For every 1000 positive cases identified in New Zealand MIQ, 13.2 failures are likely, a new study has found. In Australia, the risk of failure per 1000 is just 4.1.
Speaking to
Stuff before the study was released, Professor Nick Wilson, who co-authored the paper, said Australia’s failure rate, while better than New Zealand’s, is “still unacceptable”. A total of 127,730 people moved through New Zealand’s facilities from June 17, and Australia had managed 255,598 people from April 1. Approximately 55.4 per cent of the system failures analysed could have been prevented if all frontline border workers were vaccinated, researchers found. Vaccination of border workers began in New Zealand in February this year.
Lynn Grieveson/Newsroom
A study of trans-Tasman border failures found New Zealand’s MIQ facilities to be riskier than Australia’s.
Press Release – Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment
From 11.59pm tonight all work in Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) facilities and by Government agencies at the border will be undertaken by vaccinated workers.
The Government has introduced the new requirement under the COVID-19 Public Health Response (Vaccinations) Order 2021.
Joint Head of Managed Isolation and Quarantine, Brigadier Jim Bliss, says this is a big milestone in New Zealand’s vaccination programme.
“This is the largest immunisation programme ever undertaken in this country and MIQ and border workers were first in line. They are among the people most at risk of exposure and I’m really proud so many of them have stepped up and led the way for the country.
All of this pedestrian versus parking talk is predictable but what’s missing from this whole debate is the role of cities as engines of economic growth and the question of why ours aren’t following through on this promise. Infometrics has been collating numbers on productivity in different city regions. Wellington is our most productive, then Auckland. Our second-largest city, Christchurch, is even less productive than New Zealand as a whole. Yet all of these cities are not as productive as their Australasian counterparts or others further afield, according to a report by Koi Tū: the centre for informed futures, released late last year.