Ports in Australia and New Zealand not looking good for 2022

[BVILady]

This is from a news-letter from the New York Times:

 

The view from New Zealand

Countries across the Asia-Pacific region — including Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Bangladesh — are scrambling to slow the spread of the Delta variant. Many governments are reimposing restrictions. For societies that had just begun to reopen, it’s a jarring reminder that the pandemic is far from over.

For insight into the situation in Australia and New Zealand, we turned to Natasha Frost, who writes the Europe Edition of the Morning Briefing.

Natasha: When I returned from New York to my home country of New Zealand in October, it was like slipping through a portal into another world — one where people casually brushed past strangers while waiting in line, routinely went without a mask and even shared plates of fries.

A few months later, Auckland went into lockdown because of what would eventually total 15 Covid cases. In most of the world, so few cases would have been cause for celebration. In New Zealand, it was a sign that something had gone drastically wrong.

It’s a similar story in Australia, where a recent outbreak of over 200 cases has led to about half the country being placed under heavy restrictions. (In the U.S., new cases routinely exceed 10,000 a day.)

Having decided almost from the outset to pursue an elimination strategy, Australia and New Zealand have undergone a radically different experience of the pandemic from the rest of the world. As well as having shorter lockdowns and fewer restrictions, we’ve been insulated from much grief and suffering.

Still, it hasn’t always been easy. Closing borders has cut many people off from their families, decimated our tourist industries and prevented some citizens from returning home from overseas. But few would choose the alternative. Our total deaths from the coronavirus are in the dozens.

The latest chapter of the pandemic, where many people in European and North American countries are vaccinated and societies are steadily opening up, is different for us yet again. Our inoculation campaigns have been sluggish. Our borders remain firmly shut even to our citizens. And though we have far fewer cases than in most of the rest of the world, lockdowns remain an active tool.

Our approach post-pandemic is also likely to be different. Some countries like Singapore are already planning to handle Covid-19 as a new endemic disease, to be managed rather than eradicated. But having invested so much in a zero-Covid strategy, Australia and New Zealand seem likely to continue their hard line, even after most people have been vaccinated.

“Now that we have really effective vaccines and public health measures,” said Michael Baker, an epidemiologist at New Zealand’s University of Otago, “we will aim for no transmission in our community.”

[NCCruzQueen]

I understand why New Zealand and Australia are being so cautious.  We cancelled our World Cruise mainly because of the uncertainty of the likelihood of our cruise actually happening.

[Mich3554]

We have a dive trip planned to Fiji, which was punted from May 2020 to June 2021 to Sept 2021 and now Sept 2022.  Fiji isn’t open to non nationals and PADI can’t even guess when it will open.  
 

Rumor has it that when it does open to non nationals, it will be only those from New Zealand or Australia.  Who knows though?

[lissie]

On 7/3/2021 at 12:02 PM, Mich3554 said:

We have a dive trip planned to Fiji, which was punted from May 2020 to June 2021 to Sept 2021 and now Sept 2022.  Fiji isn’t open to non nationals and PADI can’t even guess when it will open.  
 

Rumor has it that when it does open to non nationals, it will be only those from New Zealand or Australia.  Who knows though?

Given that Fiji is having its worst outbreak of the whole pandemic, and inept government which isn't helping very much, its highly unlikely to open anytime soon - think next year minimum. 

 

And yes it will open a travelbubble with countries with low infection rates first like NZ and Oz not a general open doors policy 

[Mich3554]

1 hour ago, lissie said:

Given that Fiji is having its worst outbreak of the whole pandemic, and inept government which isn't helping very much, its highly unlikely to open anytime soon - think next year minimum. 

 

And yes it will open a travelbubble with countries with low infection rates first like NZ and Oz not a general open doors policy 

Yep, this trip has been punted to Sept. 2022.

[travelwell]

We canceled our 2022 WC and moved to extended voyages in 2023.