December 17, 2021
Derek Tini Fox: Tensions are rising, so too are anticipation and apprehension.
Derek Tini Fox: Tensions are rising, so too are anticipation and apprehension.
Crunch time is almost upon us.
I’m not talking about another rugby or netball clash, this event has far more long lasting and far reaching implications.
The opening of quarantine free travel (QFT) between New Zealand and the Cook Islands.
The Cook Islands border has been closed to all but essential workers and locals since New Zealand went into lockdown in August, after the Covid-19 Delta variant got loose in the community. In fact in the last two years apart from a brief window of about four months, the border has been closed to all, except for about half a dozen heavily conditional repatriation flights for locals caught in New Zealand. Prior to the arrival of viable vaccines, those flights have sometimes required two weeks quarantine in New Zealand before leaving, and again on arrival in Rarotonga; covid testing has also been required at both ends. Latterly there has been managed quarantine on arrival in Rarotonga and testing before departure and during the period of isolation; before being released back into the community.
The Cooks, meantime – touch wood – remain covid free. There have been a couple of people detected with tiny traces of the virus in their bodies, but they have been deemed old cases and no longer infectious. The most recent was a ten year old boy, his family had no idea he’d had the virus such was his lack of symptoms.
But in less than a month now, there will be a whole new ball game back in town; New Zealand and the Cook Islands will reopen QFT. For the Cooks being closed off to tourists for 20 of the last 24 months, has been devastating. Yes New Zealand has a tourist industry too which has been suffering because of covid, but unlike New Zealand 75 – 80% of the Cook Is economy is based on the visitor industry. Not having visitors the economy has been haemoraging badly, estimated to be losing about a million dollars a day. About a thousand migrant workers have left. Some have gone home to Fiji and the Phillipines; others have been attracted away to fill jobs in New Zealand, on dairy farms for example. As serious as that is, more serious is that maybe another thousand locals have left, to fill vacancies in the New Zealand meat and horticulture industries. While those jobs are largely seasonal, already there is evidence of young families packing up and moving in search of a new and more stable economic future. Consider too that those are two thousand people out of a population of about 12 000.
In mid-January the border will open up, and the Cook Islands Prime Minister – Mark Brown – has said it won’t close again. He knows the numbers, the losses the country has suffered and has borrowed to overcome, and the numbers of people fully vaccinated. Here 97% of people currently eligible to be vaxed, have been.
But the 5 to 11 year olds have not yet been cleared for vaccination, and that’s where the Cooks vulnerability still remains.
In New Zealand 30% of those currently infected and hospitalised are children in that age group.
While travel between the two countries will be QFT, it won’t be without conditions. The Cooks will require all travelers to be fully vaxed with a negative covid test just before departure. That means unvaxed under-12 Kiwi kids can’t come in, although returning Cook Islands kids can.
Like New Zealand, the Cooks is relying on a very high vaccination rate rather than a large and sophisticated health system to protect the country from covid. In both countries – not surpisingly given that both health ministries are pretty much in daily contact – the theory is that with very high, close to 100% vaccination protection, serious sickness requiring hospitalisation and possibly death, is avoided.
We can expect that theory to be seriously tested in the run up to Christmas, especially now that Aucklanders are out of their 100 days of lockdown. It was possible to follow the logic of the theory when the main variant we were dealing with was Delta, but Omicron is still a fairly unknown quantity.
Not everyone in the Cook Islands is looking forward to opening up. The business community is mostly, and the high vaccine rate suggests strong support for vaccination. But there is still a vocal group of people – some anti-vaccination – who believe the time is not yet right.
Before Christmas, adult Cook Islands residents will be offered their third or booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine. But there’s still no word yet on the 5 to 11 year olds.
From January 13 the Cook Islands will become the only quarantine and covid-free country open to New Zealanders; many of whom are very keen on taking a safe tropical holiday. That possibility is also a temptation too difficult for the Cook Islands government to resist.
In theory it’s a perfect win/win situation. But in the words of that very old cliche, only time will tell.