The federal government has suspended the travel bubble between Australia and New Zealand for 72 hours over fears of a South African COVID-19 strain.
As reported by ABC News, those coming from New Zealand to Australia in the next 72 hours will be excluded from the travel bubble, meaning they will have to undertake hotel quarantine.
The decision is the result of a New Zealand woman becoming infected with the highly infectious variant of COVID-19 that was first detected in South Africa.
As reported by 7 News, the woman tested positive for the virus after completing 14-days of quarantine in New Zealand.
Reportedly, she returned two negative tests during her hotel stay and was released on Wednesday, January 13th.
According to ABC News, she visited about 30 sites within New Zealand before her case was detected.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said authorities are attempting to work out how many people travelled Australia from New Zealand during that time.
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“This will be done out of an abundance of caution whilst more is learnt about the event and the case,” Hunt said.
Hunt went on to explain that the suspension was due to the case being a new “potentially far more transmissible” strain.
“It was simply because of the length of period between the infection and the confirmation that this was one of the potentially far more transmissible variants — in this case the South African variant — and the number of places which the individual in question is understood to have visited,” he said.
“[It’s] no criticism of the individual. We understand they behaved in a model way.”
Meanwhile, New Zealand Health Minister Chris Hipkins said the woman’s infection was “highly likely” to have been passed on by a fellow returnee at the hotel she was staying at.
“This is good news because it means we know where the source of infection is and we don’t have to divert our scientists and health experts from other COVID-related work,” he said.
Australia is strongly urging all passengers from New Zealand with flights scheduled within the next 72 hours to reconsider coming.
