs spokeswoman told Stuff in September: “It’s crucial that the Government continues to gather contact details and travel history for contact tracing reasons in order to respond rapidly to any new COVID-19 variations of concern.” However, the Government has since decided that this is no longer essential, having just revealed on Tuesday that it will be dramatically altering its COVID powers.
It implies that there are no longer any vaccination, testing, masking, isolation, or contact tracing requirements, and the procedure to enter New Zealand is now the same as it was before COVID. While on-arrival testing is not required, there will still be free quick antigen tests accessible at the airport for visitors from abroad.
According to a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health, testing is still advised for anyone exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms, including recent immigrants from abroad. “We encourage recent arrivals to submit their results and acquire a PCR test so the test can be whole genome sequenced if they test positive within a week of arriving in New Zealand,” she said. “This can help us with our overall surveillance of COVID-19 and our response strategy and can provide useful information about new COVID-19 variations that may have been imported into New Zealand.”
