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24th November 2021
11:48am GMT

Prior to the arrival of international tourists in April, vaccinated New Zealand residence holders in Australia will be allowed to enter the country from 16 January, while residence holders from other countries will be allowed to enter from 13 February.
At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, New Zealand closed its borders and enforced a strict lockdown. These measures, combined with the country's geographic position, allowed it to keep infection and death rates low, and subsequently reopen sooner than the rest of the world.
Earlier this year, however, the country saw an outbreak of the Delta variant which led to numerous lockdowns in New Zealand's main cities.
Just a few months ago, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that the country would be abandoning its zero Covid policy.
At a press conference she said: "Elimination was important because we didn’t have vaccines. Now we do, so we can begin to change the way we do things. We have more options, and there’s good cause for us to feel optimistic about the future, but we cannot rush.
"That’s why we need to continue to contain and control the virus as much as possible, while we make our transition from a place where we only use heavy restrictions to a place where we use vaccines in everyday public health measures."Explore more on these topics: