For reference both Australia and New Zealand each have fewer than 1000 active COVID cases right now, many from a cruise ship, The Diamond Princess that was allowed to dock in Australia. There's very few new cases appearing each day and of those new cases there's no surprises and they are traceable to the source. It makes sense for these two nations to trade and have tourism internally and bilaterally.
A source of current numbers of active/new cases: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ It's quite clear that both nations are close to extinguishing COVID-19 within their own borders.
The reason for this is both nations closed the borders early back in February.
When that happened the fuckwit Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization came on national TV of Australia and said "There's no reason to restrict travel". This was in February.
Listen to the fuckwit say it here: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/is-closing-borders-...
Lawrence Gostin, an official in WHO is also quoted in the above "it is unlawful, unnecessary and in breach of international law".
I normally wouldn't be so harsh on criticism but this was in February. The border closure wasn't some racist Donald Trump style effort. It was two countries doing the right thing but the WHO is so corrupt and fucked up they tried to stop it, even threatening they'd bring the border closures to the international courts.
Entertainingly, the Chinese government also tut-tutted about our border closures as being racist. Since then they have implemented border closings of their own.
Speaking of fuckwittery, the Diamond Princess debacle is really in a class of its own. There's some suspicion that it's also linked to (one of?) our worst fatality cluster in that medical personnel from the Diamond Princess may have gone to a eldercare facility straight after. Nice.
As far as I'm concerned, every cruise ship that docks in Australia can pay $1M for the right to not be greeted with an Exocet missile until that industry has paid back the hideous damage it's done.
The reason for this is both nations closed the borders early back in February. When that happened the fuckwit Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization came on national TV of Australia and said "There's no reason to restrict travel". This was in February. Listen to the fuckwit say it here: https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/is-closing-borders-... Lawrence Gostin, an official in WHO is also quoted in the above "it is unlawful, unnecessary and in breach of international law".
I normally wouldn't be so harsh on criticism but this was in February. The border closure wasn't some racist Donald Trump style effort. It was two countries doing the right thing but the WHO is so corrupt and fucked up they tried to stop it, even threatening they'd bring the border closures to the international courts.